Bitmain Antminer X3 -- 220KH+ Cryponight - 550W

[stash2coin]

Although it is possible to implement some popular algorithms of FPGA, there is a problem. It may require a custom and expensive  PCB in order to match the GPU performance on existing algoritms.

Actually thats not exactly true FPGAs require not many external components and for mining you dont use all of the pins so less tracks. Back in the days when mining of bitcoin was possible on an FPGA most of the boards was 4 layers of copper and people managed to produce them quickly, for comparison a typical GPU board is 10-12 layers of copper which is out of scope for a lot of PCB manufacturers still, but anything that is 4 or 6 layers is cheap nowadays.

Also Monero is minable on FPGAs its highly probable that people are mining monero on FPGAs as we speak, of course i'm not a dev and cannot speak for the profitability of the FPGAs  

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[lunobird]

crap i bought an X3 to roll the nice,  getting tired of these sub $1 dollar a day gpus

What would be my best shitcoin to mine with an X3?

[treanski]

crap i bought an X3 to roll the nice,  getting tired of these sub $1 dollar a day gpus

What would be my best shitcoin to mine with an X3?

Shitmain Monero X3 coin with the new Doorstopper Algorithm

[CTA513]

No X3’s or L3+’s either on their page. Hmm I wonder what new prices we are going to see. Did anyone notice on NiceHash that it shows you can make $140 a day with the x3?

They added the L3+ back at only $462
If the $420 coupons work on those you could end up getting it for around $150 shipped.

[DigitalCruncher]

Although it is possible to implement some popular algorithms of FPGA, there is a problem. It may require a custom and expensive  PCB in order to match the GPU performance on existing algoritms.

Actually thats not exactly true FPGAs require not many external components and for mining you dont use all of the pins so less tracks. Back in the days when mining of bitcoin was possible on an FPGA most of the boards was 4 layers of copper and people managed to produce them quickly, for comparison a typical GPU board is 10-12 layers of copper which is out of scope for a lot of PCB manufacturers still, but anything that is 4 or 6 layers is cheap nowadays.

Also Monero is minable on FPGAs its highly probable that people are mining monero on FPGAs as we speak, of course i'm not a dev and cannot speak for the profitability of the FPGAs   

Those days are almost gone. ASICs are destroying all profitable coins step by step, from the other hand GPUs are getting better.

I think it is necessary to use external memory to make FPGA-miner profitable. FPGA without external memory is severely limited. It is also good to implement the PCI Express interface. As a result, the PCB will not be very simple.

The problem will not be in the complexity of the PCB, but in the price of the FPGA. You need a huge discount for a massive purchase in order to get a payback.

As a FPGA developer, I'm considering only high-performance solutions. They are compact, profitable and scalable. Perhaps I underestimate the potential of inexpensive modules, because I usually do a fully unrolled pipelines.But algorithms like nist5 require a folded implementation when small chips are used. So low-cost cards may be profitable.

But IMO the most interesting is solution based on top FPGA like Virtex Ultrascale+.

I will support a new thread dedicated to the FPGA.

[Sandal_Hat]

So, bitmain will assist miners by forking monero to other coins right

[bovineplane]

So, bitmain will assist miners by forking monero to other coins right

So, bitmain will Bitmain by forking monero to other coins right


Fixed that for you.

[Sandal_Hat]

So, bitmain will assist miners by forking monero to other coins right

So, bitmain will Bitmain by forking monero to other coins right


Fixed that for you.

I dont own an X3 but at least they are trying something here yes.

[floppydisk]

Couple weeks before entering May 2018, X3 still selling at 1990 for May batch and fraction of initial batch cost. Insane initial price.

[greyday]

Those days are almost gone. ASICs are destroying all profitable coins step by step, from the other hand GPUs are getting better.

I think it is necessary to use external memory to make FPGA-miner profitable. FPGA without external memory is severely limited. It is also good to implement the PCI Express interface. As a result, the PCB will not be very simple.

The problem will not be in the complexity of the PCB, but in the price of the FPGA. You need a huge discount for a massive purchase in order to get a payback.

As a FPGA developer, I'm considering only high-performance solutions. They are compact, profitable and scalable. Perhaps I underestimate the potential of inexpensive modules, because I usually do a fully unrolled pipelines.But algorithms like nist5 require a folded implementation when small chips are used. So low-cost cards may be profitable.

But IMO the most interesting is solution based on top FPGA like Virtex Ultrascale+.

I will support a new thread dedicated to the FPGA.

I'd be down for that as I just picked up a Cyclone 10 and, once I finish taxes, I plan to start playing with it using my pi 3b+ as a controller...

[PanneKopp]

Did anyone notice on NiceHash that it shows you can make $140 a day with the x3?

yes, I saw this, even the negative Power costs are amazing °°°


 

[Longsnowsm]

It continues to be humorous that people keep saying you can update the ASIC's.  That is NOT how an ASIC works.  Others have stated this as well.  You cannot update an ASIC. If is not programmable. 

So the X3's basically are bricked before they even ship.  Baikal is the only one that has a shot at being able to reflash their miners for the new algo as they use programmable chips. 

I don't understand why Bitmain has not dropped the price or dropped the miner unless they plan their own fork of Monero or Electroneum in the hope of keeping this going....  Effectively anyone who bought these has the short end of the stick.  No amount of "coupons" is going to make this right.  They better be offering free miners to those that bought these.

[heavyarms1912]

It continues to be humorous that people keep saying you can update the ASIC's.  That is NOT how an ASIC works.  Others have stated this as well.  You cannot update an ASIC. If is not programmable.  

So the X3's basically are bricked before they even ship.  Baikal is the only one that has a shot at being able to reflash their miners for the new algo as they use programmable chips.  

I don't understand why Bitmain has not dropped the price or dropped the miner unless they plan their own fork of Monero or Electroneum in the hope of keeping this going....  Effectively anyone who bought these has the short end of the stick.  No amount of "coupons" is going to make this right.  They better be offering free miners to those that bought these.

To make ASICs work on a modified algorithm you'll have to go to transistor level (different number/arrangement of logical gates).  

Code example

Code:

if (x or y)

changes to

Code:

if (x and y)

then that'll lead to change in ASIC at gate level.

See the number and arrangement for the gates for OR and AND condition,


Experts please correct if I misunderstood.

[jstefanop]

It continues to be humorous that people keep saying you can update the ASIC's.  That is NOT how an ASIC works.  Others have stated this as well.  You cannot update an ASIC. If is not programmable.  

So the X3's basically are bricked before they even ship.  Baikal is the only one that has a shot at being able to reflash their miners for the new algo as they use programmable chips.  

I don't understand why Bitmain has not dropped the price or dropped the miner unless they plan their own fork of Monero or Electroneum in the hope of keeping this going....  Effectively anyone who bought these has the short end of the stick.  No amount of "coupons" is going to make this right.  They better be offering free miners to those that bought these.

To make ASICs work on a modified algorithm you'll have to go to transistor level (different number/arrangement of logical gates).  

Code example

Code:

if (x or y)

changes to

Code:

if (x and y)

then that'll lead to change in ASIC at gate level.

See the number and arrangement for the gates for OR and AND condition,


Experts please correct if I misunderstood.

Simply put yes. Except that these transistors are physically "etched" into the silicon. These logic blocks are not "movable" once the silicon is made thats it.

FPGAs on the other hand have millions of these gates you show in that figure, but the connections between them can be physically changed. This is why FPGAs are kind of like GPUs, and can approach ASIC level performance because you can physically change the logic at the hardware level.

[ciciteng]

It continues to be humorous that people keep saying you can update the ASIC's.  That is NOT how an ASIC works.  Others have stated this as well.  You cannot update an ASIC. If is not programmable.  

So the X3's basically are bricked before they even ship.  Baikal is the only one that has a shot at being able to reflash their miners for the new algo as they use programmable chips.  

I don't understand why Bitmain has not dropped the price or dropped the miner unless they plan their own fork of Monero or Electroneum in the hope of keeping this going....  Effectively anyone who bought these has the short end of the stick.  No amount of "coupons" is going to make this right.  They better be offering free miners to those that bought these.

To make ASICs work on a modified algorithm you'll have to go to transistor level (different number/arrangement of logical gates).  

Code example

Code:

if (x or y)

changes to

Code:

if (x and y)

then that'll lead to change in ASIC at gate level.

See the number and arrangement for the gates for OR and AND condition,


Experts please correct if I misunderstood.

It's TRUE and yet so WRONG if you put the case in the miner product.
Those logic gate you trying to explain basically the "algorithm" in the top level. Once it corrects to solve a particular algorithm, for example SHA-256, Scrypt or Cryptonight then you need to synthesize that logic into hardware level within a chip. So, that's the final product, therefore they called ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit).
If you want easily change the logic as many as possible, there is another type of chip, called FPGA. With this you can reflash as many as you like to do what ever you like.



 

[heavyarms1912]

It's TRUE and yet so WRONG if you put the case in the miner product.
Those logic gate you trying to explain basically the "algorithm" in the top level. Once it corrects to solve a particular algorithm, for example SHA-256, Scrypt or Cryptonight then you need to synthesize that logic into hardware level within a chip. So, that's the final product, therefore they called ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit).
If you want easily change the logic as many as possible, there is another type of chip, called FPGA. With this you can reflash as many as you like to do what ever you like.

I know about FPGAs.  I was only talking with respect to ASIC.

To put in simple words FPGA is a big lookup table where you have results of almost all possible outcomes for set of inputs.  FPGA are reprogrammable.  You just need to figure out if the entire lookup table fits on FPGA and the best fit.  However, synthesizing code -> FPGA logic is time consuming and tedious and the compile times can extend up to months for big projects.

The FPGA miners that's out there I don't think they are pure FPGA but more like SoC's.  (x86/ARM processor + FPGA core combo);  This is might be the stuff Bitmain is playing around with.

[Sandal_Hat]

Did anyone notice on NiceHash that it shows you can make $140 a day with the x3?

yes, I saw this, even the negative Power costs are amazing °°°


 

lol. I am curious. How are X3 owners doing?? Did it make sense to buy?

[comby]

Wondering myself, what do X3 owners mine?

According to minecryptonight.net there are still a few cryptos to mine, but who will buy Stellite ? lol.

Nicehash gives 90 USD / day today..

[tuljan]

I was wondering the same thing, what are they mining with X3?
It was $12k and now you can buy it for $2k but the hashing power is sick (110x Vega).
I couldn't find any videos or tutorial about this miner, share if you find something?
I really wanna see how it works.

[Huntsman82]

Yeah, I would like to see some review or tutorial