>Even if it means higher power and equipment costs as well as limited cooling and case options?
Equipment is paid for already (existing GPU rig). Power consumption would not differ by much. Multiple power supplies to powered USB hubs might actually loose more power than an efficient 80+/90+ PSU.
>You can still use it to login to the web interface of a dedicated miner if you're that set on re-using your PC. Alternately just get a tablet + keyboard.
And buying a tablet for that is not expensive?
All you'd really be reusing is your motherboard/cpu, which you could do anyway with PCI-E USB cards.
As for powered USB hubs - not an issue if you're serious about making back your money - BEusb's are highly unlikely to make ROI, anything else that runs over USB (other than the K1s) are externally powered so you can use your PC PSU for that. Basically the bus powered miners are pointless anyway at the prices they're going for! If it has ethernet you don't even need to worry about the PC.
Also did you not notice that ATX PSU's also have 5v rails? Just make up a few molex to barrel jack adapters and you're sorted, could be as simple as running an electricians terminal block as an interconnect if you don't trust your soldering.
Until one of the USB-hub power supplies higher up in your USD daisy chain fails. A lot of unearthed power supplies = higher risk of fire.
>unless PCIE can provide higher efficiency if the mobo/cpu can assist/boost the performance vs running off USB. i dont think its worth it. remember we are dealing with cost vs profit, not buying designer bags just for looks and "cool" design.
It's not about design, but about reducing cost: it's about reusing existing equipment.
Design increases cost. Also for USB daisychains the 'hub' hubs not running miners don't need to be powered. USB also connects all of the grounds together anyway so this isn't too much of an issue - the previous hub just won't supply a hub attempting to draw several amp, even the most basic hub IC's have overcurrent cutoffs.
The point about the tablet is that <£100 for a tablet which can be used to monitor thousands of standalone devices which have their own ethernet, and then you can sell your PC and monitor if it isn't being used for anything else. Also you no longer have the risk of a PC driver issue/virus/crash making all your mining cards fail.
The cooling issue is more that the manufacturers would have to work out something for the single/dual slot in order for you to still get decent density. Also drivers would have to be written for the card itself - with USB its simple, not nearly so much for PCI-E.
Ethernet is a much easier/cheaper standard and with the next gen of miners you might even be able to telnet/SSH to them!
>no slot limit (virtually)
For a small miner 4-8 devices is anyway a reasonable financial limit.
They don't care for small miners' financial limits, the more scalable their product, the larger the quantities people will buy!
