DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI

[suchmoon]

No, it is u that dont get it. U ARE COMPETING with asics because asics will push difficulty to the coins u are mining. Profit margins for mining are thin these days. It is abit higher right now compared to 1-2 months ago due to recent price spike but that will correct soon as more hashrate enters market. U can always have an alt coin to mine but it is gonna make low or negative returns for u because of difficulty increase, which are pushed by asics from other coins.

If GPU miners are pushed from ETH to another coin that is FPGA-mineable then:

1) diff goes up but an FPGA is still more profitable than a GPU;
2) diff goes way up, a GPU is not profitable anymore, still profitable for an FPGA;

There are many other variables in this and many other reasons why this might or might not work, but what you're saying doesn't really make much sense. I think you're misunderstanding how difficulty adjustment works. It will go down if profitability turns negative.

No because u can buy an FPGA, so can everyone else. FPGA is the new GPU. It just costs money which everyone has. Mining is easy, everyone can do it.
U make such an FPGA first. U are first and it has 6 months break even. Really quickly, everyone else will have an FPGA and break even will go to 11-15 months or so, the rough average.
See post 268 for a simpler illustration. I leave that as the last explanation of the conceptual flaw.

How fast can u start buying the items and do this. Lets see this go forward yes.

I don't even know what you're talking about or how it relates to what I posted. "Everyone" is not going to have FPGAs overnight, the whole thing is still in its infancy (scale-wise; I'm sure some smart folks have been mining with FPGAs for a while). GPU mining ramp-up for big farms took months even during the massive ETH boom, and that was with an off-the-shelf product available in huge quantities.

Break-even of 15 months is great for those who don't exhibit the ASIC-induced attention span of a toddler. I still have some GPUs I bought in 2015. Paid off many times over. I don't have ASICs from 2015. Can you guess why?

[1713941653]

1713941653

[1713941653]

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[Sandal_Hat]

No, it is u that dont get it. U ARE COMPETING with asics because asics will push difficulty to the coins u are mining. Profit margins for mining are thin these days. It is abit higher right now compared to 1-2 months ago due to recent price spike but that will correct soon as more hashrate enters market. U can always have an alt coin to mine but it is gonna make low or negative returns for u because of difficulty increase, which are pushed by asics from other coins.

If GPU miners are pushed from ETH to another coin that is FPGA-mineable then:

1) diff goes up but an FPGA is still more profitable than a GPU;
2) diff goes way up, a GPU is not profitable anymore, still profitable for an FPGA;

There are many other variables in this and many other reasons why this might or might not work, but what you're saying doesn't really make much sense. I think you're misunderstanding how difficulty adjustment works. It will go down if profitability turns negative.

No because u can buy an FPGA, so can everyone else. FPGA is the new GPU. It just costs money which everyone has. Mining is easy, everyone can do it.
U make such an FPGA first. U are first and it has 6 months break even. Really quickly, everyone else will have an FPGA and break even will go to 11-15 months or so, the rough average.
See post 268 for a simpler illustration. I leave that as the last explanation of the conceptual flaw.

How fast can u start buying the items and do this. Lets see this go forward yes.

I don't even know what you're talking about or how it relates to what I posted. "Everyone" is not going to have FPGAs overnight, the whole thing is still in its infancy (scale-wise; I'm sure some smart folks have been mining with FPGAs for a while). GPU mining ramp-up for big farms took months even during the massive ETH boom, and that was with an off-the-shelf product available in huge quantities.

Break-even of 15 months is great for those who don't exhibit the ASIC-induced attention span of a toddler. I still have some GPUs I bought in 2015. Paid off many times over. I don't have ASICs from 2015. Can you guess why?

Everyone will rush for FPGAs, overnight or not doesnt matter. It will be a mad rush for gold, as normal with all new asics these days. Mining equipment will be sold out as per normal in recent rushes. The breakeven will quickly go to normal range of 11-15 months then. This isnt like in past years where ETH made huge margins because people few people know wat mining is.


Post 268 clearly shows how stupid is it to compete against asic that will keep stealing the major coins u mine. Major conceptual flaw. U wont break even in 15 months lol. It doesnt matter if u have gpus or asics since 2015. Everyone who has any coins or mining then has made money. This is a different time. This FPGA pops up tomorow, and in the next few days, tons of it will be created/sold.

I think u already understood it anyways from the way u are replying.

How about u go buy those FPGAs then? How fast can u get it up and running?

[HardwareCollector]

lol, wat u just said in the quote. A system that costs less and is 5x more efficient than a GPU. Lets see how u make a system that cost less when u buy at the retail level, among other things.

Ok, enough arguing and plucking numbers from the sky. How fast can u get the show on the road?

What is the lol about? Show me where I claimed that I can develop such a system. And please, don't try to change the subject.

@Sandal_Hat

I am not sure what you are arguing about, it seems very odd.

You have two systems, one costs less and it’s 5x more efficient than the other, and they both do the same amount of work. So going with the system that is cheaper to buy and operate doesn’t make sense you say. Can you please tell me again why miners freak-out if they think an ASIC has been developed to mine their coin?

I will go back to work and take my crazy pills, and welcome to The Twilight Zone.

I am saying it makes no financial sense. The major GPU coins already have asics, with ETH being the biggest. And those coins that have no asic on it will have asics on it before the FPGA will come close to ever breaking even.


And everytime an asic takes over an alternate coin, all the GPUs and FPGAs that were mining that coin will go to a non-asic coin. That means the remaining non-asic coins will have difficulty skyrocket and guess wat, that means your GPUs and FPGAs mining make less money. Everytime a new asic comes out, the FPGAs make less money. So, there is no niche. There is a limited amount to be earned from mining u see. If the asics keep appearing to take some of it, the switchers (FPGAs/GPUs) will have less and less.


Why not u calculate how much it would cost to make an FPGA that can do the equivalent of mining 504mh like the L3+ or 14TH like the S9.
Run your numbers and see the gap. While I dont have the numbers, I dont think it can work.

Anyways, good luck in your endeavors. Maybe I am wrong.


Just my 2 cents

While your point of view is true in general, there are a couple of exceptions: mainly space and power constraints. Let’s be very specific in our comparison to avoid meaningless comparisons, XCVU9P ($4,000 FPGA) vs GTX 1080 Ti ($800 GPU).

Now let’s take the Phi1612 algorithm and give the FPGA a more realistic 5x performance advantage against the GPU at a power consumption rate of 150 watts (0.150 kWh). I would rather run a 100 FPGA farm (17.5 kWh) vs a 500 GPU farm (87.5 kWh) any day and here’s why. Lower overall costs if you believe the 5x advantage ascribed to the FPGA.

4x FPGAs and components approx. ($16K + $1.2K) in server chassis and add 100 watts for overhead.
4x GPUs and components approx. ($3.2K + $0.65K) in frame and add 100 watts for overhead.

$430K 100 FPGA farm vs $481.25K 500 GPU farm. Can you at least agree that this makes financial sense?

Really? Pretending? Your own words, bolded. Post 266. Above quote lol. Just do something like it will do. It wont be anywhere cheaper lol.

Anyways, no more argument.

Do update your FPGA setup when u do rather than talk nonsense.
Or just dont bother because I dont believe u can do any of it lol

The claim was made by the OP that he has one running at 20x the efficiency, and I said it is most likely 5x since I haven’t seen any evidence of his work. How does that translate to me making the claim? Please do show me and stop making up stuff.

[Sandal_Hat]

lol, wat u just said in the quote. A system that costs less and is 5x more efficient than a GPU. Lets see how u make a system that cost less when u buy at the retail level, among other things.

Ok, enough arguing and plucking numbers from the sky. How fast can u get the show on the road?

What is the lol about? Show me where I claimed that I can develop such a system. And please, don't try to change the subject.

@Sandal_Hat

I am not sure what you are arguing about, it seems very odd.

You have two systems, one costs less and it’s 5x more efficient than the other, and they both do the same amount of work. So going with the system that is cheaper to buy and operate doesn’t make sense you say. Can you please tell me again why miners freak-out if they think an ASIC has been developed to mine their coin?

I will go back to work and take my crazy pills, and welcome to The Twilight Zone.

I am saying it makes no financial sense. The major GPU coins already have asics, with ETH being the biggest. And those coins that have no asic on it will have asics on it before the FPGA will come close to ever breaking even.


And everytime an asic takes over an alternate coin, all the GPUs and FPGAs that were mining that coin will go to a non-asic coin. That means the remaining non-asic coins will have difficulty skyrocket and guess wat, that means your GPUs and FPGAs mining make less money. Everytime a new asic comes out, the FPGAs make less money. So, there is no niche. There is a limited amount to be earned from mining u see. If the asics keep appearing to take some of it, the switchers (FPGAs/GPUs) will have less and less.


Why not u calculate how much it would cost to make an FPGA that can do the equivalent of mining 504mh like the L3+ or 14TH like the S9.
Run your numbers and see the gap. While I dont have the numbers, I dont think it can work.

Anyways, good luck in your endeavors. Maybe I am wrong.


Just my 2 cents

While your point of view is true in general, there are a couple of exceptions: mainly space and power constraints. Let’s be very specific in our comparison to avoid meaningless comparisons, XCVU9P ($4,000 FPGA) vs GTX 1080 Ti ($800 GPU).

Now let’s take the Phi1612 algorithm and give the FPGA a more realistic 5x performance advantage against the GPU at a power consumption rate of 150 watts (0.150 kWh). I would rather run a 100 FPGA farm (17.5 kWh) vs a 500 GPU farm (87.5 kWh) any day and here’s why. Lower overall costs if you believe the 5x advantage ascribed to the FPGA.

4x FPGAs and components approx. ($16K + $1.2K) in server chassis and add 100 watts for overhead.
4x GPUs and components approx. ($3.2K + $0.65K) in frame and add 100 watts for overhead.

$430K 100 FPGA farm vs $481.25K 500 GPU farm. Can you at least agree that this makes financial sense?

Really? Pretending? Your own words, bolded. Post 266. Above quote lol. Just do something like it will do. It wont be anywhere cheaper lol.

Anyways, no more argument.

Do update your FPGA setup when u do rather than talk nonsense.
Or just dont bother because I dont believe u can do any of it lol

The claim was made by the OP that he has one running at 20x the efficiency, and I said it is most likely 5x since I haven’t seen any evidence of his work. How does that translate to me making the claim? Please do show me and stop making up stuff.

Well, u should have referenced to that rather than writing it straight. I didnt know.

Lets see this project gets done anyways.

[HardwareCollector]

Well, u should have referenced to that rather than writing it straight.

Lets see this project gets done anyways.

When you make a mistake, it is best to apologize and move on, instead of being on a mission to win an argument.

[Sandal_Hat]

Well, u should have referenced to that rather than writing it straight.

Lets see this project gets done anyways.

When you make a mistake, it is best to apologize and move on, instead of being on a mission to win an argument.

I do apologize when I make a mistake. But u cant expect anyone to know that u were referring to someone else when u dont state it. It could have been your own claims. No one can read your mind. Think about it.

[HardwareCollector]

Well, u should have referenced to that rather than writing it straight.

Lets see this project gets done anyways.

When you make a mistake, it is best to apologize and move on, instead of being on a mission to win an argument.

I do apologize when I make a mistake. But u cant expect anyone to know that u were referring to someone else when u dont state it. It could have been your own claims. No one can read your mind. Think about it.

No need to drag this on, please do read the OP's post and make up your own mind. Some of us really want these claims to be true, but only time will tell.

[B1tUnl0ck3r]

this year im going to get one of those grow tents with powered in and out vents to the basement windows and run it in that for summers.

some of those are just piece of art and some are just insanely big.

[Sandal_Hat]

Well, u should have referenced to that rather than writing it straight.

Lets see this project gets done anyways.

When you make a mistake, it is best to apologize and move on, instead of being on a mission to win an argument.

I do apologize when I make a mistake. But u cant expect anyone to know that u were referring to someone else when u dont state it. It could have been your own claims. No one can read your mind. Think about it.

No need to drag this on, please do read the OP's post and make up your own mind. Some of us really want these claims to be true, but only time will tell.

Ok. I guess time will tell if I am right or wrong when the show gets on the road. Good luck to the brave souls. Cross fingers*

[BittWareFPGATech]

Looks like Bittware reduced their standard warranty for the "crypto" models.  I believe they typically have 1 yr mfg warranty on their products.  Kind of disappointing the warranty was reduced that much for a $6k product.

Yes, a 90-day warranty raises a LOT of concerns.  Has Bittware done stress testing and has some reason to believe the failure rate ramps up after that timeframe?  I could understand a 90-day warranty on support issues with a 1-year hardware warranty.  

I was in the process of arranging my finances to purchase a few cards, but if the manufacturer has that little confidence in their product, they're sending me a message I can't ignore.  Even the Chinese manufacturers (with their notorious quality) give 180-day warranties.

Just for some background, we have been shipping this board for 1.5 years now, and have had almost no field failures.  It has gone through full validation, including thermals.  We manufacture in the US using a Tier 1 contract manufacturer. Our standard warranty is 1 year, we have some products with 3 year warranties, and some customers who pay for extended warranties.  We also generally provide unlimited support, as our normal customer is one who buys 10s or 100s (or even 1000s) of boards.  We have been building high reliability boards for decades, with one of our boards being used as part of the traction control system on the TGV (and all Alstom train and subway cars) for well over 10 years.

When this mining opportunity came up, we looked for ways to provide a deep discount as we know this community is very cost sensitive.  We also have concerns with the way that these boards will be used for mining, mostly from an ESD point of view.  Our normal customers install these boards in servers, and are in properly controlled environments with ESD protection taken very seriously.  So we lowered the warranty to reduce cost, and for fear of the boards being abused.  Perhaps we went too far lowering it to 30 days.  We also limited support, however, our normal support includes helping people develop their FPGA code on our board.  In this case you are using code already developed.

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

As for cost we presented, while I know it seems steep for this community, this is deeply discounted from our standard price, taking into account the reduced warranty and support.

From what I can tell, Xilinx has a 90 day warranty on their devkits, which is what the VCU1525 is.  I'm not sure how long they will sustain that low cost, we know of smaller board manufacturers that pay more than that for just the VU9P chip itself.

[Sandal_Hat]

Despite my skepticism and my longer than expected engagement in this thread, I do hope it works out for u guys and perhaps I am wrong. Good luck

[HardwareCollector]

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

@BittWareFPGATech

The OP stated that you will be mining with your own boards. Can you vouch for these hash rates presented by the OP?

[BittWareFPGATech]

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

@BittWareFPGATech

The OP stated that you will be mining with your own boards. Can you vouch for these hash rates presented by the OP?

We have not yet done any mining, and for the record, have no big plans for this.  We have joked internally that perhaps we should use mining as the factory burn in test for our boards.  The OP has offered to get us the code once released, and we may play around a little to understand the thermals, etc.

[HardwareCollector]

We have not yet done any mining, and for the record, have no big plans for this.  We have joked internally that perhaps we should use mining as the factory burn in test for our boards.  The OP has offered to get us the code once released, and we may play around a little to understand the thermals, etc.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Reggie0]

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

@BittWareFPGATech

The OP stated that you will be mining with your own boards. Can you vouch for these hash rates presented by the OP?

We have not yet done any mining, and for the record, have no big plans for this.  We have joked internally that perhaps we should use mining as the factory burn in test for our boards.  The OP has offered to get us the code once released, and we may play around a little to understand the thermals, etc.

Well, there aren't any special. Use xilinx power estimator with 100% toggle rate and 2.6 average fanout. The calculated result has 5% accuracy.

[B1tUnl0ck3r]

Despite my skepticism and my longer than expected engagement in this thread, I do hope it works out for u guys and perhaps I am wrong. Good luck

yeah thank you all for your generosity and kindness ! All the posts are work of arts ! no other place can produce such quality content on any subject ! alt mining rocks !

[melpheos]

My rig is already paid off so i might be tempted to purchase two in order to mine at least raven (which apparently requires two, i'm not sure exactly why - lack of memory to contain all the instruction ? )

[netmonk]

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

@BittWareFPGATech

The OP stated that you will be mining with your own boards. Can you vouch for these hash rates presented by the OP?

We have not yet done any mining, and for the record, have no big plans for this.  We have joked internally that perhaps we should use mining as the factory burn in test for our boards.  The OP has offered to get us the code once released, and we may play around a little to understand the thermals, etc.

yeah, unlike ASIC miner, i would not like to receive a second hand board, that already spend few weeks/months mining in your secret basement.

[melpheos]

Note that we do have onboard monitoring for temperature, voltage, and current, with thresholds set to shut down the board if it appears to be entering a situation that would cause damage.  We provide a utility (console and GUI versions) that you can use to talk to this onboard controller via the USB and see what is going on with all the sensors.  Unlike GPUs and CPUs, FPGAs have no inherent thermal throttling, unless the FPGA developer builds that into their logic, which is very rarely done.  FPGAs also burn more power as they get hotter, so from a power efficiency point of view, it is better to keep them cool.

@BittWareFPGATech

The OP stated that you will be mining with your own boards. Can you vouch for these hash rates presented by the OP?

We have not yet done any mining, and for the record, have no big plans for this.  We have joked internally that perhaps we should use mining as the factory burn in test for our boards.  The OP has offered to get us the code once released, and we may play around a little to understand the thermals, etc.

yeah, unlike ASIC miner, i would not like to receive a second hand board, that already spend few weeks/months mining in your secret basement.

Bitmain is a scumbag company. Even if they send you a DOA unit, they will still ask you to pay full price for shipping it back.
They also are known to send used unit and will not give a rat's ass if you complain. They also dont care if the unit shipped do not even reaches you.

[GPUHoarder]

With x16r and x17 requiring 2 cards would that be 300mh/s for both cards? Or 300 each equalling 600mh for two cards daisy chained together?

Clarifying the projected hash rates
X17: 2 cards daisy chained get 600MH/s total
X16R: 2 cards daisy chained get 600MH/s total
Xevan: 4 Bittware cards daisy chained get 600MH/s total

so I'm guessing that the VCU1525 can be daisy chained to two cards max hence being able to hash on X17 and X16R?

VCU1525 has 2 x QSFP28 connectors, so you link 2 boards with 2 x 100 gigabit ethernet cables, and two boards is the max that can be daisy chained.  With the Bittware XUPP3R board, since it has 4 x QSFP28 connectors, there is no limit to the daisy chain length.  These specialized ethernet cables have nothing to do with internet, they are solely so data can flow from one FPGA board to the next board.  The cables are around $40 each.

Personally I think GPU mining will still be around for a while.  I believe the market is going to rise so dramatically this fall that all existing GPU rigs will be making a lot of money, even with rises in difficulty.

If you’re not constrained to the 1525 (though most non-FPGA devs will be), use something like this and you have 600Gbps between boards or 300Gbps chain.