I do not agree with Antminer S2's pricing

[kthejung]

So... Bitmain wants $3600 for the Antminer S2.  This is taking into consideration that the same 1 T/H performance can be bought for $2,000(at time of this writing, from Bitmain) in 5 Antminer S1's.  Sure, the S2 uses half the electricity, but that still does not justify the $1,600 higher price tag.  5 S1's use about $200 in electricity per month so S1's, being half that, would only save $100 per month for electricity.  That means that the S2 would have to run for 16 months to make up for the initial price difference.  I heard someone mention that the S2 may be seriously underpowered and is much more powerful than advertised.  Is this true?  Otherwise, the S2's pricing makes no sense.

added:  ...unless the price of Bitcoin increases drastically and electrical efficiency becomes that much more important...

[Threader]

money talks so walk away and spend elsewhere. Do you think Bitmain really cares about your personal rationalizations. 2 pre-order batches are fully sold out. The next ones will as well.

[black3000gt]

Apparently not many people agree since they sold out the first 2 batches in like 2 hours. I agree the price is steep, but the demand is there. You get to a point where you need to scale to stay in the mining game. You will run a lot more hash for the kw. On a 20 amp circuit you can run 2th with the s2 as oppose to 800gh of s1's.

[kthejung]

money talks so walk away and spend elsewhere. Do you think Bitmain really cares about your personal rationalizations. 2 pre-order batches are fully sold out. The next ones will as well.

You are right, i.e. Butterfly Labs is a successful company regardless of the actual value of their products, due to their amount of hardware sales.  

[black3000gt]

money talks so walk away and spend elsewhere. Do you think Bitmain really cares about your personal rationalizations. 2 pre-order batches are fully sold out. The next ones will as well.

You are right, i.e. Butterfly Labs is a successful company regardless of the actual value of their products, due to their hardware sales. 

You are comparing apples and oranges when comparing bfl to bitmain. Bitmain in my opinion is the best hardware manufacturer and bfl might be the worst.

[crazyates]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

[whonesta]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.

The power supply being included made the S2 a no-brainer for me. The power of running 5 * S1 = 2,000 watts for 1 TH/s performance. Using off the shelf AX1200 @ well north of 80% it would require 2 or an additional $500...   500 - 400 (above price diff) = $100 cheaper to buy S2.

That being said, if supply of S2's does not increase I will be building another 3600 watt DC bus..

[Jacko]

I would deffo plump for the S2 with PSU included than 6 X S1's which gives you 1080GH/s. 5 only gives you 900GH/s. So it makes even more sense.

[kthejung]

I would deffo plump for the S2 with PSU included than 6 X S1's which gives you 1080GH/s. 5 only gives you 900GH/s. So it makes even more sense.

5 overclocked is 1 T/H.

[herebittybittybitty]

S1's are the cheapest for mining because they are ugly. The masses prefer self-contained units with an attached, internal power supply.

This is great for those of us who don't care about that. 

S1's make great pets.

[philipma1957]

So... Bitmain wants $3600 for the Antminer S2.  This is taking into consideration that the same 1 T/H performance can be bought for $2,000(at time of this writing, from Bitmain) in 5 Antminer S1's.  Sure, the S2 uses half the electricity, but that still does not justify the $1,600 higher price tag.  5 S1's use about $200 in electricity per month so S1's, being half that, would only save $100 per month for electricity.  That means that the S2 would have to run for 16 months to make up for the initial price difference.  I heard someone mention that the S2 may be seriously underpowered and is much more powerful than advertised.  Is this true?  Otherwise, the S2's pricing makes no sense.

added:  ...unless the price of Bitcoin increases drastically and electrical efficiency becomes that much more important...

 you are correct no on would buy one today for 3600.   but you did omit the fact that bit main is no longer selling them at any price.


  lets do some math 5x s-1 = 2250 vs 3600 or 1350 usd in price.   2100 watts vs 900 watts.   and if you are in the usa add more watts for ac.  so 2500 watts vs 900 watts.

that is 1600 x 24 =38 kwatts a day make it 40 a day . or about 5 to 8 dollars a day.   that is 150 to 250 a month   so in as much as 10 months you make up for the power.  or if you are in a high power place you make up for the power in 6 months.

I followed your thinking and expanded to 6x s-1's I hope to buy 2 s-2s when they cost 1000 to 1200 usd which may be about june 1st.

[philipma1957]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

I believe the huge mod will be proper down clock of the s-1s to the lower wattage/voltage.  right now a down clock to freq 250 drops hash to 128gh and watts to 250.  volts stay the same. so watt per hash is not improved.

[kthejung]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

According to what your saying, the S2 has 10 times more chips than the S1 but only delivers 5 times more hashing power out of the box.  If the S2 could be powered the same way as the S1, then a single S2 could deliver 2 T/H; not that I would know how to do that.

[crazyates]

Here are the chip ranges:

I believe the huge mod will be proper down clock of the s-1s to the lower wattage/voltage.  right now a down clock to freq 250 drops hash to 128gh and watts to 250.  volts stay the same. so watt per hash is not improved.

Yes, there are a few threads out there aimed at undervolting the S1. But I have to ask: what good is downclocking the S1s if the W/GHs remain the same? If you're cutting your power bill in half, but also cutting your earnings in half, you're not gaining anything. Why don't you just remove one of the boards and run it at 100GH/s @ 200W?

The whole point of lowering the clock speed is so that you can lower the voltage as well, and save power. W/GHs is what we're after. Lowering down to 128GH/s at stock volts might be ~250W, but with undervolting it's prolly closer to 130W.

The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

According to what your saying, the S2 has 10 times more chips than the S1 but only delivers 5 times more hashing power out of the box.  If the S2 could be powered the same way as the S1, then a single S2 could deliver 2 T/H; not that I would know how to do that.

Yes, the S2 has somewhere in the range of 10x the number of chips, but each one runs at a lower voltage, almost half the clock speed, and MUCH lower power. There is a LOT of potential hashrate in each S2, but whether you'll be able to unlock it is the question right now.

The low voltage is severely limit how far you can OC. We don't know what the S2 will have for voltage control, and if we can increase the voltage (through software; I'm assuming hardware mods will be possible). If you can increase the voltage, and then increase the clock speed, then you've got to worry about heat and power issues. The stock PSU probably won't be able to provide the 1.5-2kW of juice, so a second or upgraded PSU is probably going to be needed. Then, you'll run into temp issues. The heatsinks and airflow on the S2 are going to be designed for 1W/chip, not 2-4W/chip. Cooling them is going to be a bitch. I'm guessing some cooling mods are in order.

So yes, there is a LOT of theoretical OC room, but how to get there is unknown at this point, and it prolly won't be easy.

[noise23]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

I believe the huge mod will be proper down clock of the s-1s to the lower wattage/voltage.  right now a down clock to freq 250 drops hash to 128gh and watts to 250.  volts stay the same. so watt per hash is not improved.

I run all my S1 Antminers undervolted to 0.85V on the chip at freq 275. They hash at 140 GH/s , around 160 watts at the wall. They run pretty quiet

[philipma1957]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

I believe the huge mod will be proper down clock of the s-1s to the lower wattage/voltage.  right now a down clock to freq 250 drops hash to 128gh and watts to 250.  volts stay the same. so watt per hash is not improved.

I run all my S1 Antminers undervolted to 8.5V at freq 275. They hash at 140 GH/s , around 160 watts at the wall. They run pretty quiet

 

please pm details .   do I just need to run a 9 volt power supply   to the gear using the older style hookup on the boards.  I know how to ssh the freq to 250 , 275 or 300.   

[noise23]

You're missing 2 things.

1) When the S2 was announced, Ant S1s were 0.98BTC, and the coinbase price was $634. This made the cost of buying 1TH/s of S1s almost $3200. Now you still had to spend a few hundred in PSUs, but you were hashing within a few days. The point is that upgrading only cost an extra $400, and you could cut your power consumption in half.


2) The chips in the S2 aren't "underpowered". The reality is that Bitmain is using the same chips in the S2 as what they've already been using the in S1. The difference is that the S1 chips were set at max voltage and max clocks, for max performance. The S2 chips are set at the lowest voltage, with a much lower clock rate, for max power efficiency.

Here are the chip ranges:


The S1 uses 8 banks of 8 chips (total=64 chips) at 2.8GHs/chip for 179.2GH/s. The S2 probably uses somewhere in the range of 600-650 chips at 1.6GHs/chip for a total of 1TH/s.

It's theoretically possible to take an S2, and increase the chip voltage and clock speeds to higher, but IDK if the boards can handle it, nor if the PSU it comes with can handle it. You could probably OC to 1.2 or more pretty easily, tho.

I believe the huge mod will be proper down clock of the s-1s to the lower wattage/voltage.  right now a down clock to freq 250 drops hash to 128gh and watts to 250.  volts stay the same. so watt per hash is not improved.

I run all my S1 Antminers undervolted to 8.5V at freq 275. They hash at 140 GH/s , around 160 watts at the wall. They run pretty quiet

 

please pm details .   do I just need to run a 9 volt power supply   to the gear using the older style hookup on the boards.  I know how to ssh the freq to 250 , 275 or 300.   

No it will not work with 9v power supply.
You need to apply a pencil mod to resistors R3, R66, R38, R52 on each blade to put their resistance down from factory 4.47 KOhms to 2.8-3 KOhms.
The detailed guide is here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=526060.0

[Anddos]

Antminers s1 earn you about $8 per day at the currrent difficulty,why would you even bother running 5?

[Zetler]

The first batch of S2 to be shipped out tomorrow.
Will this cause yet another jump in difficulty?

I bet the S1 will soon become unprofitable (only $8/day now MINUS electricity).
S2 uses less electricity per GH/s but will the investment ever be made back? I doubt it ...

Mining is only for those with VERY cheap electricity or for those who do it for fun - not for profit.

[herebittybittybitty]

The first batch of S2 to be shipped out tomorrow.
Will this cause yet another jump in difficulty?

I bet the S1 will soon become unprofitable (only $8/day now MINUS electricity).
S2 uses less electricity per GH/s but will the investment ever be made back? I doubt it ...

Mining is only for those with VERY cheap electricity or for those who do it for fun - not for profit.

Assuming 20% difficulty increases and no change in btc price, you're going to lose over 1.5 btc with an S2 that's being shipped right now. The first batchers should profit, though.

S1's are still moneymakers with those assumptions, although a lifetime profit of only about .15 btc.

Almost everything is obsolete.

Mining is a hobby. And it's nice to not have to purchase through exchanges.