DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI

[DigitalCruncher]

I work with Avnet all the time, sadly this is normal. Hardware the backside  doesn’t move at consumer pace, very slowly. Also lead times are a few weeks now.

Good to know this is just their standard operating procedure and I am not the only one stuck in limbo.  And yeah, I expected a long lead time after I ordered the hardware.  I just was not expecting 2+ weeks of lead time to first place the order.  

Perhaps now someone else is mining by using these boards.

[2112]

Just wondering why you don't develop a new algo..you seem to have a handle on what is needed..its people like you that are needed to move this forward..

I'll take this as a straight question, not a rhetorical question. The answer is three fold:

1) due to other commitments I have not enough time to get seriously involved in such a project. At the same time I don't want to get tangled in some abandonware crapcoin, even if just part-time.

2) it is my observation that the publicly stated goals of majority cryptocoin projects are very different from the personal goals of the authors. It is a conflict of interest minefield.

3) the whole market of floating-point developers and users is deeply split in their understanding what does it mean to have "reproducible results":

3a) some want that their simulations differ very little or not at all. I'm more in this group and that is the approach to be included in cryptocurrency.

3b) others focus on the reproducibility of the end results, e.g. the launched missiles hit the evading targets or the cell phones keep the connection when driving in or out of the tunnel. Those people would laugh at trying to incorporate floating-point calculations in the PoW code.

None of the above two camps have monopoly on being good or bad, right or wrong. If you (or some other reader) is interested about the above split it is worthwhile to study how the Java language introduced the keyword strictfp.

Intel is definitely serving camp 3a). Nvidia is started in 3b). AMD started in 3a) but shifted into center after acquisition of ATI from 3b). FPGA vendors try to serve both camps, but have way more success stories in 3b).

[betaminer]

Thinking better about FPGA
This product will be for a few people, mainly on USA and I'm sure big farms will buy a lot of then

This is available in eu as well. DK-U1-VCU1525-A-G (active cooling) available 9-10 weeks from order date.

Do you have a source?

[2112]

Really not meaning to offend anyone, this has been a very interesting and entertaining thread, even inspiring all around in a way that leads to substantially more decentralization.  However, as an energy industry professional I must say that a kw/h and a kWh is substantially exactly the same thing.  Not sure what you guys are onto here... a kW is a unit of energy, it is a 1,000 Watts.  Watts are convertible to Joules or Therms or any other unit of energy.  And a kW/h is the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, as is a kWh, the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour.  a kW is a measurement of power, and a kWh is a volumetric measurement of energy.  you can use 100kW in one hour is 100kWh or you can use 50kW for 30 minutes and 150kW for 30 minutes and it will also be 100kWh.

I don't think anyone here would get offended. I'm even grateful for your post as it helped to prove my point.

I'm also grateful for the correction below that is the other half of the proof of my point.

You can convert Joule to Wh, it is indeed a measurement of amount of energy.
Watt's cannot be converted to Joules directly as much as velocity cannot directly be converted to distance without the input of other parameters to build an equation.

And a kW/h is the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, as is a kWh

A kWh is not the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, same difference as you can't say that 'distance is the is the number of meters travelled in an hour'.
In the analogy with distance, velocity & time; kW/h would be acceleration (how much the energy flow changes per unit of time), kW would be velocity (amount of energy flow), kWh would be distance (how much energy has flown)

You can not 'use' xx kW in one hour, you can use xx kWh in one hour though. kW/h is simply the wrong unit to use. But as an energy industry professional you of course know better

This is not really on-topic though but it is simply confusing to people who have little knowledge about this. It might be that most understand that it's an error but using the wrong units on purpose because everyone understands is not productive. I will not go deeper into this as we might as well be discussing whether the earth is flat or not.

[jstefanop]

Really not meaning to offend anyone, this has been a very interesting and entertaining thread, even inspiring all around in a way that leads to substantially more decentralization.  However, as an energy industry professional I must say that a kw/h and a kWh is substantially exactly the same thing.  Not sure what you guys are onto here... a kW is a unit of energy, it is a 1,000 Watts.  Watts are convertible to Joules or Therms or any other unit of energy.  And a kW/h is the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, as is a kWh, the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour.  a kW is a measurement of power, and a kWh is a volumetric measurement of energy.  you can use 100kW in one hour is 100kWh or you can use 50kW for 30 minutes and 150kW for 30 minutes and it will also be 100kWh.

I don't think anyone here would get offended. I'm even grateful for your post as it helped to prove my point.

I'm also grateful for the correction below that is the other half of the proof of my point.

You can convert Joule to Wh, it is indeed a measurement of amount of energy.
Watt's cannot be converted to Joules directly as much as velocity cannot directly be converted to distance without the input of other parameters to build an equation.

And a kW/h is the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, as is a kWh

A kWh is not the number of kiloWatts consumed in an hour, same difference as you can't say that 'distance is the is the number of meters travelled in an hour'.
In the analogy with distance, velocity & time; kW/h would be acceleration (how much the energy flow changes per unit of time), kW would be velocity (amount of energy flow), kWh would be distance (how much energy has flown)

You can not 'use' xx kW in one hour, you can use xx kWh in one hour though. kW/h is simply the wrong unit to use. But as an energy industry professional you of course know better

This is not really on-topic though but it is simply confusing to people who have little knowledge about this. It might be that most understand that it's an error but using the wrong units on purpose because everyone understands is not productive. I will not go deeper into this as we might as well be discussing whether the earth is flat or not.

lol yea multiplication and division are the same thing...come on guys

[2112]

lol yea multiplication and division are the same thing...come on guys

Well, Chuck Norris is known to successfully divide by zero. Maybe he's posting here under an alias? Or maybe he had spread his knowledge of previously illegal operations to the "energy industry" or the "GPU hoarders"? Who knows?

[Etherion]

No need, it's all I had to say.
The rest will come with time.

The group asked for my opinion and I agree. PHI2 appears to be more of the same ASIC resistance line of thinking based on some misconceptions about what makes things hard for hardware.

The fact that you lumped ASIC and FPGA resistance in one line is more telling than anything else.

To be less skeptical, show me your white paper documenting the PHI2 algorithm and decisions that were made and cryptoanalysis that was done on it to be FPGA resistant?

It also appear you’ve released the GPL miner binary, so I respectfully request the source.

This

To be clear I am not against coins that decide from the get-go to be ASIC resistant, even those that decide to be FPGA resistant. I’m perfectly willing to design hardware to take advantage of a coins failure to actually be resistant though. The challenge alone is worth it, there are many ways to solve a problem.

What I do think is important is to hold those decisions to scrutiny. Otherwise what you have is smaller coins waving the “hey we are asic resistant!” flag as a marketing tool, hoping to be the next big GPU coin regardless of the validity of the claims.

They need to stand up to public review and get experts in the various disciplines to chime in on their decisions. From what I can tell PHI2 seems to have been developed in secret - and nothing is published on the algorithm itself, which makes me suspect. It also makes it clear that it hasn’t been broadly reviewed and given a chance to  stand on its own merits.

I like you. Now take my money and makes public Bitstreams

[Etherion]

lol yea multiplication and division are the same thing...come on guys

Well, Chuck Norris is known to successfully divide by zero. Maybe he's posting here under an alias? Or maybe he had spread his knowledge of previously illegal operations to the "energy industry" or the "GPU hoarders"? Who knows?

Reference please.

[GPUHoarder]

lol yea multiplication and division are the same thing...come on guys

Well, Chuck Norris is known to successfully divide by zero. Maybe he's posting here under an alias? Or maybe he had spread his knowledge of previously illegal operations to the "energy industry" or the "GPU hoarders"? Who knows?

Reference please.

I missed something - who said multiplication and division are the same thing?  I mean sure multiplication by a reciprocal is the same as division but who is counting.

I generally have a distaste for arguments over semantics and pedantics. It is precisely why I don’t do much in formal mathematics. I fully respect and appreciate the value of and need for such rigour, but it is a means to an end and not the end itself.

[s1gs3gv]

Soon we should have FPGA boards in the realm of GPU costs ($200-600) that “everyone” could buy.

Specs ?

[s1gs3gv]

Anyway, i read all the topic and i'm still very confused, and i'm not the one.

I think the short story is that you're supposed to shell out big bucks for hardware some anonymous programmer you've never met is going to maybe produce code for sometime that may or may not bring a ROI but they'll get their 4% whatever.

And if you think old asics are just space heaters, this hardware won't even keep your basement warm.

[GPUHoarder]

Soon we should have FPGA boards in the realm of GPU costs ($200-600) that “everyone” could buy.

Specs ?

In those price points you won’t see 20+kh Cryptonight and 17GH/s Keccak

You’ll also be dealing with older chips - 28nm variety Xilinx 7 series.

But - you can get performance on par with similarly priced GPUs (at 10% of power)for most of the discussed algorithms. And that’s from a relatively new platform that hasn’t had near the level of optimization. I hesitate to give exact specs yet because things can change between engineering samples and shipping products.

Overall if you have $500 to spend and want to get into FPGAs you can do it profitably, but if you have $5000 you can participate much more profitably $ for $.

[nsummy]

Anyway, i read all the topic and i'm still very confused, and i'm not the one.

I think the short story is that you're supposed to shell out big bucks for hardware some anonymous programmer you've never met is going to maybe produce code for sometime that may or may not bring a ROI but they'll get their 4% whatever.

And if you think old asics are just space heaters, this hardware won't even keep your basement warm.

If you think that is the short story then you are just as confused as the guy you are replying to.

[jimmykl]

Anyway, i read all the topic and i'm still very confused, and i'm not the one.

I think the short story is that you're supposed to shell out big bucks for hardware some anonymous programmer you've never met is going to maybe produce code for sometime that may or may not bring a ROI but they'll get their 4% whatever.

And if you think old asics are just space heaters, this hardware won't even keep your basement warm.

If you think that is the short story then you are just as confused as the guy you are replying to.

Re: your short story. I have shelled out big bucks for GPUs to run miners written by anonymous programmers I've never met either. How is that different?

Ok, this particular anonymous programmer has no public track record, yet. But neither did Claymore et al at some stage.

While it's winter where I am and I appreciate the heat I would far prefer to be able to run more miners on the same circuit and dig a heater out of storage if that's what it takes.

[shanepottermi]

You are wrong.

Well that makes me sad. Mining Lux with an FPGA was the only reason i was following this thread!

[Ginzink]

You are wrong.

Well that makes me sad. Mining Lux with an FPGA was the only reason i was following this thread!

Im not alone in being hyped to mine lux with fpga
But as i just went for ti rigg instead il be happy if they succeed in making it resistant :p Just hope no one bought to mine lux if they do succeed, others pain is not my gain.

[profdd]

Hi,  I'm quite interested in FPGA mining since it's more flexible than ASIC and more productive than GPU/CPU,
waiting for the mining release for FPGA development kit, will look for the way to buy proper FPGA development kit.

I wonder if the FPGA with HBM2 will be the next way we could try? 
 
Found this product:
"BittWare’s XUPSVH is an UltraScale+ VU33P/35P FPGA-based PCIe card.  The UltraScale+ FPGA helps these demanding applications avoid I/O bottlenecks with integrated High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2) tiles on the FPGA that support up to 8 GBytes of memory at 460 GBytes/sec."
 
Shall it have much higher hash rate than VCU1525 development kit (VU9P Virtex UltraScale+ FPGA)?
(Of course, the price and where to buy is also the important issue)

[Mashy81]

The Phi algo change will test the theory that they can adapt the fpga soffware in a matter of hours or days??
Also I don't get why the engineering samples of these boards are cheaper and they can put them in mass production for a higher price?? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[Etherion]

Anyway, i read all the topic and i'm still very confused, and i'm not the one.

I think the short story is that you're supposed to shell out big bucks for hardware some anonymous programmer you've never met is going to maybe produce code for sometime that may or may not bring a ROI but they'll get their 4% whatever.

And if you think old asics are just space heaters, this hardware won't even keep your basement warm.

If you think that is the short story then you are just as confused as the guy you are replying to.

Re: your short story. I have shelled out big bucks for GPUs to run miners written by anonymous programmers I've never met either. How is that different?

Ok, this particular anonymous programmer has no public track record, yet. But neither did Claymore et al at some stage.

While it's winter where I am and I appreciate the heat I would far prefer to be able to run more miners on the same circuit and dig a heater out of storage if that's what it takes.

There is an army of anonymous programmers for CPU/GPU's so your risk is way lower. But FPGAs are totally different and a lot more complex. Claymore only recently started using Assembly in his miners and it gave him a small advantage. But C and C++ are a lot more robust for GPU's so he did not need to use ASM in the beginning. That is not the case for FPGA's.  yes you get C for FPGA's but they are at best rudimentary and VHDL and Verilog are very much alien in comparison. I doubt that GPU's programmers can and will make the jump to FPGA's. As much as an Engish person can easily learn Russian. both are languages but will require significant effort and mind shift!

[cheebeez]

Found this product:
"BittWare’s XUPSVH is an UltraScale+ VU33P/35P FPGA-based PCIe card.  The UltraScale+ FPGA helps these demanding applications avoid I/O bottlenecks with integrated High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2) tiles on the FPGA that support up to 8 GBytes of memory at 460 GBytes/sec."

Each fpga device requires a unique bitstream. Think about it.