DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI

[wtfonly16]

where is fpga-claymore

[sabercrypto]

where can we buy this fpga?

[costi.kocev]

where can we buy this fpga?

Read the first post.

[huntingthesnark]

Can somebody explain to me why there are so many mentions of "plugging into usb"?
From what I can see it's a PCI-E card, just like a GPU?

Also this would mean you could stick those into a normal motherboard, so why the need for a special fpga board?

From what I read a few pages back, it uses the PCI-E riser card to help with power (just like a regular GPU).  The USB connections connect to USB ports though.  Either on the PC/MB or on a USB riser card/hub.

Yes, you connect these FPGA cards to a 'normal motherboard'.  The FPGA board replaces your GPU(s).

This all sounds pretty exciting I have to say. Love the worries about precise specs on USB etc - if you've sprung for a £/$3k gpu (or a rig of them) then a new MB isn't really here or there!

[shanepottermi]

What kind of hashrate can these cards get on equihash?

[sidzkosic]

Hi,
thanks for sharing all the info. What are you using for programming of the FPGA? VHDL or Verilog?

[ruplikminer]

What kind of hashrate can these cards get on equihash?

Equihash have still not been completed and tested.

[Albortz]

Do we have a link to the german guy working on FPGAs?  Or do we know who he/she is?

[konqueror]

What kind of hashrate can these cards get on equihash?

Equihash have still not been completed and tested.

https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/992034662875779072

Too late for Equihash

[whitefire990]

What kind of hashrate can these cards get on equihash?

Equihash have still not been completed and tested.

https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/992034662875779072

Too late for Equihash

We all knew the Antminer-Z was coming.  But it may not be too late for equihash; hopefully all the equihash coins will now fork to equihash-2, which the FPGA's would adapt to, and the Z9 becomes a paperweight like the Cryptonight miners.

[HardwareCollector]

Don’t be afraid, GPUs are here to stay; even ASICs can be bricked as we’ve seen with Monero (CryptoNightV7).

Also, there are many misconceptions about FPGAs for mining, and in most cases they turn out to be worst dollar for dollar vs modern day GPUs. FPGA programing require very long development cycles, maybe Xilinx will change that with their optimizing compiler (SDAccel).

Kramble summarizes it here and you can read his last comment:
https://github.com/kramble/FPGA-Blakecoin-Miner/issues/1

With that said, OP may have a breakthrough and we will know in less than a month if no credible evidence precedes it. There’s no need to rush and purchase these cards now, MaxCoin’s and SmartCash’s (Keccak @17 GH/s even if true) profitability with these $4,500 cards dollar for dollar will match GPU profitability for some coins like Bismuth (SHA-224).

If the OP can pull this off, he will be my hero.   

[yrk1957]

With that said, OP may have a breakthrough and we will know in less than a month if no credible evidence precedes it. There’s no need to rush and purchase these cards now, MaxCoin’s and SmartCash’s (Keccak @17 GH/s even if true) profitability with these $4,500 cards dollar for dollar will match GPU profitability for some coins like Bismuth (SHA-224).

If the OP can pull this off, he will be my hero.   

Dollar for Dollar match maybe, but density and power are also a big factor.

[papabiz]

Congratulations on your beautoful setup, I like this, i was always curious why fpga systems dissapeared so quick..now i know they never did!
I'm wanting a similar setup, my cards are so outdated,but would you be willing to share your software if I was to make the plunge hardware wise?

My plan is to release Keccak at the end of May, then Tribus/Phi/Skunkhash in June/July.  More algorithms to follow every month.  So yes you can buy the hardware then use my software, which has a 4% fee built in.

I don't have much to say. But good luck with it.

sceptic? or just dont believe in it?
Anyways yeah I wish you GL aswell, if this turns out to be true, Ill start learning some VHDL and see where it takes me

[philipma1957]

I am not skeptical if op succeeds he will be rich.

Not sure if it will help  the crypto-world.
It will certainly help the op.

A rig with a quality gpu was able to make money for more then 2 years.
Say Dec 2015 to  May 2018  .  I would think  close to a billion people could be making coin if they chose to do so.

With FPGA the customer base will shrink to under a million  can't see that being good for crypto coins.
But what do I know.

[saint78]

For Ravencoin and Bitcore, the DDR4 is not used for hashing at all, but rather to store hundreds of different FPGA configuration bitstreams, which allows the entire FPGA to rapidly reprogram itself on every block based on the algorithm sequence for that block.  Cryptonight7 and Equihash, on the other hand, would use the external memory for actual hashing.  Whether CN7/Equihash gain from additional RAM depends on how those algorithms are ultimately implemented.

How much DDR4 would be needed per card for this Bitstream storing for RVN?

[buzzkillb]

Interested if there is a group buy going around. I want to mine tribus [DNR].

[2112]

what you need is that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=QNMKh2lC_60

I'm not currently interested in buying anything. I was more interested in the technical trade-offs.

On the other hand I know that small PCIe passive backplanes are nearly free and many people already have them as a riser cards for their rack-mount servers.

[HardwareCollector]

i got the public keccak source and synthesized,not sure whether it can run properly,just evaluation of resources.

i put 24 core and set to 300MHz
so XUVU9P may run  7.2G ,160W power
how can you get 17G?

No, it is not enough.

I can make a 24 cores and 550 MHz with 0 WNS slack, probably 600 MHz. But it is less than 17G anyway. My ego is hurting.

@DigitalCruncher

Can you please show us the summary of your PAR results? I hope that people and not just synthesizing their design with the hopes that PAR will complete without errors with such strict constrains.

[Riptide_NVN]

How is this device different, in practical application, than an ASIC?  It is essentially a super-ASIC that can't be forked away from.

It is still expensive.  Already farms are approaching OP to buy up the supply.

OP also mentioned that there is room for "hundreds" of these devices before hash rate gets bad enough to hurt productivity.  And in the same post mentioned production ramp-up will not be an issue.  And you guys think it's going to stop with just a few hundred?

It's an arms race and the little guy isn't going to be able to compete.

[anorganix]

How is this device different, in practical application, than an ASIC?  It is essentially a super-ASIC that can't be forked away from.

- snip -

ASICs have the hashing algo embedded in the hardware itself, as opposed to FPGAs which are programmable via software.