DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI

[Iamtutut]

What kind of acceleration could the 250-350$ boards provide to ETASH mining GPUs ? Would they also work with cryptonote ?

[senseless]

How much would that plug & play FPGA cost ? Excluding shipping and VAT / custom duties.

Listed a couple posts back (USD at least) I’ve got three versions but seems most interest is in the highest speed.

That's the USD 5K board that won't be shipped outside the US ?

We'll be shipping to USA and Canada initially at a price point of $3995.

[gameboy366]

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

[GPUHoarder]

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

The Nexys board is lower speed grade of the $329 board I’m doing, with slower ram and no PCIe for interior with system/GPUs.

Of the two listed, the XCKU040 is more capable in a stand alone fashion  if you’re trying to be involved early. The downside of purchasing a random board is people won’t be making you miners for them like they can with GPUs - development work elaborate tuning etc. has to be done for every board individually.

[bswilmington]

Hi,

Really interesting thread! I am beginning to mine using FGPA boards. I have been GPU and asic mining for the past year or so and have been interested in the FGPA side of things since hearing of it recently. I have purchased a Terasic DE0-Nano-SoC Development and Education Board to begin my learning. Can you say if any of your algo's will be compatible with the board mentioned? 1GB DDR3 ram and ARM dual processor.

Best,

Karl.

The DE0-Nano-SoC is a great board to get into learning this stuff. I have this and a few of the Max10 50kLE boards that I occasionally use for initial RTL hardware evaluation because their just so easy to work with. Vivado and Xilinx’s tools are steeper learning curve, but definitely doable.

With that said, the Cyclone V 5CSEMA4U23C6N on that board is about 1/5th the logic of what I’m proposing and while it has high-speed DMA to the ARM cores, it doesn’t have any high speed IO such as PCIe to other peripherals. That makes it tough to use outside of single small algorithms (I.e. Keccak).  The $199 version of the M.2 has ~100 Logic Elements and the $329 version has more than 200, capable of running at higher speed. The top package also has 1GB DDR3. Peak power consumption is around 15W from on-board M.2


Here’s an update summary for those catching up on this thread:

1. A few of us have been working on algorithms on FPGAs, and they’re profitable. Whitefire990 intents to release his with miner/dev fee and others of us have decided to share with the community in various forms as well.

2. On the high end the VCU1525, based on the VU9P is a very good candidate for this. It is currently a Xilinx development board on promotion for $3995, but only very small batches are being produced and the price is set to go up. Some algorithms require connecting multiple with high speed links to achieve the best performance.

3. Senseless (and possibly self, if I can be helpful) have been organizing essentially a group buy - but with FPGAs it’s less of a group buy and more of a group build. That is expected to ramp up the VCU1525 style (some power/cooling improvements)  availblility in a similar price envelope to Xilinx dev version. Working on production in US and Europe so it can be available everywhere.

4. I’ve also decided to reveal one of the smaller FPGA options in the $200-350 price envelope that I had developed for internal use and deploy, to provide an entry level option. It has a slightly different set of capabilities from the big VCU1525, but for many things it does scale.

For both hardware offerings from the community (and possibly others) orders are expected to start in June.

These boards are not so much for Ethash (though they can be used to assist/accelerate GPUs in it) , or Equihash. They excel , can improve total system performance on, or are at an advantage on Keccak (and most SHA3 candidate) , Phi variants, NIST5, Timetravel10, Lyra/LyraRev2, etc.

Someone else can chime in if I missed anything.

That sounds great. Can these be used to accelerate X16R used for raven?  Or could you tell me what are the more profitable coins to run?  Don’t know much about keecak, mist, etc algorithm coins.

[gameboy366]

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

The Nexys board is lower speed grade of the $329 board I’m doing, with slower ram and no PCIe for interior with system/GPUs.

Of the two listed, the XCKU040 is more capable in a stand alone fashion  if you’re trying to be involved early. The downside of purchasing a random board is people won’t be making you miners for them like they can with GPUs - development work elaborate tuning etc. has to be done for every board individually.

How can there be an online download and play solution that OP is proposing if you are saying that each board has to be tuned individually.

Do you think that it's worth it to stock the XCKU040 (at the price listed) as the shopkeeper has only 1 left in stock.

And will you ship your board to Asian countries too ?

And do you think it's worth it for me who knows very very basic Java, C, python to spend my time learning to program FPGAs for mining ? (I am quick learner)

[badfad]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

[GPUHoarder]

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

I can purchase AVNET AES-KU040-DB-G for $1250 and Nexys video Artix 7 for $472 from a retail shop in my city. I know the prices are high compared to US but I won't get big boards any time soon. So are these board any good ? I can purchase them tomorrow.

The Nexys board is lower speed grade of the $329 board I’m doing, with slower ram and no PCIe for interior with system/GPUs.

Of the two listed, the XCKU040 is more capable in a stand alone fashion  if you’re trying to be involved early. The downside of purchasing a random board is people won’t be making you miners for them like they can with GPUs - development work elaborate tuning etc. has to be done for every board individually.

How can there be an online download and play solution that OP is proposing if you are saying that each board has to be tuned individually.

Do you think that it's worth it to stock the XCKU040 (at the price listed) as the shopkeeper has only 1 left in stock.

And will you ship your board to Asian countries too ?

And do you think it's worth it for me who knows very very basic Java, C, python to spend my time learning to program FPGAs for mining ? (I am quick learner)

Each board design has to be tuned individually, unless two boards are specifically designed to be compatible.

If you are interested in learning and can afford the cost of entry and want it now, personally I would buy that board. There are some open Keccak designs that you could reasonably get setup to make a little bit and amortize the cost of getting the board over time. The skills you will learn are more valuable than the board.

[GPUHoarder]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

[Iamtutut]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

Next gen Radeon Vega is rumored to have up to 1.28 Terabyte/s mem bandwith. IS there any FPGA (or announced) that would pull the same kind of perf ?

[senseless]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

Next gen Radeon Vega is rumored to have up to 1.28 Terabyte/s mem bandwith. IS there any FPGA (or announced) that would pull the same kind of perf ?

The ultraram on the FPGA collectively have a total memory bandwidth of 5.1TB/s. The HBM2 on the next generation FPGA will have the same bandwidth as the vegas with HBM2 and those chips will still have ultraram on top of that.

[Iamtutut]

Very impressive !! When are these FPGA monsters supposed to be launched ?

[senseless]

Very impressive !! When are these FPGA monsters supposed to be launched ?

I'm launching sales in a week. We're trying to get a group collaboration going between all of the individual parties who have been secretly mining on amazon fpgas for the last year. Hopefully we'll be able to drop pricing of the boards even further to make them even more cost competitive when compared to GPUs.

GPUHoarder is doing some pretty interesting things with FPGA and GPUs. I believe he will have some unique products of his own coming to market.

[krnlx]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

Next gen Radeon Vega is rumored to have up to 1.28 Terabyte/s mem bandwith. IS there any FPGA (or announced) that would pull the same kind of perf ?

The ultraram on the FPGA collectively have a total memory bandwidth of 5.1TB/s. The HBM2 on the next generation FPGA will have the same bandwidth as the vegas with HBM2 and those chips will still have ultraram on top of that.

LOL VCU1525 has only 33 MB of uram - it is nothing. This price overvalued FPGA's can mine only few algos. If the anti-asic and anti-fpga policy will be continued, this FPGA will mine nothing.
Main problem is small amount of high speed RAM and small amount of LUT. This is kicking out a lot of actual algos like equihash, ethash, CN-v7, X17, X16r, Lyra2Z, leaving fpgas with primitive low-profit algos like keccak, tribus, skunkhash, lyra2v2, etc.

[1000_Ohms]

Hi,

Really interesting thread! I am beginning to mine using FGPA boards. I have been GPU and asic mining for the past year or so and have been interested in the FGPA side of things since hearing of it recently. I have purchased a Terasic DE0-Nano-SoC Development and Education Board to begin my learning. Can you say if any of your algo's will be compatible with the board mentioned? 1GB DDR3 ram and ARM dual processor.

Best,

Karl.

The DE0-Nano-SoC is a great board to get into learning this stuff. I have this and a few of the Max10 50kLE boards that I occasionally use for initial RTL hardware evaluation because their just so easy to work with. Vivado and Xilinx’s tools are steeper learning curve, but definitely doable.

With that said, the Cyclone V 5CSEMA4U23C6N on that board is about 1/5th the logic of what I’m proposing and while it has high-speed DMA to the ARM cores, it doesn’t have any high speed IO such as PCIe to other peripherals. That makes it tough to use outside of single small algorithms (I.e. Keccak).  The $199 version of the M.2 has ~100 Logic Elements and the $329 version has more than 200, capable of running at higher speed. The top package also has 1GB DDR3. Peak power consumption is around 15W from on-board M.2


Here’s an update summary for those catching up on this thread:

1. A few of us have been working on algorithms on FPGAs, and they’re profitable. Whitefire990 intents to release his with miner/dev fee and others of us have decided to share with the community in various forms as well.

2. On the high end the VCU1525, based on the VU9P is a very good candidate for this. It is currently a Xilinx development board on promotion for $3995, but only very small batches are being produced and the price is set to go up. Some algorithms require connecting multiple with high speed links to achieve the best performance.

3. Senseless (and possibly self, if I can be helpful) have been organizing essentially a group buy - but with FPGAs it’s less of a group buy and more of a group build. That is expected to ramp up the VCU1525 style (some power/cooling improvements)  availblility in a similar price envelope to Xilinx dev version. Working on production in US and Europe so it can be available everywhere.

4. I’ve also decided to reveal one of the smaller FPGA options in the $200-350 price envelope that I had developed for internal use and deploy, to provide an entry level option. It has a slightly different set of capabilities from the big VCU1525, but for many things it does scale.

For both hardware offerings from the community (and possibly others) orders are expected to start in June.

These boards are not so much for Ethash (though they can be used to assist/accelerate GPUs in it) , or Equihash. They excel , can improve total system performance on, or are at an advantage on Keccak (and most SHA3 candidate) , Phi variants, NIST5, Timetravel10, Lyra/LyraRev2, etc.

Someone else can chime in if I missed anything.

GPUHoarder,

A few of questions on your GPU acceleration option,
1) do you have a sense for the range of acceleration if I'm using AMD RX550s and 5X660s producing 480 - 500 h/s?
2)  will it be possible to adapt the acceleration to the Cryptonight Heavy (SumoKoin) variant in the future?
3) Will the solution include a developer donation during mining or just the up-front cost? 

Thank you,

Chuck

[TiaLin]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

Next gen Radeon Vega is rumored to have up to 1.28 Terabyte/s mem bandwith. IS there any FPGA (or announced) that would pull the same kind of perf ?

The ultraram on the FPGA collectively have a total memory bandwidth of 5.1TB/s. The HBM2 on the next generation FPGA will have the same bandwidth as the vegas with HBM2 and those chips will still have ultraram on top of that.

LOL VCU1525 has only 33 MB of uram - it is nothing. This price overvalued FPGA's can mine only few algos. If the anti-asic and anti-fpga policy will be continued, this FPGA will mine nothing.
Main problem is small amount of high speed RAM and small amount of LUT. This is kicking out a lot of actual algos like equihash, ethash, CN-v7, X17, X16r, Lyra2Z, leaving fpgas with primitive low-profit algos like keccak, tribus, skunkhash, lyra2v2, etc.

33MB is a lot for on chip memory. VCU1525 also have up to 64GB of DDR4.

[krnlx]

What happens if coins move to ethash-like algorithms where the efficiency gains would be alot smaller?

That’s the nature of crypto, you have to decide what risks and opportunities are right for you. Currently what I’m proposing plays well in the acceleration role with GPUs for those algorithms. In 9-12 months both FPGAs and GPUs will be shipping with similar memory bandwidth and then FPGAs (imho) will be winning on power.

Next gen Radeon Vega is rumored to have up to 1.28 Terabyte/s mem bandwith. IS there any FPGA (or announced) that would pull the same kind of perf ?

The ultraram on the FPGA collectively have a total memory bandwidth of 5.1TB/s. The HBM2 on the next generation FPGA will have the same bandwidth as the vegas with HBM2 and those chips will still have ultraram on top of that.

LOL VCU1525 has only 33 MB of uram - it is nothing. This price overvalued FPGA's can mine only few algos. If the anti-asic and anti-fpga policy will be continued, this FPGA will mine nothing.
Main problem is small amount of high speed RAM and small amount of LUT. This is kicking out a lot of actual algos like equihash, ethash, CN-v7, X17, X16r, Lyra2Z, leaving fpgas with primitive low-profit algos like keccak, tribus, skunkhash, lyra2v2, etc.

33MB is a lot for on chip memory. VCU1525 also have up to 64GB of DDR4.

DDR4 is slow. You cannot use it for ethash or CN-7

[Iamtutut]

Very impressive !! When are these FPGA monsters supposed to be launched ?

I'm launching sales in a week. We're trying to get a group collaboration going between all of the individual parties who have been secretly mining on amazon fpgas for the last year. Hopefully we'll be able to drop pricing of the boards even further to make them even more cost competitive when compared to GPUs.

GPUHoarder is doing some pretty interesting things with FPGA and GPUs. I believe he will have some unique products of his own coming to market.

I mean the next gen FPGAs

I fear the current generatrion might be too limited in terms of bandwith, with algos hard forking they increase memory usage.

[Iamtutut]

DDR4 is slow. You cannot use it for ethash or CN-7

Etash nope, but CN-7 you can at ease. 700H/s for stock ryzen 2600X If I remember correctly what I read here. that's with lower than 3000MHz mem. Best mem can achieve 4200MHz, giving 107.52 GB/s bandwith.

[krnlx]

DDR4 is slow. You cannot use it for ethash or CN-7

Etash nope, but CN-7 you can at ease. 700H/s for stock ryzen 2600X If I remember correctly what I read here. that's with lower than 3000MHz mem. Best mem can achieve 4200MHz, giving 107.52 GB/s bandwith.

CPU miners use L3 cache, not DDR ram. On pure DDR ram(or on cpu with little amount of cache) it will be slow