BFL announces 28nm 600GH/S blade for $4680

[millsdmb]

Perhaps he was watching this while posting his responses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYNMKdv36w

I would like to formally apologize to Friedcat for the typo I made in that video

[1715014912]

1715014912

[1715014912]

1715014912

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I think around 1W/Gh is a more reasonable estimate, that would be the number I will be running with for making future energy consumption estimates.  0.58 (BFL site) or 0.77 (Nasser) just seems too optimistic given history of both BFL and other companies.

Will

Every opinion is respectful. I'm happy we were able to resolve even the most challenging issues we encountered in the past. We will always look forward into making better products for our customers.


Regards,
Nasser

Well-written for a Persian-Franco, given it's how late in France according to the time stamp? My guess is that Jeff Ownby wrote the above, BFL's marketing guru.

[YipYip]

Perhaps he was watching this while posting his responses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYNMKdv36w

I would like to formally apologize to Friedcat for the typo I made in that video

AWESOME Video

[YipYip]

How to kill a thread ....1 word HITLER

[jedimstr]

Perhaps he was watching this while posting his responses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYNMKdv36w

I would like to formally apologize to Friedcat for the typo I made in that video

. Best reuse of that meme I've seen yet.

[millsdmb]

How to kill a thread ....1 word HITLER

I find the ending quite dramatic. gives me chills every time I watch it

[DeathAndTaxes]

But, fans in that configuration definitely cannot remove 350W of heat. GPUs over a certain threshold need 3-slot widths and giant triple fans in order to stay cool.

Well in theory it certainly can.  It is important to not make that claim because it is just easy for BFL to refute.  Case in point, the 7990 is 375W TDP and it is a "reference" dual slot design using a similar "squirell cage" blower as their photoshop card.  So it is "possible" to have a SHA-2 ASIC which dissipates 350W within the dimensions of a high end 2 slot GPU form factor.  


As a practical matter I doubt BFL will be able to deliver on time, on spec, and on wattage.  Everything would need to be perfect from the logistics, to the claimed performance per watt gains to the thermal specs to the fabrication.  It is running so close to the limit of what is possible that any failure would almost certainly result in costly delays.  Lets put this into perspective, AMD pushed back the launch date of the HD 7990 twice for over six months because they (with decades of GPU design and cooling experience) were running into power/thermal issues.

Simple version: 350W in that form factor is possible but it is close the redline.  Worse the specs are based on simulated chips (which for BFL have been horribly wrong in the past).  If it uses more power you can't simply go bigger because they decided to use a specific form factor.

A smaller issue is that lets say for the sake of argument they can delivery on time, on spec, and on wattage.  Despite the compact dimensions of the card there are going to be real limits on what one system can do. As an experiment if someone wants to plan their future 4U BFL hashing rig

Thermal Testing Load
1x BFL card (350W) ~= 2x7870 (350W)
2x BFL cards (700W) ~= 3x7970s (750W)
3x BFL cards (1050W) ~= 4x7970s (1000W)
4x BFL cards (1500W) ~=6x7970s (1500W)

Take a 4U case (or full tower and seal any top/side/bottom vents.  Drop the cards in and try to cool the rig inside a sealed case only using the cards fans plus front intake fans.  It isn't going to happen.  There is a reason that people starting using extenders and open frame rigs ("ghetto miners").  Trying to remove 1KW or more heat from a closed case is a challenge.  The high energy density of GPU cards (x watts isn't evenly distributed across the case area but is instead concentrated in the GPUs) make it very difficult even with high output fans. So you get all the cost/complexity of the GPU form factor while not really gaining higher GH/u (thats GH per rack unit) density.

Still I am sure BFL will lock down $1M in orders or upgrades within a day and that was the point.  That will improve their cashflow situation and is enough people upgrade (and delay their delivery till "December") they may even make their backorder promise.

[mrb]

Due to double node jump, the max power should be 0.77W/GH (3.1W/GH divided by 4). Based on everything we know from any chip industry (FPGA, CPU, GPU, etc), that should be the ceiling in power-consumption.

Hi Nasser,

Brave of you to dive into the BCT feeding frenzy!

I'm curious about your numbers - 0.77 * 600 = 462W - how come it says 350W on the website?

What he is saying is that just the theoretical power efficiency increase alone gained from 55nm to 28nm should guarantee 0.77 W/GH. But he also said they improved the design (maybe fewer transistors, a "sea-of-hasher" design like bitfury, etc), therefore it should be even lower than 0.77 W/GH.

There's no way that's true.  Check out this paper: Power Consumption in CMOS VLSI chips

I stop you right there. Bitfury has a chip consuming 0.8 W/Gh/s and it is 55nm. So it is beyond any doubt that a 28nm chip (theoretically 4x more efficient) can increase efficiency to at least 0.77 W/Gh/s (which necessitates only a 1.04x improvement).

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Once again FUCKING CRICKETS !!

You know its BFL when they wont answer simple questions !!

Let me guess the Vtn value is unknown as you are not the mythical French Bank employee /ASIC chief engineer

The Vtn is known, but due to not tipping their hat to the other vendors, I doubt Nasser will answer the simple question.

Full Disclosure: I ain't got a clue as to what a Vtn is, but thanks for reminding me to take my vitamins: B12; Fluoride; Lithium.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is hilarious... I actually have some BFL hardware and even I think this means they are finished..  They are obviously trying to move payments to a medium that cant be refunded (bitcoin or wire xfer).  They are using a design which alot of us *know* cannot dissipate that much heat, and they are moving at a snail's pace with current orders.

Guys... Ive never said this before, but i believe they are on the virge of folding and taking anyone who preorders money with them..

Regarding power consumption, Radeon 6990 both consume more power than our card does, the very reason we took this design approach.


Regards,
Nasser

EDIT: Corrected '5970' and '5870' to 6990

Simple mistake for a Persian engineer to make late at night in France on a Saturday.

It's 3:00 AM Paris time, and I do enjoy reading threads usually.

Nasser

Of course you read them not logged it. Smart move. I still believe Jeff Ownby is using this account.

[Ytterbium]

But, fans in that configuration definitely cannot remove 350W of heat. GPUs over a certain threshold need 3-slot widths and giant triple fans in order to stay cool.

Well in theory it certainly can.  6990 is 375W TDP and it is a dual slot design.  It is "possible" however I doubt as a practical matter BFL will be able to deliver on time, on spec, and on wattage.  Essentially it would need to be a perfect execution who's track record has been less than perfect.

Yes, and even AMD had to delay the 6990 by six months due to thermal design issues!

The idea that BFL could design design an ultra-compact cooling system on time in a form factor and TDP that AMD could not is completely laughable.

And the irony, of course is that if they'd gone for a lower-power chip they could have used a stock cooling solution and basically just mailed out PCBs without doing any other work. Assuming the chip is even real in the first place and it's not a giant idiotic scam they might actually have a chance of delivering on time.

Like this?  no way. But, they had price this higher then their other non-minirig items in order to for people who were transferring orders to pay more real money into their coffers.

They have no idea what they're doing and clearly need cash.  Otherwise they could have simply sold their current 50Gh/s boxes for $400 a pop for November/december delivery.

[Ytterbium]

I stop you right there. Bitfury has a chip consuming 0.8 W/Gh/s and it is 55nm. So it is beyond any doubt that a 28nm chip (theoretically 4x more efficient) can increase efficiency to at least 0.77 W/Gh/s (which necessitates only a 1.04x improvement).

I'm not doubting 350W for 600Gh.  But, there is a huge difference between a new, efficient chip and simply doing a die shrink on BFL's horribly designed power-hogs.

BFL's are Jalapenos 6W/h Avalon's at 110m are about 9W when overclocked.  So clearly the chip design plays a huge role in power use.  It's not directly related to feature size like that.

[jhansen858]

Presumably, they started development on this 6 months ago.  This will be the 2nd round of asics being produced.  They have to be getting better at this game by now with more industry contacts and suppliers.  Now they have 1 product line instead of 4 greatly simplifying the production.  They are going after the higher end guys who are willing to make a business out of this.  Its got to be annoying to sit and listen to some guy who ordered a 5gh miner for $300 bitching about when his shit is going to be there screaming SCAMMERS all day. 

I'll admit this came sooner then what I would have expected. 

You now have 3 choices.  1) Double Down 2) Go long, 3) Cry Moar.  90% of the people in the forum have chosen option 3.

Anyone who is serious will choose option 1.  I doubt many will choose option 2. 

[southerngentuk]

All those lemmings that will be cancelling there order to upgrade  

I would consider you a bigger lemming for sticking it out this long in the face of skyrocketing difficulty and a completely shady company that has failed to deliver promises time and time again, for over a year.  

If I had not paid with bank tx, Do you think I would have stuck it out?

Lets bicker over the past while BFL suck in the next bunch of newbies to there ponzi financial concentration camp.

No Paypal, no Credit Card, open the doors to the gas chambers and herd them in.   

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Taking bets on that BFL will delay! 1:googol!

[-Redacted-]

I'm still waiting on a single and little single from a FUCKING YEAR AGO.  And someone is suggesting that people should double down on BFL?  Other than a sock puppet, who would be that stupid?  

[k9quaint]

Presumably, they started development on this 6 months ago. 

Why would you presume that? BFL has no internal ASIC or FPGA design experience. Everything is outsourced. This is the resume for their "CTO/CEO" who supposedly resides in France. Note the total lack of relevant experience.

This will be the 2nd round of asics being produced.  They have to be getting better at this game by now with more industry contacts and suppliers. 

Actually, it will probably be the five-hundredth round for the design house that BFL outsources their chip design to. That didn't help them the first time, it probably won't help them this time either.

Now they have 1 product line instead of 4 greatly simplifying the production. 

Yes.

They are going after the higher end guys who are willing to make a business out of this. 

Actually, PCI goes after the lower end market. You want blades with a simple rackmountable backplane that can handle 10 or so blades. Not something designed to sit in $500 of 4U overhead with tons of wasted space inside and a shitty cooling profile.

Its got to be annoying to sit and listen to some guy who ordered a 5gh miner for $300 bitching about when his shit is going to be there screaming SCAMMERS all day. 

They could ship product instead of sitting around reading the forums. Solves 2 problems at once!

I'll admit this came sooner then what I would have expected. 

You now have 3 choices.  1) Double Down 2) Go long, 3) Cry Moar.  90% of the people in the forum have chosen option 3.

Anyone who is serious will choose option 1.  I doubt many will choose option 2. 

Serious brain damage perhaps.

[fcmatt]

I am placing my bet on bankruptcy after attempting to produce this while the higher ups get huge raises to get money out of this legally. Yes, they may ship some but they will never make every customer whole.

[mrb]

I stop you right there. Bitfury has a chip consuming 0.8 W/Gh/s and it is 55nm. So it is beyond any doubt that a 28nm chip (theoretically 4x more efficient) can increase efficiency to at least 0.77 W/Gh/s (which necessitates only a 1.04x improvement).

I'm not doubting 350W for 600Gh.  But, there is a huge difference between a new, efficient chip and simply doing a die shrink on BFL's horribly designed power-hogs.

BFL's are Jalapenos 6W/h Avalon's at 110m are about 9W when overclocked.  So clearly the chip design plays a huge role in power use.  It's not directly related to feature size like that.

Yes BFL's design is horribly inefficient. But no matter whether the design is good or bad, there basically is a straight relationship between feature area and power. This is true for large process nodes. This is less true for smaller ones (such as 28nm) where leakage becomes relatively more important as you pointed out.

So let's be pessimistic and let's assume that leakage causes a 50% increase in power consumption (1.5x), and let's assume BFL manages to merely decrease power consumption by 10% on paper by tweaking the digital design (0.9x), then:

3.1 (W/Gh/s at 65nm) * (28/65)^2 (theoretical efficiency improvement from 65nm down to 28nm) * 1.5 * 0.9 = 0.78 W/Gh/s

This is all back-of-the-napkin math, but again I don't see why 0.77 W/Gh/s looks undoable, even taking into account BFL's current horribly inefficient design.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I'm still waiting on a single and little single from a FUCKING YEAR AGO.  And someone is suggesting that people should double down on BFL?  Other than a sock puppet, who would be that stupid?  

He's Garr255.