Acorn M.2 FPGA based GPU Accelerator

[ZedZedNova]

This thread is 26 days old.
Zero proof it works.
No demos
No videos
No screenshots.

I simply ask the following proof of concept.

What can you show us?




see below you mention pre orders mid june or late june

Looks interesting, do you have an aprox. order/ship date or not yet?

Mid to Late June for all orders and information. First batch ship a few weeks after.

where is the video?

David,

This is great!  Thank you for sharing your information with all of us.  I am really excited to see you develop this product and if it all looks as attractive as it does now whenever pre-ordering comes online then I'll be interested in possibly 10+ depending on performance characteristics as this is tested and developed further.

I guess the only question I have at this point is regarding the tangibility of reporting.  You said you wouldn't want to release some shoddy looking video but do you plan to release at least 'some' video that is of a reasonable quality?  

Other than that, I would just like to share this little write up on M.2 slot tech.  50-650% data transfer boost is really impressive  https://www.howtogeek.com/320421/what-is-the-m.2-expansion-slot/

I’m sure we can produce a video. I’ll never understand why so many people like to watch videos online, but ok

I am reading this now

Can anyone find a link to the Discord server mentioned in the first post?

I think this may be the one

https://discord.gg/3B27dWD

read  discord

  I still don't see a product

I don't see  a way to order

I don't see the boost it gives.

I do see you missed your dates  of mid June to take a preorder  and you are about to miss  the late June you mentioned.

Seems like the Acron M.2 FPGA is in his hand in this post:

https://twitter.com/ohgodagirl/status/1009186435717402624?s=21

That's not the acorn, BCU1525

Correct. In that picture Kristy-Leigh (OhGodAGirl) is holding the VCU1525 (it's unmodified, so VCU) and (I think) Dave (GPUHoarder) is holding the actual FPGA device (XCVU9P-L2FSGD2104E) that is on the VCU1525.

[1713559445]

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[Elder III]

for what it's worth, these same questions come up all the time in the discord channel. GPUHoarder and OhGodAGirl are fairly active, as are a number of other bitstream devs.

Thanks for the nice lengthy post, I knew some of that information already, but you added some new stuff as well.    Would you happen to have a link to join that Discord channel (presuming it's allowed to join)?

[ZedZedNova]

for what it's worth, these same questions come up all the time in the discord channel. GPUHoarder and OhGodAGirl are fairly active, as are a number of other bitstream devs.

Thanks for the nice lengthy post, I knew some of that information already, but you added some new stuff as well.    Would you happen to have a link to join that Discord channel (presuming it's allowed to join)?

My pleasure. Here yah go: https://discord.gg/Usdh6w3

If you are interested, here is the link for the mineority.io discord channel: https://discordapp.com/invite/HnJSDf2

[grendel25]

mineority.io/product/fpga  I know the acorn is a different product.  The point is that the two are VERY connected.  

-- snip --

Nice summary grendel25.

From what I can tell by lurking on the FPGA discord channel:

• FPGA.land is GPUHoarder's endeavor, and he negotiated a deal with Xilinx to buy 5,000 of their VCU1525 dev boards.
• mineority.io and FPGA.land are collaborating, with mineority.io buying 2,000 of the 5,000 boards from FPGA.land.
• There will be mods made to the boards to improve mining performance, especially for better cooling and power, and because of the mods and also to reduce confusion, Xilinx has asked GPUHoarder/OhGodAGirl/whomever to change the name, and that's why you see BCU1525 references.
• The price that you pay for the BCU1525 in fiat is US $3600 through FPGA.land, however they are sold out. The price you pay through mineority.io is also US $3600, but as grendel25 said, mineority.io takes all sorts of crypto, but not fiat.
• Because FPGA.land and mineority.io are collaborating, I believe, if I understand correctly, that you can make an arrangement to pay in fiat to FPGA.land for a BCU to be delivered from mineority.io.
• mineority.io is also offering hosting plans that range from 1-3 years long for an additional sum.
• If you host the BCU1525 with mineority.io you are supposed to have access to their proprietary bitstreams.
• If you host with mineority.io they also extend the warranty out to the length of time that you host with them.
• The Acorn is a GPUHoarder design and sold through squirrelsresearch.com, another website run by GPUHoarder.
• mineority.io is not offering the Acorn, yet. I would be surprised if the Acorn didn't appear in an offering from mineority.io eventually.
• bitstreams for the Acorn will be provided by or through GPUHoarder.
• The Acorn will have an API that mining programs can take advantage of if they are updated to do so. It is unclear which, if any miner devs (z-enemy, dust, ewbf, etc.), have been given the required info and/or pre-seeded with working prototypes to allow Acorn integration to be incorporated into their miners.
• GPUHoarder's team is going to produce a miner.
• No definitive list of what algorithms will be supported yet.
• No definitive collection of performance data with regards to GPUs, motherboards, and algorithms. GPUHoarder has said that he, or his minions, are collecting that data and will release it all at the same time. On the discord channel GPUHoarder has been collecting a number of different motherboards and has taken suggestions/requests for specific boards. I imagine that GPUHoarder has, or has access to, a broad selection of GPUs to test. I have not seen any requests for GPUs to be tested.

for what it's worth, these same questions come up all the time in the discord channel. GPUHoarder and OhGodAGirl are fairly active, as are a number of other bitstream devs.

[ edited to add "power" to the third bullet point so it reads "better cooling and power" ]

Thank you and nice summary by you as well.  There is really a lot going on here.  In November 2017 I was telling anyone that asked me about crypto (I'm like the office expert... ha) that there would be BIG changes in mining.  I was saying that because of all the Samsung rumors but given the way tech changes I'm not surprised we are all sitting here talking about tech that would replace a  GPU mining rig with 1 mining card.  

I guess a question that I have but I think I saw an answer to... this is in regards to bitstream costs.  I want to say there would be some reasonable fee.  OhGodaGirl said jokingly she would remove such fees lol... I just hope the fees are not too high.

It will be interesting to see these pools Kristy-Leigh is talking about.  If it does what they say... they will be rich... oh wait, they said ZERO mining fees on their pools.. idk lol.  Kristy-Leigh is either restoring civility and community to the crypto world or this is the most crewel joke in the world.  If BTC goes back over $20K this year, I'll blame Kristy-Leigh for it!  hehehe

[ZedZedNova]

mineority.io/product/fpga  I know the acorn is a different product.  The point is that the two are VERY connected.  

-- snip --

Nice summary grendel25.

From what I can tell by lurking on the FPGA discord channel:

• FPGA.land is GPUHoarder's endeavor, and he negotiated a deal with Xilinx to buy 5,000 of their VCU1525 dev boards.
• mineority.io and FPGA.land are collaborating, with mineority.io buying 2,000 of the 5,000 boards from FPGA.land.
• There will be mods made to the boards to improve mining performance, especially for better cooling and power, and because of the mods and also to reduce confusion, Xilinx has asked GPUHoarder/OhGodAGirl/whomever to change the name, and that's why you see BCU1525 references.
• The price that you pay for the BCU1525 in fiat is US $3600 through FPGA.land, however they are sold out. The price you pay through mineority.io is also US $3600, but as grendel25 said, mineority.io takes all sorts of crypto, but not fiat.
• Because FPGA.land and mineority.io are collaborating, I believe, if I understand correctly, that you can make an arrangement to pay in fiat to FPGA.land for a BCU to be delivered from mineority.io.
• mineority.io is also offering hosting plans that range from 1-3 years long for an additional sum.
• If you host the BCU1525 with mineority.io you are supposed to have access to their proprietary bitstreams.
• If you host with mineority.io they also extend the warranty out to the length of time that you host with them.
• The Acorn is a GPUHoarder design and sold through squirrelsresearch.com, another website run by GPUHoarder.
• mineority.io is not offering the Acorn, yet. I would be surprised if the Acorn didn't appear in an offering from mineority.io eventually.
• bitstreams for the Acorn will be provided by or through GPUHoarder.
• The Acorn will have an API that mining programs can take advantage of if they are updated to do so. It is unclear which, if any miner devs (z-enemy, dust, ewbf, etc.), have been given the required info and/or pre-seeded with working prototypes to allow Acorn integration to be incorporated into their miners.
• GPUHoarder's team is going to produce a miner.
• No definitive list of what algorithms will be supported yet.
• No definitive collection of performance data with regards to GPUs, motherboards, and algorithms. GPUHoarder has said that he, or his minions, are collecting that data and will release it all at the same time. On the discord channel GPUHoarder has been collecting a number of different motherboards and has taken suggestions/requests for specific boards. I imagine that GPUHoarder has, or has access to, a broad selection of GPUs to test. I have not seen any requests for GPUs to be tested.

for what it's worth, these same questions come up all the time in the discord channel. GPUHoarder and OhGodAGirl are fairly active, as are a number of other bitstream devs.

[ edited to add "power" to the third bullet point so it reads "better cooling and power" ]

Thank you and nice summary by you as well.  There is really a lot going on here.  In November 2017 I was telling anyone that asked me about crypto (I'm like the office expert... ha) that there would be BIG changes in mining.  I was saying that because of all the Samsung rumors but given the way tech changes I'm not surprised we are all sitting here talking about tech that would replace a  GPU mining rig with 1 mining card.  

I guess a question that I have but I think I saw an answer to... this is in regards to bitstream costs.  I want to say there would be some reasonable fee.  OhGodaGirl said jokingly she would remove such fees lol... I just hope the fees are not too high.

It will be interesting to see these pools Kristy-Leigh is talking about.  If it does what they say... they will be rich... oh wait, they said ZERO mining fees on their pools.. idk lol.  Kristy-Leigh is either restoring civility and community to the crypto world or this is the most crewel joke in the world.  If BTC goes back over $20K this year, I'll blame Kristy-Leigh for it!  hehehe

From what I can tell, there are several folks who are writing code for bitstreams that will be free (for the community) and there will be some that charge a dev-fee. I thought I had seen 4% mentioned as a dev fee, but I don't know if that is accurate. I also know that the GPUHoarder bitstreams, and probably the mineority.io bitstreams, will need their secure shell and an eFuse (burned into the BCU1525) to decrypt the bitstreams. 4% may seem high, but in this case there are just 5,000 units, not the tens or hundreds of millions of units of GPUs out there.

I don't know too much about other available bitstreams for the VCU/BCU1525, but I have to imagine that there will be dev fees involved.

So if I had to guess, Kristy-Leigh and OhGodACompany make their money through sales and hosting of the various GPUs they offer to host. Since it appears that OhGodACompany also does development work for GPU based miners, vis-a-vis OhGodAnETHlargementPill (the 1080, 1080Ti, and Titan XP free one is a sample of their custom work), they make money by contracting out their coding skills to private entities. I am also sure that they have a bunch of GPU mining rigs that they use to (cough, cough) test (cough, cough) their code. Who knows, perhaps they are one of the few entities in the crypto world not driven purely by greed, and like you said, are trying to restore civility and community. Then again, maybe they are elevating the scam to levels that BFL could only dream of.    Time will tell.

[grendel25]

Right on ZedZedNova  it's like I'm talking to my twin lol.

I wonder if there will be further VCU1525 sales after the first 5000 are gone or if they'll leave it as an elite FPGA gang.

[lok8nusa]

Right on ZedZedNova  it's like I'm talking to my twin lol.

I wonder if there will be further VCU1525 sales after the first 5000 are gone or if they'll leave it as an elite FPGA gang.

I suspect that there will be subsequent sales, especially if the BCU1525 lives up to projections. Part of the equation is Xilinx; what is their reaction to the crypto-market going to be? So far, they're dipping a toe in. If they like what they see, there shouldn't be a problem getting more from their supply chain, it just takes time.

My problem with the BCU1525 is the pricepoint. I just can't do it in this market. That's why I'm waiting on these Acorns. Some help to make cards a bit more profitable would be a boon.

[grendel25]

Right on ZedZedNova  it's like I'm talking to my twin lol.

I wonder if there will be further VCU1525 sales after the first 5000 are gone or if they'll leave it as an elite FPGA gang.

I suspect that there will be subsequent sales, especially if the BCU1525 lives up to projections. Part of the equation is Xilinx; what is their reaction to the crypto-market going to be? So far, they're dipping a toe in. If they like what they see, there shouldn't be a problem getting more from their supply chain, it just takes time.

My problem with the BCU1525 is the pricepoint. I just can't do it in this market. That's why I'm waiting on these Acorns. Some help to make cards a bit more profitable would be a boon.

Acorns:  yes, profitable... makes my GPUs useful for a while longer.  And... if there were any power efficiency gains from the Acorn (I thought I read that somewhere) then my wife would really be happy lol

On Xilinx... they could be the next bitmain/nvidia boom and it just so happened their stock was in a nice down cycle on some BS news... just saying... lol buying their stock looked attractive regardless of what happens here.

[Vann]

OhGodAGirl in an interview yesterday said Mineority will be raising the BCU1525 FPGA prices in 2-3 weeks, so I would expect once the current batch is sold out the new batch will be priced higher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjhL9XNmHw&feature=youtu.be&t=3979

[lok8nusa]

OhGodAGirl in an interview yesterday said Mineority will be raising the BCU1525 FPGA prices in 2-3 weeks, so I would expect once the current batch is sold out the new batch will be priced higher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjhL9XNmHw&feature=youtu.be&t=3979

I would imagine that if coins are in the tank when the next batch comes out, and if Squirrels Research/Mineority can cut a higher-volume deal with Xilinx, prices could remain at around this level. Of course, if the BCU works really well, demand will drive it upwards.

[GPUHoarder]

OhGodAGirl in an interview yesterday said Mineority will be raising the BCU1525 FPGA prices in 2-3 weeks, so I would expect once the current batch is sold out the new batch will be priced higher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjhL9XNmHw&feature=youtu.be&t=3979

I would imagine that if coins are in the tank when the next batch comes out, and if Squirrels Research/Mineority can cut a higher-volume deal with Xilinx, prices could remain at around this level. Of course, if the BCU works really well, demand will drive it upwards.

Wow lots of activity over here - sorry for not being more attentive to the forum post.

As some have mentioned, there is an extremely active (> 2500 members?) discord focused on FPGAs and a ton of information and updates have been flowing there. Let me try to address the bullet points.

1. Acorn development is deep underway, specifically the production work. A lot of you want these, and I want to make sure you can have them. The good news is that any delay in opening pre-orders hasn’t delayed actual product production. That means at best a shorter wait (and hopefully better crypto market prices) once they do open.

2. I’m not in the business of trying to sell things or push things on people. We’re building things we think are going to be very useful and helpful in the community, and getting all of the information out there before taking anyone’s money is much more important to me than tossing out half-baked hashrates or collecting FOMO money. This information is being gathered now, and includes performance stats tested against a number of host configurations, as well as most GPUs that are out there, across quite a few coins. It also includes full supply chain sourcing so we can have concrete slip-free production dates and batch sizes. As you can imagine this is a lot of work, but we’re getting close and moving as fast as we can!

3. Others have detailed the BCU-1525 project, but the logistics and support effort involved to make sure these are a success for everyone have been pretty extreme. This has had an effect of delaying information (but not production!) for Acorn. We will keep working to get everyone the details they crave.

4. My company (Squirrels, and our hardware/crypto division Squirrels Research) is working closely with a number of great people in the community to make sure all this hardware is as beneficial and well supported as possible. We stand behind everything we’re involved in, and that means working with great people to ensure all that long term support is there. Senseless/AllMine have been working very hard alongside us on the 1525 project, and are bringing a great shell + bitstreams and open development code to the community. We’ve also teamed up with OhGodAGirl (Kristy) and Mineority to help make sure all of these FPGAs are available to those that may have export restrictions or expensive power or are otherwise unable to host themselves. In addition we are sponsoring numerous developers in the community through grants and development hardware/software access to ensure there will eventually be GPU level miner and algorithm support, enabling choice in the community.

5. The BCU-1525 was limited by complete supply chain constraints, as I said early on. We are even right now working extremely hard to meet the targets we have in place.  Even with market pressure those constraints are unlikely to be relieved until late Fall. I would be extremely skeptical of anyone who suggests that they will be bringing a board to market comparable with the 1525 anytime soon, and if they do I would expect significantly lower production volumes. For reference, even building the Acorn accelerator involves massive world-wide efforts to source parts and alternatives that are in some cases fully committed until next June in factory batches.

[bswilmington]

OhGodAGirl in an interview yesterday said Mineority will be raising the BCU1525 FPGA prices in 2-3 weeks, so I would expect once the current batch is sold out the new batch will be priced higher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjhL9XNmHw&feature=youtu.be&t=3979

I would imagine that if coins are in the tank when the next batch comes out, and if Squirrels Research/Mineority can cut a higher-volume deal with Xilinx, prices could remain at around this level. Of course, if the BCU works really well, demand will drive it upwards.

Wow lots of activity over here - sorry for not being more attentive to the forum post.

As some have mentioned, there is an extremely active (> 2500 members?) discord focused on FPGAs and a ton of information and updates have been flowing there. Let me try to address the bullet points.

1. Acorn development is deep underway, specifically the production work. A lot of you want these, and I want to make sure you can have them. The good news is that any delay in opening pre-orders hasn’t delayed actual product production. That means at best a shorter wait (and hopefully better crypto market prices) once they do open.

2. I’m not in the business of trying to sell things or push things on people. We’re building things we think are going to be very useful and helpful in the community, and getting all of the information out there before taking anyone’s money is much more important to me than tossing out half-baked hashrates or collecting FOMO money. This information is being gathered now, and includes performance stats tested against a number of host configurations, as well as most GPUs that are out there, across quite a few coins. It also includes full supply chain sourcing so we can have concrete slip-free production dates and batch sizes. As you can imagine this is a lot of work, but we’re getting close and moving as fast as we can!

3. Others have detailed the BCU-1525 project, but the logistics and support effort involved to make sure these are a success for everyone have been pretty extreme. This has had an effect of delaying information (but not production!) for Acorn. We will keep working to get everyone the details they crave.

4. My company (Squirrels, and our hardware/crypto division Squirrels Research) is working closely with a number of great people in the community to make sure all this hardware is as beneficial and well supported as possible. We stand behind everything we’re involved in, and that means working with great people to ensure all that long term support is there. Senseless/AllMine have been working very hard alongside us on the 1525 project, and are bringing a great shell + bitstreams and open development code to the community. We’ve also teamed up with OhGodAGirl (Kristy) and Mineority to help make sure all of these FPGAs are available to those that may have export restrictions or expensive power or are otherwise unable to host themselves. In addition we are sponsoring numerous developers in the community through grants and development hardware/software access to ensure there will eventually be GPU level miner and algorithm support, enabling choice in the community.

5. The BCU-1525 was limited by complete supply chain constraints, as I said early on. We are even right now working extremely hard to meet the targets we have in place.  Even with market pressure those constraints are unlikely to be relieved until late Fall. I would be extremely skeptical of anyone who suggests that they will be bringing a board to market comparable with the 1525 anytime soon, and if they do I would expect significantly lower production volumes. For reference, even building the Acorn accelerator involves massive world-wide efforts to source parts and alternatives that are in some cases fully committed until next June in factory batches.

Currently what is the estimate of when these will be available for order and when will they be shipped?

[chilliefly]

Please answer if you can.

1. I have 2 free M.2 slots on my mobo "Asus z270a prime" will both slots work?
2. How many GPUs can 1 device help? If you have 2 on a single mobo does it help with straight gains? or just help an additional x cards?
3. Im currently HiveOS and been using many Linux Distros, will this be supported in terms of a how to get it working on linux?
4. My current Setup i have 13 x RX 570 on a single Asus z270a prime with 2 free m.2 slots do you expect to see hash gains on all cards or just "x" amount? What would be your ideal setup in theory (if you can apply it to my setup  i.e run 1 in my setup or 2)? Even if the gains are low but the power draw is significantly reduced would it be reduced on all cards? All cards are at PCIE GEN2

I totally understand it all needs to be tested etc... In just trying to understand if 1-2 cards were implemented how do cards interact.... is there a finite limit in terms of number of cards etc.

Cheers

[TurboShane]

From my understandings each acorn will boost 4 gpu's 30Mh/s so two would gain you an additional 30Mh/s for a total of 60. This is for ETH and that's about it all I know if certain GPU's will gain more or less I guess we have to wait to find out. Who knows what other algo gains will be if any. But it at least looks like it will make the whole system more efficient.

[melpheos]

GPUHoarder interview :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7TLP3MRS8A

At one point he talks about the leverage you can get on you hashrate but also the benefit you gain from power consumption

[TurboShane]

This is the kind of information I want and I'm sure everyone else is looking for.

1) Recommended system requirements

2) Compatibility with different GPU's and Algo's

3) Hashing gains for different Algo's

4) What would be the most optimized setup for the most efficient hashing (power, hashing rate, cost) that would compliment the acorn.

Right now it looks like you would be better off just adding another GPU to the mix but if the Acorn can add hash lower power consumption and increase profits it would be a great purchase and make your mining set more sustainable.

[lok8nusa]

This is the kind of information I want and I'm sure everyone else is looking for.

1) Recommended system requirements

2) Compatibility with different GPU's and Algo's

3) Hashing gains for different Algo's

4) What would be the most optimized setup for the most efficient hashing (power, hashing rate, cost) that would compliment the acorn.

Right now it looks like you would be better off just adding another GPU to the mix but if the Acorn can add hash lower power consumption and increase profits it would be a great purchase and make your mining set more sustainable.

That's what everyone is waiting for.

GPUHoarder is probably afk for a few (3-4) days. There should be news in the near future.

[philipma1957]

well he did say fpga's were stealth mining. in his interview

which means some people  made unreal money  from sept to December 2017

my gut tells me  if you don't have these already you are well behind the curve.

just like most mining gear you get it too late.

I would say  in all the years I have mined 2011 to 2018

I got gpus early for the 2016-2017 runup

and I got knc early for 2013 runup.

and that was it.

I have to think bitmain will have a lot of these running very soon.

I worked with pjs 16 card (1060) build in march of 2018  and he is launching a 16 fpga build for august it will do 224000 for monero7 using fpgas and only 2500 watts.

vegas do 2000  so his build will be like 112 vegas  cost 60k.

100 units up for sale.  my gut is this tech is too late for us

[deskless]

Please answer if you can.

1. I have 2 free M.2 slots on my mobo "Asus z270a prime" will both slots work?
2. How many GPUs can 1 device help? If you have 2 on a single mobo does it help with straight gains? or just help an additional x cards?
3. Im currently HiveOS and been using many Linux Distros, will this be supported in terms of a how to get it working on linux?
4. My current Setup i have 13 x RX 570 on a single Asus z270a prime with 2 free m.2 slots do you expect to see hash gains on all cards or just "x" amount? What would be your ideal setup in theory (if you can apply it to my setup  i.e run 1 in my setup or 2)? Even if the gains are low but the power draw is significantly reduced would it be reduced on all cards? All cards are at PCIE GEN2

I totally understand it all needs to be tested etc... In just trying to understand if 1-2 cards were implemented how do cards interact.... is there a finite limit in terms of number of cards etc.

Cheers

how can you have 13 cards on a single z270a ?

[agarza99]

Is the Acorn just for gpu acceleration? Or can it run on its own? Maybe run multiple acorns on one of those m.2 riser cards. just a thought.