HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[DeathAndTaxes]

i dont think its a bad setup...  bringing the cool air in through the rads will be good for the 3 hot chips...   blowing it over the dc/dc converters isnt ideal, but we're not talking about hot air here.. we're talking warm air.

if ambient is say 25, even after the air has been warmed up through the rads, its probably around 40 tops...  i doubt that would do any harm to the other components.   and its being exhausted out the back from the two rear fans...

That is the concept.  crumbs likes to scare people with the hot term hot like the air will be blasting hot.  In reality the air would be nowhere even near 40C.  250W per radiator and 50 CFM means a 3C rise in temp.  So 25C in and 28C out.

even corsair, which incidentally uses the same coolit liquid cooling system as these hashfast boxes...  sometimes recommends to draw cold air into the radiator and exhaust it from the case fans... exactly the same as hashfast is doing, so i really dont see any harm in it.  most liquid cooled pc's operate that way.     in fact i recognise those radiators.. they look remarkably like H60s.   Also, the hot chips run very very hot and need the most cooling, whereas the dc/dc converters arent going to run as hot and wont need so much cooling.

http://www.corsair.com/en/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/h/6/h60_new_viewc.png

It is almost certainly OEM version of H60 or one very similar.  Thanks for the links.  While our resident troll is unlikely to stop trolling they will be useful for those who wish to be informed.

One way to look at it is in purely air-cooled setup the air will be warmed up by exactly the same amount.  So air flows over processor heats up and flows over the downstream components.  If slightly warmed air would be so dangerous then no air cooled system would work.  For example many GPU designs cool the ram after the GPU itself.  The air reaching the ram will already been warmed.

So why didn't hashfast just use air cooling?  Simple it is a matter of surface area.  The amount of airflow needed to transfer a given amount of heat (in this case 250W nominal) is inversely related to the surface area.  So larger surface area, lower airflow needed.  The heatload in the chip is very concentrated.  All 250W are produced in less than 1cm2.  Even with a large copper heatpipe type cooler you are talking about a lot of needed airflow.  Also (like seen in KNC design) you run into potential issues of trying to route airflow evenly across all modules. 

By moving the heat to the radiator you greatly increase the surface area.  Same amount of heat but now it can be cooled easier with lower cfm fans and with less hotspots and air routing issues.

[aerobatic]

First, let's dispose of the obvious stuff -- the only discussion that goes on about passing air through the radiator is weather the fan is pushing or pulling it.  Stuffing hot air inside the case is the solution of the last resort.  It's graceless.  It's an admission that you have not planned your layout, or that you have run into such trouble that you wound up defeating whatever advantage water cooling has offered.  It's a noob mistake, and even noobs don't make it.  It's akin to venting your cAr's radiator through the passenger compartment & out of the back windows -- sure, it works, but Concours d'Elegance is suddenly out of your reach, and your GF is pissed.

its academic whether it would win the d'Airflow prize d'Elegance....   its simple... once the twin psus were chosen - they take up all the rear space -  there just isnt enough radiator room to have the radiators at the rear to cool all three chips, ergo, they go at the front.   Simple.  a no brainer.  there is no other option.. !

[crumbs]

First, let's dispose of the obvious stuff -- the only discussion that goes on about passing air through the radiator is weather the fan is pushing or pulling it.  Stuffing hot air inside the case is the solution of the last resort.  It's graceless.  It's an admission that you have not planned your layout, or that you have run into such trouble that you wound up defeating whatever advantage water cooling has offered.  It's a noob mistake, and even noobs don't make it.  It's akin to venting your cAr's radiator through the passenger compartment & out of the back windows -- sure, it works, but Concours d'Elegance is suddenly out of your reach, and your GF is pissed.

its academic whether it would win the d'Airflow prize d'Elegance....   its simple... once the twin psus were chosen - they take up all the rear space -  there just isnt enough radiator room to have the radiators at the rear to cool all three chips, ergo, they go at the front.   Simple.  a no brainer.  there is no other option.. !

Choosing the twin PS was FU #1.  Absurd.  Eats up space & makes all the rest of the compromises necessary.  Almost.
There's no reason why the twin PS need to live in the back.  They could live in the front, and, if they're already converted with the patented backwards-fan (Cypherdoc, the semi-official ex-paid spokesman, claims that the PSs airflow is reversed, intake where the exhaust usually goes), think the rears of the PS facing the front.  Ugly power cord, but that's kosher.
*But a much saner solution is a single PS, 1600W, and go to town with the free space.  Put the silly thing smack dab in the middle of the case, there's nothing there anyway, and the PS will put out 160W of heat at full tilt.  Easy.

[aerobatic]

It is almost certainly OEM version of H60 or one very similar.  Thanks for the links.  While our resident troll is unlikely to stop trolling they will be useful for those who wish to be informed.

One way to look at it is in purely air-cooled setup the air will be warmed up by exactly the same amount.  So air flows over processor heats up and flows over the downstream components.  If slightly warmed air would be so dangerous then no air cooled system would work.  For example many GPU designs cool the ram after the GPU itself.  The air reaching the ram will already been warmed.

So why didn't hashfast just use air cooling?  Simple it is a matter of surface area.  The amount of airflow needed to transfer a given amount of heat (in this case 250W nominal) is inversely related to the surface area.  So larger surface area, lower airflow needed.  The heatload in the chip is very concentrated.  All 250W are produced in less than 1cm2.  Even with a large copper heatpipe type cooler you are talking about a lot of needed airflow.  Also (like seen in KNC design) you run into potential issues of trying to route airflow evenly across all modules. 

By moving the heat to the radiator you greatly increase the surface area.  Same amount of heat but now it can be cooled easier with lower cfm fans and with less hotspots and air routing issues.

Im a huge fan of liquid cooling... ive been using various corsair models for the last few years on every pc system ive built (20-30)... for my friends & family (purely for fun).

theyre the most efficient way of moving large amounts of heat away from the very hot chips, to the edge of the case where you can deal with it much more effectively, and double the use of your fans since you dont need extra fans... and can use the ones attached to the radiator either as intakes or exhausts for the entire system while also cooling the rads.

by the way, dont forget that the cfm from the fans encounters resistance as it hits the rads, so the cfm on the other side of the rad is quite a bit lower.

i think the warmed up air will certainly be more than a 3 degree delta... but whatever it is (10, 15.. im not sure), i really dont think its too much for the rest of the system to care.

i also dont think that anyone is going to be running these chips at 250 watts!   absolutely everyone will be overclocking & overvolting them as much as they can take... so if they muster it, they will be outputting 350-400 watts !

i dont know how hot hf will allow them to run, but im guessing around 100 degrees is the practical upper limit... heck, if they can quickly modulate the volts/clocks, i suspect they can let them run even hotter.  (115?)

[aerobatic]

Choosing the twin PS was FU #1.  Absurd.  Eats up space & makes all the rest of the compromises necessary.  Almost.
There's no reason why the twin PS need to live in the back.  They could live in the front, and, if they're already converted with the patented backwards-fan (Cypherdoc, the semi-official ex-paid spokesman, claims that the PSs airflow is reversed, intake where the exhaust usually goes), think the rears of the PS facing the front.  Ugly power cord, but that's kosher.
*But a much saner solution is a single PS, 1600W, and go to town with the free space.  Put the silly thing smack dab in the middle of the case, there's nothing there anyway, and the PS will put out 160W of heat at full tilt.  Easy.

are you sure you can get a single 1600 watt psu?  if you can, thatd certainly be an option.

i think there are a couple of limitations for a 1600 watt psu.

1.  often the high wattage psus are designed to run fully at 240 volts and not as well at 120 volts (at full capacity, ie, they deliver less wattage when run at the lower input voltage)

2.  household circuits in the us and asia max out at less than 1600 watts... thus splitting the input power into two supplies gives more flexibility for people to run it off two independent supplies if they need to.  (us europeans wont have that problem as we have the superior 240v ;-)

-- Jez

[edit]... i found one.. a nice 1600 watt psu (that can even do 1700 watts peak).   http://www.lepatek.com/eng/product_content/1/1/20/

[crumbs]

Choosing the twin PS was FU #1.  Absurd.  Eats up space & makes all the rest of the compromises necessary.  Almost.
There's no reason why the twin PS need to live in the back.  They could live in the front, and, if they're already converted with the patented backwards-fan (Cypherdoc, the semi-official ex-paid spokesman, claims that the PSs airflow is reversed, intake where the exhaust usually goes), think the rears of the PS facing the front.  Ugly power cord, but that's kosher.
*But a much saner solution is a single PS, 1600W, and go to town with the free space.  Put the silly thing smack dab in the middle of the case, there's nothing there anyway, and the PS will put out 160W of heat at full tilt.  Easy.

are you sure you can get a single 1600 watt psu?  if you can, thatd certainly be an option.

i think there are a couple of limitations for a 1600 watt psu.

1.  often the high wattage psus are designed to run fully at 240 volts and not as well at 120 volts (at full capacity, ie, they deliver less wattage when run at the lower input voltage)

2.  household circuits in the us and asia max out at less than 1600 watts... thus splitting the input power into two supplies gives more flexibility for people to run it off two independent supplies if they need to.  (us europeans wont have that problem as we have the superior 240v ;-)

-- Jez

Very sure.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=powersupply%20ATX%201600w&Submit=ENE

1600W PS work just fine on 120V, there are plenty of us USAyers.

Typical US household circuit is 15A * 120V = 1800W.  In reality, a trip to the HW store will up that to 20A.

[DeathAndTaxes]

i dont know how hot hf will allow them to run, but im guessing around 100 degrees is the practical upper limit... heck, if they can quickly modulate the volts/clocks, i suspect they can let them run even hotter.

Unless the silicon was designed for high temp I don't expect the system allowing a junction temp of higher than 85C maybe 90C max.  Hashfast has indicated that the chips adjust clock based on internal temp but hasn't indicated the operating temp.   Of course the advantage of those radiators is if you want to handle higher thermal output with lower delta over ambient swap the fans for more powerful ones.  If you don't mind the noise upgrade em all the way to Delta high rpm fans.

[MrTeal]

Choosing the twin PS was FU #1.  Absurd.  Eats up space & makes all the rest of the compromises necessary.  Almost.
There's no reason why the twin PS need to live in the back.  They could live in the front, and, if they're already converted with the patented backwards-fan (Cypherdoc, the semi-official ex-paid spokesman, claims that the PSs airflow is reversed, intake where the exhaust usually goes), think the rears of the PS facing the front.  Ugly power cord, but that's kosher.
*But a much saner solution is a single PS, 1600W, and go to town with the free space.  Put the silly thing smack dab in the middle of the case, there's nothing there anyway, and the PS will put out 160W of heat at full tilt.  Easy.

are you sure you can get a single 1600 watt psu?  if you can, thatd certainly be an option.

i think there are a couple of limitations for a 1600 watt psu.

1.  often the high wattage psus are designed to run fully at 240 volts and not as well at 120 volts (at full capacity, ie, they deliver less wattage when run at the lower input voltage)

2.  household circuits in the us and asia max out at less than 1600 watts... thus splitting the input power into two supplies gives more flexibility for people to run it off two independent supplies if they need to.  (us europeans wont have that problem as we have the superior 240v ;-)

-- Jez

Very sure.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=powersupply%20ATX%201600w&Submit=ENE

1600W PS work just fine on 120V, there are plenty of us USAyers.

Typical US household circuit is 15A * 120V = 1800W.  In reality, a trip to the HW store will up that to 20A.

Actually, a 1600W power supply running at full load will not run fine on a 120V 15A circuit. Even a very nice one like the Lepa G1600 will pull over 1800W from the wall, and no circuit should be run at 100% load 24/7.
A 20A circuit would probably be fine, though you can't just swap breakers as you'll almost certainly need to pull a new cable. If you're going to go that far, you might as well just run a 240V line.
Either way, HashFast never said the Sierra even under full overclock that the Sierra would use 1600W. I highly doubt they would be able to anyway, those modules are almost certainly not designed to supply or cool ~500W each.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The NEC requires a 20% derate for continual loads so 15A 120V circuit is good for 1440W continual.  

[perezoso]

I don't think pulling wire is that likely, at least probably not with recent construction in a place with code enforcement. Standard here would be a 120v 20 amp circuit on 12 gauge romex... I'm not an electrical engineer, but shouldn't that be sufficient for nearly 2000 watts constant load?  I've done a little bit of homeowner construction to code, and they make you run a separate circuit for just about damn near everything these days, except lights...  I guess the concern would be if you've got an old 15 amp circuit on skinny little wire or hooked up to your air conditioner....

[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't think pulling wire is that likely, at least probably not with recent construction in a place with code enforcement. Standard here would be a 120v 20 amp circuit on 12 gauge romex... I'm not an electrical engineer, but shouldn't that be sufficient for nearly 2000 watts constant load?  I've done a little bit of homeowner construction to code, and they make you run a separate circuit for just about damn near everything these days, except lights...  I guess the concern would be if you've got an old 15 amp circuit on skinny little wire or hooked up to your air conditioner....

120V, 20A circuit is solid for 1920W continual, 2400W peak.  Most household outlets, branches, and breakers are 15A though and that means 14 AWG.  Might be better in newer construction but wire is expensive and builders are usually cheap.

If someone is looking to do an upgrade just do it right with 240V, 30A branch.   An outlet like this is good for 5.76KW continual and ebay has tons of cheap used PDUs which have a NEMA L6-30 plug.


Probably good for at least 3 Sierras maybe 4 depending on what final wattage ends up being.  My guess is HF puts some overhead in the PSU so 1700W of PSU doesn't mean they intend for it to draw 1700W.  Drawing say 1300W would keep the PSU at 80% load.

[MrTeal]

I don't think pulling wire is that likely, at least probably not with recent construction in a place with code enforcement. Standard here would be a 120v 20 amp circuit on 12 gauge romex... I'm not an electrical engineer, but shouldn't that be sufficient for nearly 2000 watts constant load?  I've done a little bit of homeowner construction to code, and they make you run a separate circuit for just about damn near everything these days, except lights...  I guess the concern would be if you've got an old 15 amp circuit on skinny little wire or hooked up to your air conditioner....

Depends where you are and how old your house is. Kitchen ones are often 20A, though in my house (early 70s vintage) they're all 15A.

Regardless, you likely will be pulling wire no matter what kind of branch wiring you have, since even if you have 20A branches drawing 1600W/1800W on it would basically make it useless for every other outlet on it. There probably won't be many Sierras on residential branch circuits, but having your miner down for a weekend because you're out of town and your wife turned on the TV seems like a recipe for marital strife.

BTW-There's almost no difference in this mostly pointless discussion between the two 850Ws or the one 1600W supply, since anyone plugging these into residential circuits would almost certainly try a few times to plug both supplies into the same branch circuit.

[pmorici]

There are some pictures: https://hashfast.com/pictures-of-the-sierra-in-production/

Pictures of one unit. Sierra case, cooling and PSUs. No PCB shown.
Description says "of actual Sierra units in Production" but the file name is "prototype-for-john2.jpg".

So where are the Baby Jets in the queue compared to the Sierras that HF sold to IceDrill?  Seems like this is just a mockup the manufacturer did for the HF marketing department to appease the call for photos.  It doesn't look like those radiators are even screwed in yet and why would they be when the most important component, the mini-boards with chip haven't arrived yet.

[ralree]

If someone is looking to do an upgrade just do it right with 240V, 30A branch.   An outlet like this is good for 5.76KW continual and ebay has tons of cheap used PDUs which have a NEMA L6-30 plug.

This is extremely good advice.  I did this, and I now run all 9 of my BFL singles on the PDU (only 9A at 220V).  It only cost about $300 for electricians to do the run.

[Inaba]

@cedivad

As a hero member, you should know what the risks are in bitcoin land.  I didn't get KNC because I was uncomfortable with ordering  from another country.  I weighed the pros cons of HF and purchased a few BJ.   I am still hoping to get my bitcoins back.

I am more interested in getting these miniboards....  who cares about cases and power supplies.... I just want the miniboards. I will treat them like  the new GPU.


It is a too early to be talking law suits... jeeezz....  take a chil pill... smoke a joint.. have a drink... go get laid... something other then what you've been doing

cedivad is refusing to listen to reason these days.

He's in a dissociative fugue state, unable to think rationally, so great is his pique and so massive his sense of entitlement.

Let cedivad bawl like a spoiled little girl told she's not getting a pony for Christmas.

Let him waste money on lawyers and time on premature FTC complaints.

Have a laugh at his expense as the brat sets his hair on fire and runs around screaming bloody murder.

When cedivad sobers up, he'll be embarrassed by his pathetic behavior. 

As he should be.  Mature adults don't melt down and go postal at the first hint of bad news or slight disappointment.

At least he didn't pull a major melt down like Xian... gotta give him props for that at the very least.

As far as exhausting the heat in the case, probably not the best idea, but not a fatal flaw if you have enough air flow in the case itself.  Sometimes you're constrained by the form factor on what you can do.  The best cooling solutions are often the most unwieldy and/or ugly.  Some people don't care about that, but a lot of people do... in fact, there's far more people that care about aesthetics than function, and if you don't believe me, take a look at Apple.  One of the richest companies out there (or the richest?), and it's all built on aesthetics as the primary motivator for their designs.

[Gyrsur]

At least he didn't pull a major melt down like Xian... gotta give him props for that at the very least.

As far as exhausting the heat in the case, probably not the best idea, but not a fatal flaw if you have enough air flow in the case itself.  Sometimes you're constrained by the form factor on what you can do.  The best cooling solutions are often the most unwieldy and/or ugly.  Some people don't care about that, but a lot of people do... in fact, there's far more people that care about aesthetics than function, and if you don't believe me, take a look at Apple.  One of the richest companies out there (or the richest?), and it's all built on aesthetics as the primary motivator for their designs.

^^outlawed or ignored??  

[Puppet]

As far as exhausting the heat in the case, probably not the best idea, but not a fatal flaw if you have enough air flow in the case itself. 

Hey Josh, besides sharing your expertise on redesigning cooling solutions,  maybe you can give HF some golden tips on how to improve their asic's power draw simulations and how to optimize their supply chain and assembly line to achieve <12 months delivery times? You're the expert after all.

[Unacceptable]

As far as exhausting the heat in the case, probably not the best idea, but not a fatal flaw if you have enough air flow in the case itself. 

Hey Josh, besides sharing your expertise on redesigning cooling solutions,  maybe you can give HF some golden tips on how to improve their asic's power draw simulations and how to optimize their supply chain and assembly line to achieve <12 months delivery times? You're the expert after all.

Josh,just tell em,"You guys just don't know how Bitcoin works" 

[Puppet]

Oh, and lets not forget: how to deny customers refunds for unshipped goods. Your expertise there is world class and Im sure would benefit HF.

[cedivad]

I saw the pictures of the case yesterday night just before going to bed and while i think i can say that i slept better tonight (but maybe it was simply due to how much i didn't slept during the last day), i'm having some hard problems to think that those pics should prove anything.

Pro:
They have proved that they can design a case with a not that dumb airflow and produce it. We will just have to flip the PSUs 180° if we need that in a rack, but it's ok.
The BJ chassis doesn't really need any kind of proof of its existence, as long as they can ship a standard PC case with cooling and PSU, BJ customers should be fine. There is nothing fancy needed. A datacenter case requires a little bit of engineering, and they proved that they can't do that. That's fine for me, as long as...

Cons:
As long as they show us some pics of the boards. The boards are the only important thing here (since that they can't/wont show us updates from TMSC portal for the chips).
If they can show us pics of the boards (a knc/cointerra-style fpga video simulation would be the best since that their competitors can do it), AND a REAL delivery date for the chips, i will immediately stop complaining. You have my word. (i will then just decide what to do bases on this real data).

Btw d&t, your posts are always a pleasure to read. I love people bringing numbers and facts to a discussion.