[BFL 4GHs chips Group buy] Interest check @ 100 chips x $75, 5 chip min US ONLY!

[TheSwede75]

I have previously hosted 2 separate group buys for KNC and Bitfury miners that both closed successfully (fully subscribed) within 24 hours of opening. I am considering a new group buy of the just announced BFL 65 NM, 4 GH chips. They sell in minimum quantities of 100 chips @ $75 per chip (See. info: https://products.butterflylabs.com/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html )

The group buy would likely be set up as a 5 chip minimum @ around 0.8-0.9 BTC per chip. I would 'charge' around 10% for administration of the buy (In BTC or Chips), and shipping/handling of chips and most likely the management of turning purchased chips into functional miners once PCB designs/specs are available and DYI projects or build services are available. I would also update the group buy with possible DYI or professional building of miners when available. Chip delivery is in 100 days according to website (Delivery directly from Foundry, which makes delays less likely. After all we are dealing with Butterfly labs here and anything that removes delay factors is a positive).

If you are interested, post here and I will likely launch the group buy within the hour so we can be the absolute first to receive chips.

NOTE: THIS IS BRAND NEW PRICING and the first group buy at this price (25% lower then initial pricing). There is no 'pre order' process. 50% of purchase price is down-payment and 50% is paid on delivery. The group buy DOES require 100% payment up-front though as I will need to secure BTC/$USD price and the fact that non-payment on delivery date would cause the entire order to fail and we can't take that risk.

US Shipment ONLY!

Edit: According to available forum information "burnin and Chris (Klondike) - considering BFL chip board" so it seems building miners will likely not be a problem once chips are delivery ready or before.

[atcsecure]

I would be interested in 5 chips possibly, we need to see the PCB details :-)

[TheSwede75]

I would be interested in 5 chips possibly, we need to see the PCB details :-)

As of now there are no PCB details available. Though with delivery in 100-days there is no doubt that DYI projects etc. will be available well before chip delivery. I will also work on securing building service so that chips can be seamlessly turned into miners upon delivery.

[PuertoLibre]

They also [apparently] expect the board makers to create their own firmware to run the chips.

Kinda crazy!

[TheSwede75]

They also [apparently] expect the board makers to create their own firmware to run the chips.

Kinda crazy!

With the drop in price (from $90+ to $75) per chip and the fact that they DO have functioning miners running the chips. I expect there to be a wide array of DYI projects and miner manufacturing offers well in time for chip shipment though. It took avalon DIY projects just a few weeks from chip announcements to release spec for Klondyke and k64, I would be very surprised if the same is not true for the BFL chips especially since there are sample chips floating around and it is very much in the best interest of BFL to release specs to boost chip sales.

[PuertoLibre]

How much is it now for the Grade B through D chips? (Any specs released by BFL on those grades?)

[TheSwede75]

How much is it now for the Grade B through D chips? (Any specs released by BFL on those grades?)

They lowered the price across the board and are now only guaranteeing 4 GH/s instead of using the 'hand picked/per chip' approach.

[PuertoLibre]

How much is it now for the Grade B through D chips? (Any specs released by BFL on those grades?)

They lowered the price across the board and are now only guaranteeing 4 GH/s instead of using the 'hand picked/per chip' approach.

I don't understand what that means.

4Gh/s guarantee even for Grade D chips?

You have to explain it to me or get Josh to clear this up.

[TheSwede75]

How much is it now for the Grade B through D chips? (Any specs released by BFL on those grades?)

They lowered the price across the board and are now only guaranteeing 4 GH/s instead of using the 'hand picked/per chip' approach.

I don't understand what that means.

4Gh/s guarantee even for Grade D chips?

You have to explain it to me or get Josh to clear this up.

From what I can tell ALL chips are guaranteed to run at 3 GH/s+ according to:

"Chip grades:  Chips come in four grades of performance.  Chips are sold in mixed grade lots.  A grade has 16 engines, B grade has 15 engines, C grade has 14 engines and D grade has no less than 12 engines.  All chips run at a minimum of 250 mhz.  Higher grade chips will run up to 294mhz.  The percentage distribution in each lot is 60% Grade A, 20% Grade B, 15% Grade C and 5% Grade D." from link @ https://products.butterflylabs.com/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

Since each chip has a minimum of 12 cores, IF a chip happens to be of lowest quality  (12 cores) and also of the lowest clock speed @ 250 mhz it would run @ 3GHs. Though I find it unlikely, since my guess is that less cores, would allow a chip to dissipate more heat and likely run at close to or at the highest clock speed of 290 mh/s+ giving even class-D chips around 3.4 gh/s.

Best case scenario would be a chip of class A with 16 cores @ 294 mh/s running at 4.7 GH/s.

Since chip distribution is 60% Grade-A and only 5% grade D it seems exceptionally unlikely even with a 5 chip order that the average hash rate would come out to less than 4 GH/s. It seems statistically even a random selection would produce OVER 4 GH/s.

[PuertoLibre]

How much is it now for the Grade B through D chips? (Any specs released by BFL on those grades?)

They lowered the price across the board and are now only guaranteeing 4 GH/s instead of using the 'hand picked/per chip' approach.

I don't understand what that means.

4Gh/s guarantee even for Grade D chips?

You have to explain it to me or get Josh to clear this up.

From what I can tell ALL chips are guaranteed to run at 3 GH/s+ according to:

"Chip grades:  Chips come in four grades of performance.  Chips are sold in mixed grade lots.  A grade has 16 engines, B grade has 15 engines, C grade has 14 engines and D grade has no less than 12 engines.  All chips run at a minimum of 250 mhz.  Higher grade chips will run up to 294mhz.  The percentage distribution in each lot is 60% Grade A, 20% Grade B, 15% Grade C and 5% Grade D." from link @ https://products.butterflylabs.com/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

Since each chip has a minimum of 12 cores, IF a chip happens to be of lowest quality  (12 cores) and also of the lowest clock speed @ 250 mhz it would run @ 3GHs. Though I find it unlikely, since my guess is that less cores, would allow a chip to dissipate more heat and likely run at close to or at the highest clock speed of 290 mh/s+ giving even class-D chips around 3.4 gh/s.

Best case scenario would be a chip of class A with 16 cores @ 294 mh/s running at 4.7 GH/s.

Since chip distribution is 60% Grade-A and only 5% grade D it seems exceptionally unlikely even with a 5 chip order that the average hash rate would come out to less than 4 GH/s. It seems statistically even a random selection would produce OVER 4 GH/s.

A couple of questions:

How can they give us info on what the spreads are of Grade A through D if they haven't yet fabbed the new chips? (Isn't it 100 days away?)

Or are they giving us the old lots they already "have" fabbed that are meant for pre-orders? (The ones with power problems)

[PuertoLibre]

Are the chip lots marked clearly as Grade A, B, C, D or are they selling them blindly and we get what we get?

How do you guarantee we will get Grade A if we pay 75$ per chip for Grade A? (Instead of Grade D's mixed in)

[dwdoc]

I would probably purchase 25 chips.
Would you consider accepting escrow for the 50% not due until delivery?

[dwdoc]

Are the chip lots marked clearly as Grade A, B, C, D or are they selling them blindly and we get what we get?

How do you guarantee we will get Grade A if we pay 75$ per chip for Grade A? (Instead of Grade D's mixed in)

BFL is not charging $99 for Grade A chips (their original proposal). They are charging a discounted $75 per chip for a mixed batch so they don't have to sort them. They are not labelled.

[PuertoLibre]

Are the chip lots marked clearly as Grade A, B, C, D or are they selling them blindly and we get what we get?

How do you guarantee we will get Grade A if we pay 75$ per chip for Grade A? (Instead of Grade D's mixed in)

BFL is not charging $99 for Grade A chips (their original proposal). They are charging a discounted $75 per chip for a mixed batch so they don't have to sort them. They are not labelled.

Are the ratio's of Grade A's to D's at least guaranteed?

It would kinda suck to end up with a ton of Duds.

[TheSwede75]

Are the chip lots marked clearly as Grade A, B, C, D or are they selling them blindly and we get what we get?

How do you guarantee we will get Grade A if we pay 75$ per chip for Grade A? (Instead of Grade D's mixed in)

I guarantee nothing reg. Chip quality that BFL has not stated. The process I would use would be blind where I ship a random amount of each grade (based off BFL % for Grade A-D) by simply packaging and sending chips without myself knowing the grade (I assume that BFL will send them un-marked). If chips ARE indeed marked I would select chips for each purchaser as well as possibly to ensure fairness and that each chip batch of 5 or more contains chips of grades that reflect the statement on the Butterfly Labs order page (60% Grade A etc).

[PuertoLibre]

Can you find out if this is a possibility?

Edit: Any power specs guarantees? (Don't want the bad lot that consumes 6 watt per Gh/s.)

[TheSwede75]

Are the chip lots marked clearly as Grade A, B, C, D or are they selling them blindly and we get what we get?

How do you guarantee we will get Grade A if we pay 75$ per chip for Grade A? (Instead of Grade D's mixed in)

BFL is not charging $99 for Grade A chips (their original proposal). They are charging a discounted $75 per chip for a mixed batch so they don't have to sort them. They are not labelled.

Are the ratio's of Grade A's to D's at least guaranteed?

It would kinda suck to end up with a ton of Duds.

I would strive to (if marked on arrival) ship users chips according to the percentage distribution BFL ships guaranteeing at least 4 GH/s per chip, per 5-chip order unit. Aka. I would strive for fair distribution of hash rate across all group order members.

[FuzzyThunder]

I might be interested depending on how much it would cost to get them assembled into a working PCB.

[TheSwede75]

I would probably purchase 25 chips.
Would you consider accepting escrow for the 50% not due until delivery?

I considered that but I think that considering my record, feedback and previous group-purchases AND the fact that I would have to turn BTC-into USD to aleviate the risk of a fall in BTC price (that I would have to cover personally if I did not) I think Escrow may just add to the complexity of the buy.

Of course I will post all possible proof of the order, first 50% down etc. I just can't take the risk of a BTC crash happening while over 30 BTC are in escrow. This would possibly jeopardize the entire group buy as it would be possible I would not have funds to cover the remaining 50% should this happen.

I hope this makes sense.

[TheSwede75]

Can you find out if this is a possibility?

Edit: Any power specs guarantees? (Don't want the bad lot that consumes 6 watt per Gh/s.)

According to order page:

Power consumption: 3.2 Watt per GH/s