ZTEX USB-FPGA Modules 1.15x and 1.15y: 215 and 860 MH/s FPGA Boards

[ztex]

A few word about the possibility of reselling:

This FPGA Board become inefficient (higher power costs than returns) when bitcoin mining is dominated by future generation FPGA's (even upcoming GPU's will not be as efficient as current FPGA's). If that ever happens it will take a very long time due to the high investment costs.

In other words, it will take a very long time until these FPGA board become inefficient (if that ever happens). Then the boards are to outdated in order to sell them.

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[ztex]

I expect the FPGA vendors could probably improve their sales by offering tools for other applications, just to increase customer confidence that the FPGAs are useful for things other than mining.  DES reversing and WPA cracking are obvious things that come to mind. ...

GSM hacking and computation of rainbow tables are other cryptographic applications. But I will not implement ready-to-use solutions for this due to moral reasons (could help governments to tyrannize their people)

lack of fast IO limits SDR applications, lack of memory and fast IO limits imaging applications, these are best for crypto.

At http://www.ztex.de you can also find boards for these applications.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I expect the FPGA vendors could probably improve their sales by offering tools for other applications, just to increase customer confidence that the FPGAs are useful for things other than mining.  DES reversing and WPA cracking are obvious things that come to mind. ...

GSM hacking and computation of rainbow tables are other cryptographic applications. But I will not implement ready-to-use solutions for this due to moral reasons (could help governments to tyrannize their people)

You are aware that keeping things secret only HELP governments.  If the government wants to crack GSM it will crack GSM.  They won't be buying your product to do so.  They will be employing their own cryptographers.

Hiding things in secrecy only help governments.  Information in the open levels the playing field.  If GSM is cracked IN SECRET then nobody knows and the govt can spy without public knowledge.  If GSM is cracked IN PUBLIC then the public is at least aware of the danger and hopefully public pressure pushes for superior algorithm which can't be cracked.  This may in fact defeat a govt program which has already cracked GSM by bringing public attention to the vulnerability.

An example would be WEP.  WEP was horribly flawed.  It would have provided no resistance to any govt program.  However the wifi industry claimed it was secure.  Hell it is the Wired Equivelency Protocol.  It is as secure as a wireline.   Had it not been broken publicly and so spectacularly to make it the laughing stock of the industry and public WPA may never have been developed.

If you want to protect citizens from governments then make information free (free as in free speech not free beer).

[m3sSh3aD]

Whats this?

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/10/25/xilinx-sets-new-fpga-record/

[ztex]

You are aware that keeping things secret only HELP governments.  If the government wants to crack GSM it will crack GSM.  They won't be buying your product to do so.  They will be employing their own cryptographers.

The fact that GSM can be hacked is known since several years. AFAIR it was published by group of scientists from Israel.

Publishing ready-to-use software would just reduce the amount of effort required to abuse this technology.

[ztex]

Whats this?

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/10/25/xilinx-sets-new-fpga-record/

It's a link

Virtex FPGA's are to expensive for bitcoin mining. They contain a lot of features which are not required for bitcoin mining, e.g. multiplicators and high speed serial I/O's.

[m3sSh3aD]

ah, thanks for the explanation

[rph]

If you search for an assembler and build an 50 GH/s rig, the price is about $1.02 per MH/s.

Heh, if you could reach that $/MH on a 15GH/s build (or close),
and mentioned it a few months ago, it could have saved me quite a lot of time  

-rph

[DeathAndTaxes]

If you search for an assembler and build an 50 GH/s rig, the price is about $1.02 per MH/s.

Heh, if you could reach that $/MH on a 15GH/s build (or close),

Just find 2 other people you are willing to trust with $10K+ and split a 50 GH/s run. 

[Chaseshaw]

What model 5830? that's pretty impressive. care to share your secrets? phoenix 1.6.4 with phatk2 and overclocked only gets me to about 270.

25% less on your build?  That's impressive.  Care to share your secrets?

(sorry for the OT tangent)

5830s overclocked (and carefully clock managed, but not overvoltaged, 324MH/s) bought in bulk, 6x to a board, slowest cpu, network booting, a lot of careful tweaking. All other parts cut to a minimum. GPUs screwed to a wooden frame many linear feet long spaced as wide as possible. Ribbons ordered from hong-kong and shipped on the slow boat. I'm also fairly power efficient for a gpu setup— you can gain a fair bit by careful psu selection and running at 240v.  (and good power quality is important for stability at high clock rates)

Total cost per node are 109*6 (gpus) + 210 (mb) + 4*6 (ribbons) + 60 (cpu/ram)  + 100 (power) + 8 (marginal price of a ethernet switch port) = $1056 plus some modest shipping costs and a negligible amount of wood and screws.  yields 1944 MH/s.  Er. That a bit better than I said, though its a bit closer once you throw in some for shipping.

I'm ambivalent about the resale value of the FPGAs. If BTC was no longer viable or you just wanted to get out of the game, I think you would take a much bigger hit on the residual value of the FPGAs than a GPU.

Its hard to say. There are a lot of gpu miners... and once the cards are a couple generations old I expect an influx of used cards (especially a lot of lemon used cards that have been driven hard and not well cooled as many miners are guilty of) will undermine the used market price. It's hard to guess by how much.  These ATI GPUs are only so vastly superior to the alternatives for a few apps.. a lot of gamers would rather have nvidia.

If you want to build a DES cracker however, then that FPGA will be a pretty smoking solution.  I expect the FPGA vendors could probably improve their sales by offering tools for other applications, just to increase customer confidence that the FPGAs are useful for things other than mining.  DES reversing and WPA cracking are obvious things that come to mind. ... lack of fast IO limits SDR applications, lack of memory and fast IO limits imaging applications, these are best for crypto.

[ztex]

A description (with a few images) about how a standard ATX PSU can be modified in order to power a cluster of FPGA board has been added to the initial post.

[DeathAndTaxes]

A description (with a few images) about how a standard ATX PSU can be modified in order to power a cluster of FPGA board has been added to the initial post.

Nice.  I likely will need to wait until after the first of the year but I am interesting in pickup up 10 boards.  A single ATX powersupply makes it a lot easier to keep them managed.  You got any good ideas for mounting 10 boards in a standard ATX case?

[ztex]

You got any good ideas for mounting 10 boards in a standard ATX case?

IMHO an ATX case is not suitable for this purpose. Best way is to build your own case with material from DIY store.

The easiest solution is to purchase a shelf from the DIY market and put everything in it. The FPGA boards can be mounted with standoffs. Of course, this in not very beautiful and wastes space. (But at At least the hash rate per cubic meter should not be much less than with a GPU rig )

[Turbor]

Pulled the trigger on one of your boards. ZTEX seems to have a very good customer service + he speaks my language (in case of problems)

FPGA is the future here in Switzerland.

[m3sSh3aD]

Pulled the trigger on one of your boards. ZTEX seems to have a very good customer service + he speaks my language (in case of problems)

FPGA is the future here in Switzerland.

Thats a rather silly statement imo as its obvious FPGA is better. No offence We just need more people PRODUCING them, then comes lower prices. Seen as silicon shouldn't have even gone below 40nm, never mind the ridiculous crap we have now that wont last. 22nm is an achievement, 14nm, which intel currently as in its possession is absurd. I wouldn't even like to think about all the problems there having. The fact is silicon as been dead for 5-10 years, hence multi threading (which IS NOT THE ANSWER). The fact that theres been a replacement at alot lesser cost, heat, power and production cost that will even work with the modern tools we use for silicon is due to the powers that be and now were at the end of a could-e-sac with nowhere to go. Gallium Arsenide as been around for ages and research as been made (little) which would have stem'd the gap until we get the graphine process sorted. Now, were stuck here with no advance in technology and Intel/TSMC/Global Foundaries/Samsung/IBM etc etc all spending silly money on a technology (silicon based processors) with little or no improvement over the generation before. Most release 2 chips on the same node these days, This is just a scam. Yes, its 'improved' but its NOT NEW! If they plummeted as much money into Gallium Arsenide as they have with silicon just to get it down to the nm we have now, we would have some serious advancement. As it stands, It's been stagnebt for the last decade. Hell, i only got back interested cause of Bitcoins

Now, FPGA as got to be the future for bitcoin minung, Simple fact is its like ARM vs x86(x64), ones made for performance per watt. the other is chuck it all in and dont worry to much about consumption. In the end, although expensive right now, the risk takers will profit from getting involved with FPGA.

Also, AMD is shifting to CGN architecture which will be devistating for BC mining. Less cores which can do more. Good for games/folding @home but devastating for bitcoing mining. I expect all radeon HD8xxx to be based on the new CGN and not VLIM4 or VLIM5 so if you ask me, FPGA is the only way forward for bitcoing mining.

Of cause, this is my own collected knowledge and my opinion but i see where technology is and as been for a long time. There's been no progression really, Your just all been hood winked with PR and Sales tactics. AMD's Bulldozer is the perfect example that multi threading ISNT upgrading the CPU, it just allows software (Incredibly complicated software and HORRID to work with) to take advantage of having multiple cores. Multiple slower and slower cores. BACKWARDS! Thats why your 5 year old PC still works as good as a new one and you have no need to upgrade. I'm afraid that every-thing's getting so dumbed down, people who like to mess and play with there hardware just wont be able to in the future because of all the lock downs made by companies such as apple and intel alike. They even employ the people who do hack them, Clever move in all honesty. Bad for us, the consumers that actually care about technology though All going integrated bull crap

[Turbor]

Pulled the trigger on one of your boards. ZTEX seems to have a very good customer service + he speaks my language (in case of problems)

FPGA is the future here in Switzerland.

Thats a rather silly statement imo as its obvious FPGA is better. No offence ...

  i can live with that. Better is always a question of your point of view. But with 20+ cents in power cost it's no question what's better for me. I can shutdown my 5850s anytime and use them to watch movies or whatever. But for others with more effective cards and cheaper power cost it may be a different story. To each his own.

[m3sSh3aD]

Pulled the trigger on one of your boards. ZTEX seems to have a very good customer service + he speaks my language (in case of problems)

FPGA is the future here in Switzerland.

Thats a rather silly statement imo as its obvious FPGA is better. No offence ...

  i can live with that. Better is always a question of your point of view. But with 20+ cents in power cost it's no question what's better for me. I can shutdown my 5850s anytime and use them to watch movies or whatever. But for others with more effective cards and cheaper power cost it may be a different story. To each his own.

Burning 8 5850's and 2 5870's here at moment, But recently found more interesting things to invest in and going away for 2 months to india end of the year so its all on hold for now But FPGA is undoubtedly going take over if AMD go down the path that Nvidia have (Less core more complex algorithms or what not) which is what the 79XX cards will be. 78XX may just be the last good BTC mining card..... I hope not, but extra power isnt needed with current software (normal users) not even pushing last gen's tech (although both 40nm). Hell, the gen before (4xxx) can even still hold its own in most things. Fact is more cores are not needed which is why they are heading into the CGN architecture in the first place. Its just another bit of tech going stale and rotten with no real world 'improvements'. At least not like the good ol' days

Hence why i say we needed to make waves in the research of Gallium Arsenide and graphene, Although i hear manchester uni (where graphene was found out) as been given 50 million boost to try keep it at the heart of graphene development. Unlikly, with IBM (EVIL EVIL COMPANY) getting there dirty hands dirty with it.

Its only the gay patenet system and the old dogs (M$, IBM, Apple etc etc) stopping progression and drip feeding everyone. New companies who have anything just get brought/bullied out so the drip can continue. As i say, tech as been dead for a decade with no major advances really. Especially the last 5 years. It's just sad, or im turning into a misrable ol' bar steward

[DeathAndTaxes]

ztek could you build a 2x FPGA, 3x FPGA or even 4x FPGA board cheaper on a per FPGA basis that your current design?

The reason I ask is that most people looking to buy into FPGA are not casual miners.  They are looking to build hashing clusters.  Hopefully someday very large hashing clusters.  If a 2x FPGA board is cheaper than 2x 1-FPGA board then it makes more economical sense to go with a larger board.  I noticed one of your competitors has a lower price on 2x FPGA board however they aren't getting very good throughput on the FPGA. Still the lower production cost makes me think it would be possible to bring the cost down w/ multiple FPGA boards.

If you are concerned about capital risk I would imagine people would be willing to pay a deposit ($50 per unit?) for the first batch.

Some people might be interested in the lowest total cost because they only want or can afford $500 worth however my guess is most of the potential demand cares less on what the per card price is and more on the per FPGA & per MH price.

[btc_artist]

watching

[ztex]

ztek could you build a 2x FPGA, 3x FPGA or even 4x FPGA board cheaper on a per FPGA basis that your current design?

The reason I ask is that most people looking to buy into FPGA are not casual miners.  They are looking to build hashing clusters.  Hopefully someday very large hashing clusters.  If a 2x FPGA board is cheaper than 2x 1-FPGA board then it makes more economical sense to go with a larger board.  I noticed one of your competitors has a lower price on 2x FPGA board however they aren't getting very good throughput on the FPGA. Still the lower production cost makes me think it would be possible to bring the cost down w/ multiple FPGA boards.

If you are concerned about capital risk I would imagine people would be willing to pay a deposit ($50 per unit?) for the first batch.

Some people might be interested in the lowest total cost because they only want or can afford $500 worth however my guess is most of the potential demand cares less on what the per card price is and more on the per FPGA & per MH price.

You do not consider the volume discount.

I just calculated the price. A 4 FPGA board would cost about 1150 EUR (+/- 5%) , i.e. 287 EUR/LX150. This is 40 EUR cheaper than the 327 EUR of a single FPGA board.

If you purchase 15 4 FPGA Boards the volume price is 990 EUR, altogether 14850 EUR.

If you purchase 60 single FPGA boards the volume price 236 EUR, altogether 14160 EUR.

4 FPGA Board make sense for licensed production customers because in this case the costs are dominated by the part prices.