There is a market for PCI/PCIe-based ASIC boards

[Nemo1024]

Given the number of existing GPU miners, who are on the verge of turning off their rigs or have turned them off or temporarily switched to LTC, would not it be nice if some reputable ASIC board designer created 64-chip PCIe x1 single-slot boards, which could replace GPUs and even fit into those surplus x1 slots without raisers? These boards would need to draw power externally (Molex/PCIe) and not through the motherboard. There could even be a version for PCI interface, thus making it possible to utilise all those motherboards, which are starting to become obsolete.

GPU miners already have rigs to put such ASICs into, with adequate power and cooling already in place (if it could handle GPU, it could handle less power-hungry ASIC), unlike those overpriced USB ASICs, which still need a hefty additional investment in the form of multiple powered USB hubs.

[andrewsg]

You are of course right, I mean, there is a market for anything that can offer a good cost per hash, but I also really like the idea of a PCIe board.

[ultrix]

Given the number of existing GPU miners, who are on the verge of turning off there rigs or have turned them off or temporarily switched to LTC, would not it be nice if some reputable ASIC board designer created 64-chip PCIe x1 single-slot boards, which could replace GPUs and even fit into those surplus x1 slots without raisers? These boards would need to draw power externally (Molex/PCIe) and not through the motherboard. There could even be a version for PCI interface, thus making it possible to utilise all those motherboards, which are starting to become obsolete.

GPU miners already have rigs to put such ASICs into, with adequate power and cooling already in place (if it could handle GPU, it could handle less power-hungry ASIC), unlike those overpriced USB ASICs, which still need a hefty additional investment in the form of multiple powered USB hubs.

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips.  This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

[Nemo1024]

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips.  This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

Do you mean expensive as in requiring licensing? I thought PCB and controller cost would not be largely different be it USB or PCIe. Then again, I am a software guy, so I don't know what I am talking about.

We'll see how the ASIC market pans out in the future. Many PCIe expansion cards for say audio or ethernet are not that expensive. Maybe some larger company will start producing ASICs at a more reasonable pricing level, spreading the cost over many units, once the dust around this initial ASIC craziness settles down.

[tom_o]

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips.  This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

Do you mean expensive as in requiring licensing? I thought PCB and controller cost would not be largely different be it USB or PCIe. Then again, I am a software guy, so I don't know what I am talking about.

We'll see how the ASIC market pans out in the future. Many PCIe expansion cards for say audio or ethernet are not that expensive. Maybe some larger company will start producing ASICs at a more reasonable pricing level, spreading the cost over many units, once the dust around this initial ASIC craziness settles down.

Yeah but consider the differences in speed; PCI-E 1x can transfer at 250MB/s whereas USB2 is 48MB/s, also I'd expect the latency/timing margins are much larger for USB caused by the differences between running an interconnect and an external bus.

[Nemo1024]

As fas as I can gather, transfer speed is largely irrelevant for Bitcoin mining. So synchronisation could probably span several flanks, thus lowering the clock internally on the board?

[cp1]

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

[tom_o]

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Doesn't even need to be a pi, there are plenty of ARM devboards with multiple USB controllers and far more powerful CPUs!

[ultrix]

USB is the way to go (for now) if you want to attach a larger number of boards to a host PC.

With PCIe you'll be limited to 8 or so.  With USB you can chain the hubs etc.

What is the limit for USB, like 127 per controller?

No PCIe is not limited to 8.  In fact you can connect thousands of devices in a tree hierarchy.  I personally don't understand why the BTC mining community prefers USB connected devices.   For the same cost one can make a device that communicates autonomously via ethernet, in the spirit of avalon, but without the need for linux/cgminer/etc.

LPC1768 + uIP + stratum + configure via telnet + control for attached devices = everything you get out of a PC at 1.5W and $3-4USD unit cost vs $10-15USD for the cheapest PCIe IC you can bitbang on (still controlled via x86 cpu).  I've been considering constructing such a board (and reusable schematics to drop on other boards) with a firmware that basically developers just have to implement the chip specific control code, but don't really have the time as of late.

[ultrix]

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Doesn't even need to be a pi, there are plenty of ARM devboards with multiple USB controllers and far more powerful CPUs!

Doesn't have to be a powerful CPU.  The only reason USB requires higher CPU than the scenerio in my previous post is that the host has to constantly request data, the endpoint device cannot initiate transfers on its own.  Further cgminer and bfgminer poll fairly agressively.

[DPoS]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

[Nemo1024]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

[ultrix]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Again, why do you want a computer to be required to mine? (read my posts)

[Trongersoll]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

PCI USB cards could nicely connect to Powered USB Hubs without daisy chaining. That is my current plan when i run out of ports. I don't like the idea of plugging Hubs into Hubs, it just doesn't feel right.

[Trongersoll]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Again, why do you want a computer to be required to mine? (read my posts)

Because most of us have a PC in hand? Most people are comfortable with PCs? Yes, if your are buying or setting up a new device i can see using a Pi or similar ARM device, but if you already have the PC you have to figure out how long it would take the Pi's power savings to justify the cost. and, Pi limits your Hub choices.

[ultrix]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Again, why do you want a computer to be required to mine? (read my posts)

Because most of us have a PC in hand? Most people are comfortable with PCs? Yes, if your are buying or setting up a new device i can see using a Pi or similar ARM device, but if you already have the PC you have to figure out how long it would take the Pi's power savings to justify the cost. and, Pi limits your Hub choices.

So because I have a coffee pot I should make soup in it?   I am suggesting an extremely low power ARM cpu that has more hard block peripheral features than a raspberry pi at 1/10th the cost and far less power consumption.   Something you could put on the miner itself, simply plug it into an ethernet switch, telnet into it once and configure it, then it mines on its own provided the network stays up (requirement exists for all systems).

[Trongersoll]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Again, why do you want a computer to be required to mine? (read my posts)

Because most of us have a PC in hand? Most people are comfortable with PCs? Yes, if your are buying or setting up a new device i can see using a Pi or similar ARM device, but if you already have the PC you have to figure out how long it would take the Pi's power savings to justify the cost. and, Pi limits your Hub choices.

So because I have a coffee pot I should make soup in it?   I am suggesting an extremely low power ARM cpu that has more hard block peripheral features than a raspberry pi at 1/10th the cost and far less power consumption.   Something you could put on the miner itself, simply plug it into an ethernet switch, telnet into it once and configure it, then it mines on its own provided the network stays up (requirement exists for all systems).

Yes you are and I am not arguing the issue. You are just way off topic on this thread. The topic is PCI / PCIe cards, not are there better alternatives to them or if you think the topic is a waste. Personally, for the right price I'd consider PCI Hashers since i have lots of empty PCI slots in computers that are being run constantly for other reasons.

[crazyates]

Ya, I was asking for a PCIe based miner a week ago.

[firefop]

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it  

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

Well since we're talking about building a device - it shouldn't be a big deal to add whatever power plugs we'd need into the board. (I'd honestly prefer external plugs on a backplate but whatever.

Also one of the reasons we prefer usb connected devices is we like to know what our device is doing. with a stand alone ethernet connected device we have no idea what it's doing.

[Nemo1024]

The same goes for a PCIe/PCI based device - you'll have a complete overview of what's it doing, just like GPUs now.
I have nothing against dedicated external miners, but I'd love to utilise the existing rig hardware as well.