Newbies for FPGAs

[enigm4]

FPGAs are not good for people like me with low electricity.

They are best for people paying like 0.3 USD / kilowatt hour etc.

ATM, I think I will stick to Radeons, thank you very much !

If BTC dies then who will be buying your useless PCBs ?

[harvester rabbit]

If BTC dies then who will be buying your useless PCBs ?

Heresy! Bitcoin is special and magical and great and makes its own sauce. If you even allow for the possibility of anything else being true you are in the wrong place, go away bad person!

[Epoch]

I joined because I bought a ztex FPGA and it's the future of BTC. Now I mine 1 BTC per day for 8W, silent and without ecological regret! GPU miners that don't recognise FPGA mining are just bitter. They need one PC per 3-6 cards while FPGA is controlled via USB so you can have 127 FPGA's on one PC!!! Do the math on that and the electricity bill...

How do you like your ztex? I general hear positive comments about them from forum members.

The good thing about FPGA's is their very low power consumption. However, their $/Mhash ratio is also very low. It is really hard to justify their purchase from an economic standpoint unless your electricity rate is very high. Generally speaking, a GPU will net a higher profit for your investment (even when taking into account electricity costs).

An FPGA will currently run you ~$500 for ~350Mhash/s. For that same $500 you can buy 3x 5870 GPUs providing 1200Mhash/s. Yes, the GPUs will be using a lot more electricity. But they will also be generating a lot more profit. And I haven't even brought up the issue of the additional PC you will need to control the FPGA ... but let's say that equates to the motherboard/PSU/RAM you would need to host the GPUs.

FPGA mining boards of today are much like today's gasoline-electric hybrid cars. While they are a very interesting and efficient alternative to traditional GPUs (gasoline cars), their high cost makes them economically unviable in most cases. Unless, again, your electricity costs are sky-high.

I think FPGAs are the future of mining, but that future is not quite here yet. There will always be the early adopters paving the way for them to become mainstream.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I joined because I bought a ztex FPGA and it's the future of BTC. Now I mine 1 BTC per day for 8W, silent and without ecological regret! GPU miners that don't recognise FPGA mining are just bitter. They need one PC per 3-6 cards while FPGA is controlled via USB so you can have 127 FPGA's on one PC!!! Do the math on that and the electricity bill...

I know for a fact you don't get 1 BTC per day on 8W.
http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

More like 0.16 BTC per day.

While FPGA may be the future GPU aren't dead yet.  To replace the 8.85 BTC I earn per day I would need ~55 ztex boards which even w/ discounted pricing runs ~$16,250

[Epoch]

While FPGA may be the future GPU aren't dead yet.  To replace the 8.85 BTC I earn per day I would need ~55 ztex boards which even w/ discounted pricing runs ~$16,250

Exactly. Currently it is difficult, at best, to make a case for FPGAs in terms of economics. But that doesn't necessarily make them a bad choice for some. There are reasons other than economics ...

[rupy]

DeathAndTaxes: Ah, sorry the 1 BTC is per week.

Epoch: The ztex is great because it's silent, I don't care about getting rich, all currencies make you poor at heart! Also you only need 1 PC per 127 FPGA's = alot better than GPU mining.

enigm4: We'll see which PCB's become worthless first. My bet is that peakoil is going to make your PC's and GPU's completely obsolete. Personally I run an Atom machine at 13W for my everything PC (24/7 server AND development station) it's completely silent with a SSD.

[DeathAndTaxes]

We'll see which PCB's become worthless first. My bet is that peakoil is going to make your PC's and GPU's completely obsolete. Personally I run an Atom machine at 13W for my everything PC (24/7 server AND development station) it's completely silent with a SSD.

Why would peak oil significantly affect the price of electricity given 99%+ of it isn't produced by oil?

I can't imagine many horrors worse than compiling a major project on an Atom processor.   Well I take that back yes I can.  database query optimization on an atom processor.

[rupy]

What do you think will "try" to replace oil? What do you think is causing the current economical crisis? The fundamentals have been choking our civilization since the seventies but we hid it in the currencies/"exploitation of natural resources" (pollution) and now we see the unwinding of our unsustainable lifestyle.

That's why I'm betting on BTC, because anything other than old civilization fiat is good.

My rough calculus of intrest rate on FPGA is ~ ($ per bitcoin) * 10 = 65% right now.

And that's enough, I don't need another "not work" work trying to get rich to buy more things I don't need. I wan't stability and preservation = I need small scale diversification.

I also have 10+ years of Java development, and I have built my own web server and database abstraction toolkit, if you need large projects (all my projects compile in < 1 sec on the atom) and don't know how to optimize SQL post launch you are probably building it wrong way in the first place.

But you are right Atom is not for learning stuff the hard way, Atom is for when you master your trade and build your own tools. But you would be surprised of the speed of this little machine! I watch 720p flash video, no problem!

[DeathAndTaxes]

My rough calculus of intrest rate on FPGA is ~ ($ per bitcoin) * 10 = 65% right now.

Care to share that calculus because the interest? ROI% FPGA is nowhere near 65% annually.

[rupy]

I = 300 EUR
R = 52 BTC * 6,5 USD = 338 USD = 264 EUR

Actually it's 88%

[DeathAndTaxes]

I = 300 EUR
R = 52 BTC * 6,5 USD = 338 USD = 264 EUR

Actually it's 88%

LOLZ.

[rupy]

Ok, ROI is -12%, but I'm happy with what ever you would call my 88% above, I call it interest rate because I would get like 1% for those 300 EUR in the bank (-2% with inflation) now I get 88% (86% minus inflation).

Instead of laughing at me you could share your ROI so we can have a constructive dialogue about this?

[rupy]

I'm taking your silence as a confirmation that you wasted a lot of money on those GPU rigs, and you keep wasting money on electricity every day. You can't mine on solar and wind and therefor you're part of what I call the old civilization. Tick Tack the counter is ticking.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm taking your silence as a confirmation that you wasted a lot of money on those GPU rigs, and you keep wasting money on electricity every day. You can't mine on solar and wind and therefor you're part of what I call the old civilization. Tick Tack the counter is ticking.

Sure.  Your right.  Somehow I lost money on my rigs and then daily I compound the problem by losing even more more despite the obvious solution to simply hit the off switch.

11 GH = ~8.85 BTC daily.  5 rigs @ 870W each = 4.35KW   4.35KW *24 * $0.092 per kWh = $9.60 daily
8.85 BTC daily & $9.60 electrical cost daily.
$9.60 / 8.85 = $1.08 electrical cost per BTC.

Since we all know today the price of BTC was below $1.08 at Mt. Gox I lost money yet again today.

Still maybe I will be "luckier" tomorrow?

[rupy]

What did those rigs cost? ROI?

In which country do you live?

[Epoch]

What did those rigs cost? ROI?

In which country do you live?

Sigh.

Rupy, the thing is that those GPU rigs cost a lot less than the $15k it would take to create an 11Ghash/s farm out of ztex fpga's. ROI? D&T has been around for a long time; his rigs would have long since been paid for by mining profits.

<D&T, sorry for the hijack.>

[rupy]

Yeah, I have FPGA fever...

Actually I'm considering building a "heater" rig to have running in my summer house during winter to keep the house dry now.

Thx!

[SkRRJyTC]

I am interested in replacing my gpus with fpga hashing... hopefully I can increase my total hashing amount when I do switch over.

[HendrikJan]

Hello

I am not that long busy with mining but those FPGA sound great if you want to start or need to invest in hardware if you have nothing great in your PC.
There are FPGA who do 300Mhash/s and with the curent difficulty you get about 44dollar a month when the excange is 6 dollar.
Those will use about 20Watt so when looking at my HD5670 with 61Watt and a 50% cpu i would do best to get me a FPGA.
But.....what to do when BTC is over?
Also i know nothing about those FPGA programmming and to create a file/bios for it you need a license who is not cheap and that way you have to hope people will build it for you and that is my biggest wurry.

[N.Olmos]

Hello

Also i know nothing about those FPGA programmming and to create a file/bios for it you need a license who is not cheap and that way you have to hope people will build it for you and that is my biggest wurry.

People are already working on this.

http://bitcoinfpga.com/

This is a good starting point. Check out the links at the bottom.