Acorn M.2 FPGA based GPU Accelerator

[philipma1957]

I would have like to see you test the 4 card board.

At this moment I am just hoping they fix the error and credit me for the order made for the 2 card board and the 1 215+

The mineority had smoother orders and sold me an august batch.

the 215+ from squirrels is listed for september.

I can not justify  ordering september gear.  So I am done for now.

I did get an email from squirrels it was an auto bot.

I will let you know what they do about the canceled order and the funds I have paid.

[1714777339]

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[1714777339]

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[aironeous]

Please clarify this in your description of the CLE-101

"Your GPU rigs can mine Ethash and CryptoNight V1 coins like Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Monero or Electroneum better simply by adding Acorn CLE-101 to the mix."

Electroneum and Monero are not using the same algo/variant. Electroneum just forked back to being asic friendly because they weren't getting enough gpu miners to keep transactions fast and nicehash renters were taking advantage of the low diff by renting massive amounts of hash when it was low and leaving when it was high after they drove it up high.

[dsmn]

Hmm I did some digging and did some numbers, its a shame there is no performance numbers out on ethereum yet.

1, Acorn can run from at full speed on x4 pcie 2.0 slot without any limits.
2, Technicaly you should be able to use something like the AsRock ULTRA QUAD M.2 CARD in a x16 slot to feed 4 acorns. But another sulution with its own pcie switch would most likely be better supported since not all motherboards can split the x16 slot into 4 x4 lanes.
3, So 4 acorns should be able to boost without bottlenecks 8 gpu's each on x2 pcie 2.0 slots.

Whats left todo.
4, Specs says the 2 bigger ones is not suited for ethash, is that just because they are OP for that, can you buy the bigger ones mine ethash now, and have that extra security when ethash goes pos?
5, In case of such a setup on most cheap boards the acorns would be on the processors pcie hub, and the gpu's on the chipsets pcie hub, they link together via dmi as faar as i remember, can it even handle these speeds?
6, Find some cheap motherboard with x8 slots.

Or am i on the complete wrong track here ?

[fvineyard]

I placed two orders today. One this afternoon for the Acorn and one this evening for the Acorn Nest. The website was a little funky with formatting in Chrome and this afternoon it was a little slow with the flurry of activity, but both orders appeared to go through just fine and no issues with payments.

[ronnieb]

Why not set up 32 Acorn CLE 215+s on a octominer and let them mine by themselves using little power.

[dsmn]

Why not set up 32 Acorn CLE 215+s on a octominer and let them mine by themselves using little power.

I think most are looking to boost their gpu's for a little reinvestment, the solo mining is a bit iffy since pretty much anything an fpga can solo mine, you can make an asic for, so its highly speculative

[dsmn]

The info is just to little on these devices, like for example it does not tell if you can use the 2 bigger ones for ethereum or moneo, with only 50% more in price i guess more than me would be intrested in buying the bigger ones, using them for eth, for then to be able to fall back to something else when eth goes pos.

It does not tell the exact bandwidth requirements so you can properly build a system it wont bottleneck in, the only thing we really know is that 4 pcie 2.0 lanes should be enough, and we can then only guess from what people here say for example that it "should" be able to boost 2 1060's, and if so then x2 slots must be required for them.

Its a shame but I think im gona skip this one and check back in in august.

[philipma1957]

Why not set up 32 Acorn CLE 215+s on a octominer and let them mine by themselves using little power.

Board does not have enough quality slots.

I think 3.0 pcie are better then 1.0 pcie

I am not sure that board is good enough.

This gear looks like 2card and 4card holders on boards may kick ass.

[Elder III]

Why not set up 32 Acorn CLE 215+s on a octominer and let them mine by themselves using little power.

The Octominer is completely starved of PCIE Lanes, which is precisely what you need to run lots of Acorns. 

The Acorn 215+ needs PCIE 2.0 x4 (or equivalent) speed to operate and ideally the GPU(s) it is paired with would have that speed as well.  Every mining specific motherboard that I am aware of limits you to 1x speed (either gen. 2.0 or 3.0), which is too slow to be as effective.

Take a few minutes to research PCI Express lanes, what the different generations are relative to each other speed wise.  Then research your motherboard(s) and see how many PCIE lanes it has (don't forget ones from the CPU too) and how are they routed on your motherboard.  You will find that the cheaper motherboards that we like to get as miners are poorly suited for Acorn acceleration.

[GaryH]

Can someone clarify the requirement for Acorn in relation to PCIE bandwidth? I know the Acorn itself is M.2 but do the GPUs it accelerates have to be on full speed PCIE slots, ie. can Acorn accelerate GPUs that are on 1X risers?

I have AMD and NVIDIA rigs on Asrock BTC 110+ plus boards with various numbers of GPUs on them using 1x risers. This board has has an M.2 slot I can put an Acorn into but I am not clear if the Acorn requires the target GPUs to be on a faster PCIE connection

probably best to join the discord, I believe since every setup is a bit different it's hard to say:    https://discord.gg/jdw8jZB

THX- I am on this forum and Discord and finding it hard to navigate the info. I asked the same question in Discord and was referred to the FAQ, I think I will sit this one out

go to the #gpuhoarder-products  channel... you can always do a search in the upper right in discord

[philipma1957]

I have multiple boards for these that have the right lanes.

I wish the order would be corrected as I may go for 2 more 215+ and a second 2 card holder.

[Elder III]

We ordered some to pair with our GTX 1080 Ti models (and a few Vegas).  The plan is to have 6 Acorn 215+ paired with 6 GTX 1080 Ti on a ASUS Prime 370-A motherboard, using the ASUS Hyper x6 addon card for 4 Acorns (since that motherboard does support Bifurcation) and 2 Acorns on the M.2 slots on the motherboard itself.  If need be we can spread them out over more motherboards since we currently have more motherboards then GPUs on hand.

[bitcoinbromo]

We ordered some to pair with our GTX 1080 Ti models (and a few Vegas).  The plan is to have 6 Acorn 215+ paired with 6 GTX 1080 Ti on a ASUS Prime 370-A motherboard, using the ASUS Hyper x6 addon card for 4 Acorns (since that motherboard does support Bifurcation) and 2 Acorns on the M.2 slots on the motherboard itself.  If need be we can spread them out over more motherboards since we currently have more motherboards then GPUs on hand.

How would that work with only 3 x16 slots 8/8/4 and 4 x1 slots (which to my understanding are useless for the acorn)?


Also, what is everyone else intending to use for a mobo? I can't seem to find any affordable options with more than 3 x16 slots and 2 M2 slots, one of which is usually in the way of a x16 slot.

[fvineyard]

I am curious on how to accomplish 6x 1080ti and 6x Acorns on the Asus Prime myself. I have a similar mobo as far as slots and most features in the Asus Maximus Formula X. Of course I know now (after reading the manual - Asus web page did not list my board as compatible) that I could use the ASUS Hyper x16 card which is cheaper than the Acorn Nest options but I was concerned about the PCIe lanes limited to 16 for the 8700k and the motherboard.

[dsmn]

Looks like the cheapest solution for a big setup will be the "Nest X2G"

You could have 3x Nest X2G 6x acorn and 6x gpu, and it will fit fine in any motherboard with 3x pcie x4 3.0.

[KaydenC]

We ordered some to pair with our GTX 1080 Ti models (and a few Vegas).  The plan is to have 6 Acorn 215+ paired with 6 GTX 1080 Ti on a ASUS Prime 370-A motherboard, using the ASUS Hyper x6 addon card for 4 Acorns (since that motherboard does support Bifurcation) and 2 Acorns on the M.2 slots on the motherboard itself.  If need be we can spread them out over more motherboards since we currently have more motherboards then GPUs on hand.

How would that work with only 3 x16 slots 8/8/4 and 4 x1 slots (which to my understanding are useless for the acorn)?


Also, what is everyone else intending to use for a mobo? I can't seem to find any affordable options with more than 3 x16 slots and 2 M2 slots, one of which is usually in the way of a x16 slot.

I'm not jumping in due lack of afforable mobo options too. Waiting for an epyc mobo with 7x pcie 16x slots and 3x m2 slots for $300 - $400.
Imo Antminer z9 mini for $650 with coupons is a better place to invest than 2 acorns right now.

[dsmn]

There is one thing I keep thinking, the Acorn Nest X4 can run from a x16 2.0 interface, so if each acorn fpga card can boost 2 lower end gpu's like 1060 1070 and RX570 you should be able to use for example TB250-BTC PRO its x1 ports runs pcie 3.0, so 8 gpu in 8 of those x1 3.0 ports fits the speed the acorns is gona sit on with its x16 pcie 2.0 limit.

[N2DCRYPT]

There is one thing I keep thinking, the Acorn Nest X4 can run from a x16 2.0 interface, so if each acorn fpga card can boost 2 lower end gpu's like 1060 1070 and RX570 you should be able to use for example TB250-BTC PRO its x1 ports runs pcie 3.0, so 8 gpu in 8 of those x1 3.0 ports fits the speed the acorns is gona sit on with its x16 pcie 2.0 limit.

There's no way the LGA1151 socket has enough pcie lanes coming from the chipset to run that many GPUs on the 3.0 protocol.

[Elder III]

We ordered some to pair with our GTX 1080 Ti models (and a few Vegas).  The plan is to have 6 Acorn 215+ paired with 6 GTX 1080 Ti on a ASUS Prime 370-A motherboard, using the ASUS Hyper x6 addon card for 4 Acorns (since that motherboard does support Bifurcation) and 2 Acorns on the M.2 slots on the motherboard itself.  If need be we can spread them out over more motherboards since we currently have more motherboards then GPUs on hand.

How would that work with only 3 x16 slots 8/8/4 and 4 x1 slots (which to my understanding are useless for the acorn)?


Also, what is everyone else intending to use for a mobo? I can't seem to find any affordable options with more than 3 x16 slots and 2 M2 slots, one of which is usually in the way of a x16 slot.

I'm not jumping in due lack of afforable mobo options too. Waiting for an epyc mobo with 7x pcie 16x slots and 3x m2 slots for $300 - $400.
Imo Antminer z9 mini for $650 with coupons is a better place to invest than 2 acorns right now.

I was going to type something up, but this quote from discord already says everything I was going to.

"but anyways if it's a 2.0 riser max 4gpu to 1 acorn density, if it's 3.0 link speed then it's up to 2 gpu to 1 acorn density.  But the proper balance for a particular algo means doing the math with the numbers on the chart
if you are on a full x4 connection then you can go up to 1:1 density
or more if the gpu on x8 or w/e
1:2"

Also, the Z370 chipset has up to 40 PCIe lanes, not 16.


The drop from PCIE 2.0 x4 to PCIE 3.0 x 1 is reported as not being too bad, but in any case we will be testing it to see. If the numbers are too much worse we have other motherboards to spread out our 1080 Ti GPUs with 1 to 1 Acorns ratio.  I got a Threadripper 1950X recently for some personal workstation use, so we may play around with that too (some really nice possibilities there with 64 PCIE lanes for Acorns and GPUs).

[dsmn]

There's no way the LGA1151 socket has enough pcie lanes coming from the chipset to run that many GPUs on the 3.0 protocol.

Ehm, the x1 ports those mining boards have is from the chipset. the cpu just run the big x16 port.
So in my case it would be 4x acorns on pcie 3.0 x16 via the cpu's pcie hub on the x16 port.
And then data over dmi to the x1 ports to the gpu's.

EDIT B250 have 12 pcie 3.0 lanes.