Views on Avalon chips?

[groove_machine]

Hi all

First post here. Been following Bitcoin progress for well over a year now and saw the massive price jumps earlier this year. That obviously encouraged me to set up my own mining rig. TOC was easy as work was going through a hardware refresh, leaving a couple of decent dual Xeon HP desktops going spare.
ATI 6870 purchased for £109 - total cost of first mining rig. ROI already acheived :-)

My question is what are the views on Avalon ASIC's? I'm going to order (or even send to manufacture) a handful of Klondike PCB's. In your opinions are these first truly first generation IC's? Are we expecting there to be a lot of work (not announced on these forums) on second gen IC's? Is it worth waiting or is all the money to be made as an early adopter?

[i3lome]

I think that the Avalon chips are here now, and waiting on speculation coming true. You will make some money if you can get up and running as fast as possible

[cryptopunk]

They are clearly a first generation design, but the real dilemma is if another generation will be produced in the next few years. I think Avalons are your best bet today, but only if you put them online fast and can recoup the sunk cost in less than 6 months. Otherwise it is quite a risky proposition.

You are betting money on all these things happening simultaneously:
1. Bitcoin price does not tank as a result of panic, regulation, FBI raids etc.
2. Massive ASIC power with cheap energy supply does not come online, destroying your margin
3. Better and more effective ASICs are not produced

I think 1 and 3 are mutually contradictory on the long run, if the price holds you will see much better ASIC designs, there is wide margin for improvement in ASICs.

[J35st3r]

Second generation chips are already here.

Avalon are 110nm for 300MH/s each (similar to ASICMiner) - first generation.

BFL 65nm for (approx) 4GH/s - clearly second generation.

Bitfury 55nm currently in alpha testing https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228677.0 - second generation

KNCMiner 28nm 100GHash/sec claimed, in fab, expected to ship first mining rigs in September - third generation

Of course none of these have yet been delivered to board builders (and AsicMiner, Bitfury, KNCMiner have no current plans to do so).

If KNCMiner are able to deliver what they are promising, this is a game changer. And who knows what else is going to come in the next few months/years?


PS There is a useful comparison table here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209750.0 (follow the link in the initial post).

[cryptopunk]

Here where ? I only hear hype and bragging to discourage the competition. A real 2nd generation chip will come from Avalon, but it's likely secret since they don't want to kill their current line prematurely.

A 28nm chip is pure fantasy at this point, the process is too expensive to make it cost effective for bitcoin mining.

[J35st3r]

Here where ? I only hear hype and bragging to discourage the competition. A real 2nd generation chip will come from Avalon, but it's likely secret since they don't want to kill their current line prematurely.

A 28nm chip is pure fantasy at this point, the process is too expensive to make it cost effective for bitcoin mining.

Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on that one (the hype and bragging). Though the BFL chips are real enough (whether they ship any to third parties is another matter), as are Bitfury's.

The are plenty of KNCMiner fanboi's over on the Custom Hardware threads. I've made some attempt to counter their raw enthusiasm, though generally been chewed out as a Cassandra or shill for Avalon/BFL. Time will tell whether they can deliver, but they are going to be expensive chips (400GHash/sec Jupiter model for $6995, which is very competitively priced by current ASIC standards, has just four of their 28nm chips).