They are not a competitor for Antminer S3. Look at that Gridseed A1 ASIC device specifications.
Its Normal Hashrate is 1100 GH/s and Power Consumption is 1300W.
Which means its consuming 1.18J/GH device where Antminer S3 will only consume 0.77/GH.
Inshort its 53% less efficient than S3. So the Gridseed A1 will become worthless much before S3.
Regarding cost of the device, Gridseed A1 includes a PSU but S3 doesn't. Shipping will be free for S3 too.
If, we assume the A1 psu costs around $350 the price of device to compare with S3 is $480.
Then, if we need to factor in the J/GH, that a difficult task. IMHO the S3 price will not be below $480 as of now.
quote " Rocket Box 450G-490G 480W[shipping fee included,ship date 1st,July]
Weight:7.000kilogram
Shop price:1100 mBTC"
you can bet your bottom bitcoin that the S3 will be more than this.............
So now we have our top bracket. Antminer S3's cap is below btc 1.1 .
Earlier the bottom was >0.8 or >$480. BTC around $600 and a perfect atmosphere
for BitMainTech to release the miner just after the difficulty adjustment in a day.
If they are converting BTC to fiat immediately just after difficulty readjustment time is best to get maximum btc exchange rate.
Inshort we can expect the release of S3 in 48hrs.