cpu, FPGA, gpu simultaneous mining rig

[koalana]

  well some one had to dare ask it, and it might as well be me.

is a cpu, FPGA, gpu simultaneous mining rig possible say on a 6 core i7, or an amd opteron?

The big fat koala

[koalana]

Maybe I failed to make clear what i have in mind.

I mean to run a cpu and an FPGA, and a gpu all together at the same time on one cpu.

Any one had a go at this yet?

[Silverpike]

I don't think you understand what an FPGA is.  FPGAs run by themselves; they don't necessarily integrate into a PC host.  They can, but they must be specially designed for this purpose.

Running a cpu and gpu miner on the same machine is certainly possible, although cpu mining still remains a complete waste of time, assuming you pay for power consumption.

[RSmith]

What's the point, exactly?  The GPUs dominate because they're so cheap to buy.  On such a redundant problem they're as efficient as a CPU, but there are thousands per card.  The strength of the CPU is random problems, so they set up the problem to be as simple as possible when handed to the GPU.  So really any GPU rig is a CPU/GPU hybrid...  The CPU sets up the problem, the GPU grinds away at the easiest possible part.

An FPGA replicates hand-wired logic, as if it was 1980 and you were stuffing ECL cards into a mainframe.  The speed isn't a lot better then that, due to all the slow crossbar connections.  Since the vast majority of connections are not wired, most of the transistors are idle or redundant.  They're also at least a generation behind in chip technology (the Achronix/Intel deal could erase that in a few months).  The FPGAs deliver performance like a purpose-built chip a decade ago.  The fact that FPGAs can't compete with GPUs is because GPUs are stunningly fast given the right problem.

[mb300sd]

I had a class about how CPUs work internally last semester and think this might be interesting. It'd probably be prohibitively expensive, but how about having a fully pipelined SHA256? If I'm correct in assuming that SHA256 takes the same number of cycles with the same instructions every time, it should be possible to design hardware with a x stage pipeline that will output a hash every cycle. Imagine having a couple of these running at a GHz...

[RSmith]

A fully pipelined SHA 256 isn't that hard... unrolling both rounds is doable on large FPGAs.  They've been built at 1 stage per round, at roughly 100 MHz (~10 nS).  The hard part is pushing that to pS clocking, like a modern full-custom chip.  The limit to that is thermal, at maybe 10 giga-hash/second for the whole chip.

Everyone who gets the problem gets pipelines.  It's just a million-dollar leap into hardware.  If you take a VLSI process class, you'll see... chip production is amazingly complex.  Hundreds of experienced engineers can work on a problem and still need a second try to make it work.  There's really no market below a million units per year.

[fpgaminer]

I had a class about how CPUs work internally last semester and think this might be interesting. It'd probably be prohibitively expensive, but how about having a fully pipelined SHA256?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9047.0

is a cpu, FPGA, gpu simultaneous mining rig possible say on a 6 core i7, or an amd opteron?

Sure is. I've run GPU + FPGA before. CPU is worthless since I pay for my electricity

[makomk]

 They're also at least a generation behind in chip technology (the Achronix/Intel deal could erase that in a few months).

That's not actually true. The current FPGA price/performance leader appears to be Xilinx's Spartan-6 series which is built on the exact same 45nm TSMC process as current-gen ATI graphics; samples of Xilinx's first 28nm FPGAs are also already available to big customers and they should hopefully be out sometime next year.

[Answer42]

Ditch the CPU....

[mb300sd]

Has anyone looked at these? http://www.achronix.com/products/speedster.html

I can't find any pricing, but 1.5GHz!!

[koalana]

Has anyone looked at these? http://www.achronix.com/products/speedster.html

I can't find any pricing, but 1.5GHz!!

eh yeah any specs on the #output for one of these?

Whats the cost??

[Skrivitor]

How do you guys feel about the Butterfly Labs Single?  832 MHash/s @ 80W

http://www.butterflylabs.com/product-details/

[awigaxeh-443]

Has anyone looked at these? http://www.achronix.com/products/speedster.html

I can't find any pricing, but 1.5GHz!!

BUDDY, read better, it says gigahertz not gigahash

[DOH!]

Seems as though BFL has just updated to rev3 with heatpipes! Makes me wonder how their 90 day warranty will pan out for early adopters. Price per megahash looks to be right on target with a 6990, with twice the efficiency of a 7970.  I am so glad that gtx 680's dropped today, should drive the price of 7970's down into the 'affordable' for bitcoin mining rigs...  Personally I have cheap enough power (6.9c/kWh) to keep mining on GPU's for quite a while profitably.  Looks like the OP's goal would definitely be feasable plugging a few of the bitforce singles into usb ports on a gpu miner, and hell, why not run the cpu? Moar Hashies!!!  Screw efficiency! Lol.

[Skrivitor]

why would anyone still mine with CPU is beyond me. The stress on the components alone isnt worth the mining for, then the electric cost...

FPGA and ASIC are the future, of course with some breathing room for GPUs. 

[DOH!]

We'll still be good on GPU's until about December I think... Probably will be seeing a bunch of rigs on ebay when the reward halves.

[Skrivitor]

We'll still be good on GPU's until about December I think... Probably will be seeing a bunch of rigs on ebay when the reward halves.

Won't Scarcity take over and drive Up the exchanges? to me cost of electricity will determine if i run my gpu with my FPGA.

When thinking about bitcoin one must remember it is divisible to 8 decimal places. That's a lot of coin. Maybe even enough to justify mobile mining at some point.

[Cinnamon Cayenne]

Using the CPU of this machine can still be profitable.

You need only use it on Litecoin, or another similar currency whose trap-door isn't yet worth GPU attention, and then trade in your winnings if you'd rather have Bitcoins.

[DOH!]

We'll still be good on GPU's until about December I think... Probably will be seeing a bunch of rigs on ebay when the reward halves.

Won't Scarcity take over and drive Up the exchanges? to me cost of electricity will determine if i run my gpu with my FPGA.

When thinking about bitcoin one must remember it is divisible to 8 decimal places. That's a lot of coin. Maybe even enough to justify mobile mining at some point.

I've done a lot of thinking about this since I started my little 5gh/s operation 3 months ago.  I found that the best return was to start on used 5970's and use the btc to bump up to 6900 series that have plenty of warranty left, at this point I still want my mining rigs to be relevant to gamers who are looking for used gpu's in case gpu mining becomes obsolete. Not the best efficiency, but my power is cheap and I have a cold basement lol. That said, anyone want to buy a watercooled 5970? It has an EK plexi top block on it, PM me for details.