ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[chunkyjunkie]

With the current price of 0.58 BTC for Batch 8 Delivery on 9/20/14, and given their minimum quantity of 2 Units, recouping your money = Impossible. (Almost)

Factor:

(2) S3+ Units at .58 BTC          1.16 BTC = $585.00 USD
(1) Corsair 850w PSU                                $140.00 USD

TOTAL HARDWARE:   $725

Now, IF you are lucky enough to have power at a rate of 0.08 kW/hr (unlikely); and

IF Bitcoin difficulty only rose 11% per increase for the next 3 years, never more, (highly unlikely), and

IF you are lucky enough to get units that hash at the full OverClocked speed of 500 GHash; and

IF you are lucky enough, to within that 3 years, not have 1 single technical issue, pool outage, internet issue, power failure, hardware failure, and so on; it can be assumed

You will have made back your initial investment, and broke EVEN, on April 18, 2017.

Strato

Two flaws:
1. Equipment salvage value. Try the calculations selling the equipment at different time periods. You assume equipment worth $0 at end of time period, and that is not true.
2. No account for increase in BTC value. An increase in BTC value will probably increase the value of equipment.

Two flaws
1. Do you think an s3 will have any value after 3 years?  I mean any value besides scrap?
2. You say accounting for bitcoin value increase?  Possible, could go 1000,2000,10000.  Problem with that is the nethash would keep up and surpass any gain as we saw. we already saw this in the honeymoon period of the last dramatic bitcoin increase.  

That is if we see spectacular jumps.  IMO more likely to go sideways until electric is just slightly less then profit made from mining and difficulty starts going up only a couple percent per adjustment.

Crypto world moves too fast and the guys example was being very very very very generous in the input values.

Bottom line is hw prices still have a long ways to catch up and make the distribution of wealth between miner and equipment manufacturer/cloud service more equitable.

[Biodom]

For the PCI-e cables; What's the MINIMUM AWG cable I have to use for the S3 using only 1 PCI-e connector per blade ?
I know Sidehack uses AWG16 for his cables. Would a AWG18 also work ?

On the other hand, Gigampz sells 24" PCI-e cables with AWG18 ....

use the cables that comes with Corsair if you have it (I believe that they are 18AWG), they get a little worm when OC to 237.5 (42C).
If you need splitters to split a single to two, I used Startech (they are also 18AWG).

[Biodom]

With the current price of 0.58 BTC for Batch 8 Delivery on 9/20/14, and given their minimum quantity of 2 Units, recouping your money = Impossible. (Almost)

Factor:

(2) S3+ Units at .58 BTC          1.16 BTC = $585.00 USD
(1) Corsair 850w PSU                                $140.00 USD

TOTAL HARDWARE:   $725

Now, IF you are lucky enough to have power at a rate of 0.08 kW/hr (unlikely); and

IF Bitcoin difficulty only rose 11% per increase for the next 3 years, never more, (highly unlikely), and

IF you are lucky enough to get units that hash at the full OverClocked speed of 500 GHash; and

IF you are lucky enough, to within that 3 years, not have 1 single technical issue, pool outage, internet issue, power failure, hardware failure, and so on; it can be assumed

You will have made back your initial investment, and broke EVEN, on April 18, 2017.

Strato

Two flaws:
1. Equipment salvage value. Try the calculations selling the equipment at different time periods. You assume equipment worth $0 at end of time period, and that is not true.
2. No account for increase in BTC value. An increase in BTC value will probably increase the value of equipment.

Two flaws
1. Do you think an s3 will have any value after 3 years?  I mean any value besides scrap?
2. You say accounting for bitcoin value increase?  Possible, could go 1000,2000,10000.  Problem with that is the nethash would keep up and surpass any gain as we saw. we already saw this in the honeymoon period of the last dramatic bitcoin increase.  

That is if we see spectacular jumps.  IMO more likely to go sideways until electric is just slightly less then profit made from mining and difficulty starts going up only a couple percent per adjustment.

Crypto world moves too fast and the guys example was being very very very very generous in the input values.

Bottom line is hw prices still have a long ways to catch up and make the distribution of wealth between miner and equipment manufacturer/cloud service more equitable.

are you kidding about 3 years? these are not Martian rovers that supposed to function 3 mo, but lasted 10 years already. If all S3 work after 6 mo, I would consider myself lucky.

[Phosphorous]

With the current price of 0.58 BTC for Batch 8 Delivery on 9/20/14, and given their minimum quantity of 2 Units, recouping your money = Impossible. (Almost)

Factor:

(2) S3+ Units at .58 BTC          1.16 BTC = $585.00 USD
(1) Corsair 850w PSU                                $140.00 USD

TOTAL HARDWARE:   $725

Now, IF you are lucky enough to have power at a rate of 0.08 kW/hr (unlikely); and

IF Bitcoin difficulty only rose 11% per increase for the next 3 years, never more, (highly unlikely), and

IF you are lucky enough to get units that hash at the full OverClocked speed of 500 GHash; and

IF you are lucky enough, to within that 3 years, not have 1 single technical issue, pool outage, internet issue, power failure, hardware failure, and so on; it can be assumed

You will have made back your initial investment, and broke EVEN, on April 18, 2017.

Strato

Two flaws:
1. Equipment salvage value. Try the calculations selling the equipment at different time periods. You assume equipment worth $0 at end of time period, and that is not true.
2. No account for increase in BTC value. An increase in BTC value will probably increase the value of equipment.

Two flaws
1. Do you think an s3 will have any value after 3 years?  I mean any value besides scrap?
2. You say accounting for bitcoin value increase?  Possible, could go 1000,2000,10000.  Problem with that is the nethash would keep up and surpass any gain as we saw. we already saw this in the honeymoon period of the last dramatic bitcoin increase.  

That is if we see spectacular jumps.  IMO more likely to go sideways until electric is just slightly less then profit made from mining and difficulty starts going up only a couple percent per adjustment.

Crypto world moves too fast and the guys example was being very very very very generous in the input values.

Bottom line is hw prices still have a long ways to catch up and make the distribution of wealth between miner and equipment manufacturer/cloud service more equitable.

How long have the Ant S1's been out? They are still going all day long for $125 on eBay, not worthless.
An S3 might not have value 3 years from now, but do your calculations for 1-2 years out when they still have value.

You can't ignore the increase in BTC value. Say I buy an S3 today for 0.7 BTC (about $350US) and with it mine 0.5 BTC over a couple of months (at current BTC valuation) at which point Bitcoin shoots back up to $1000. I now have $500 worth of BTC in my account, an S3 with a projected estimated value of $150-250, and I am only out $350 and the electric cost.

There is ROI there, it is not as bleak as you want all to believe.

[Stratobitz]

With the current price of 0.58 BTC for Batch 8 Delivery on 9/20/14, and given their minimum quantity of 2 Units, recouping your money = Impossible. (Almost)

Factor:

(2) S3+ Units at .58 BTC          1.16 BTC = $585.00 USD
(1) Corsair 850w PSU                                $140.00 USD

TOTAL HARDWARE:   $725

Now, IF you are lucky enough to have power at a rate of 0.08 kW/hr (unlikely); and

IF Bitcoin difficulty only rose 11% per increase for the next 3 years, never more, (highly unlikely), and

IF you are lucky enough to get units that hash at the full OverClocked speed of 500 GHash; and

IF you are lucky enough, to within that 3 years, not have 1 single technical issue, pool outage, internet issue, power failure, hardware failure, and so on; it can be assumed

You will have made back your initial investment, and broke EVEN, on April 18, 2017.

Strato

Two flaws:
1. Equipment salvage value. Try the calculations selling the equipment at different time periods. You assume equipment worth $0 at end of time period, and that is not true.
2. No account for increase in BTC value. An increase in BTC value will probably increase the value of equipment.

Two flaws
1. Do you think an s3 will have any value after 3 years?  I mean any value besides scrap?
2. You say accounting for bitcoin value increase?  Possible, could go 1000,2000,10000.  Problem with that is the nethash would keep up and surpass any gain as we saw. we already saw this in the honeymoon period of the last dramatic bitcoin increase.  

That is if we see spectacular jumps.  IMO more likely to go sideways until electric is just slightly less then profit made from mining and difficulty starts going up only a couple percent per adjustment.

Crypto world moves too fast and the guys example was being very very very very generous in the input values.

Bottom line is hw prices still have a long ways to catch up and make the distribution of wealth between miner and equipment manufacturer/cloud service more equitable.

How long have the Ant S1's been out? They are still going all day long for $125 on eBay, not worthless.
An S3 might not have value 3 years from now, but do your calculations for 1-2 years out when they still have value.

You can't ignore the increase in BTC value. Say I buy an S3 today for 0.7 BTC (about $350US) and with it mine 0.5 BTC over a couple of months (at current BTC valuation) at which point Bitcoin shoots back up to $1000. I now have $500 worth of BTC in my account, an S3 with a projected estimated value of $150-250, and I am only out $350 and the electric cost.

There is ROI there, it is not as bleak as you want all to believe.

BTC rise in value is irrelevant when considering profit. If you purchase the unit WITH BTC, had you simply just saved the BTC, at the end of 3 years you would still have the same amount of BTC.

So if .58 BTC cost will return .58 BTC return over a term of 3 years, had you simply held and not purchased, you would still have .58 BTC.

And in 3 years, the Miner, and PSU, will be worth nothing.

Purchasing a S3+ at .58 BTC is 100% - Hands Down - Burning your Money. You are essentially buying a device that costs .58 BTC that will, factoring all the near impossibilities I listed, return .58 back.

It's a lose lose.

Strato

[Stratobitz]

With the current price of 0.58 BTC for Batch 8 Delivery on 9/20/14, and given their minimum quantity of 2 Units, recouping your money = Impossible. (Almost)

Factor:

(2) S3+ Units at .58 BTC          1.16 BTC = $585.00 USD
(1) Corsair 850w PSU                                $140.00 USD

TOTAL HARDWARE:   $725

Now, IF you are lucky enough to have power at a rate of 0.08 kW/hr (unlikely); and

IF Bitcoin difficulty only rose 11% per increase for the next 3 years, never more, (highly unlikely), and

IF you are lucky enough to get units that hash at the full OverClocked speed of 500 GHash; and

IF you are lucky enough, to within that 3 years, not have 1 single technical issue, pool outage, internet issue, power failure, hardware failure, and so on; it can be assumed

You will have made back your initial investment, and broke EVEN, on April 18, 2017.

Strato

Two flaws:
1. Equipment salvage value. Try the calculations selling the equipment at different time periods. You assume equipment worth $0 at end of time period, and that is not true.
2. No account for increase in BTC value. An increase in BTC value will probably increase the value of equipment.

Two flaws
1. Do you think an s3 will have any value after 3 years?  I mean any value besides scrap?
2. You say accounting for bitcoin value increase?  Possible, could go 1000,2000,10000.  Problem with that is the nethash would keep up and surpass any gain as we saw. we already saw this in the honeymoon period of the last dramatic bitcoin increase.  

That is if we see spectacular jumps.  IMO more likely to go sideways until electric is just slightly less then profit made from mining and difficulty starts going up only a couple percent per adjustment.

Crypto world moves too fast and the guys example was being very very very very generous in the input values.

Bottom line is hw prices still have a long ways to catch up and make the distribution of wealth between miner and equipment manufacturer/cloud service more equitable.

How long have the Ant S1's been out? They are still going all day long for $125 on eBay, not worthless.
An S3 might not have value 3 years from now, but do your calculations for 1-2 years out when they still have value.

You can't ignore the increase in BTC value. Say I buy an S3 today for 0.7 BTC (about $350US) and with it mine 0.5 BTC over a couple of months (at current BTC valuation) at which point Bitcoin shoots back up to $1000. I now have $500 worth of BTC in my account, an S3 with a projected estimated value of $150-250, and I am only out $350 and the electric cost.

There is ROI there, it is not as bleak as you want all to believe.

BTC rise in value is irrelevant when considering profit. If you purchase the unit WITH BTC, had you simply just saved the BTC, at the end of 3 years you would still have the same amount of BTC.

So if .58 BTC cost will return .58 BTC return over a term of 3 years, had you simply held and not purchased, you would still have .58 BTC.

And in 3 years, the Miner, and PSU, will be worth nothing.

Purchasing a S3+ at .58 BTC is 100% - Hands Down - Burning your Money. You are essentially buying a device that costs .58 BTC that will, factoring all the near impossibilities I listed, return .58 back.

It's a lose lose.

Strato

Also keep in mind I was extremely conservative with difficulty increases. I used 11%. If it ends up being 13% on average... My rough numbers/estimate = ROI = 7 Years.

[suchmoon]

You can't ignore the increase in BTC value. Say I buy an S3 today for 0.7 BTC (about $350US) and with it mine 0.5 BTC over a couple of months (at current BTC valuation) at which point Bitcoin shoots back up to $1000. I now have $500 worth of BTC in my account, an S3 with a projected estimated value of $150-250, and I am only out $350 and the electric cost.

If you rely on the increase in BTC value for ROI you're better off just buying BTC. This has been discussed to death in various contexts and I've yet to see a compelling argument as to why it would be smart to make and indirect investment in BTC via mining hardware and take on multiple risks (exchange rate, hardware failure, bad luck/variance, difficulty increase etc) as opposed to just buying BTC and having only one risk (exchange rate).

In other words, if I pay BTC for the hardware my full ROI goal is the same amount of BTC. Not USD.

If you still think BTC value will help with S3 ROI look at the exchange rate for the last six months.

[Stratobitz]

An attractive price point for the S3+ in my view would be 0.35 BTC = ROI in roughly 90-100 Days if lucky.

.35

Not a Satoshi more

Strato

[Stratobitz]

And I honestly would not be surprised if we see a major price drop on the S3+, or BMT pulls the line to scrap the ASICs for future products.

Word has it, and I have solid info on this... they still have 1000s in stock unreserved for B8.

They are going to have to do something with those once they stop using them for mining.

Strato

[MoreBloodWine]

And I honestly would not be surprised if we see a major price drop on the S3+, or BMT pulls the line to scrap the ASICs for future products.

Word has it, and I have solid info on this... they still have 1000s in stock unreserved for B8.

They are going to have to do something with those once they stop using them for mining.

Strato

Speaking of scraping ASIC's for future products, you know what would be nice.

BMT offering a "trade in" old equipment for coupons or something without expiration to be used on future equipment. I'm sure there's thing from the S1 to the S2, even the S3 that can be re-purposed for later equipment.

[Stratobitz]

And I honestly would not be surprised if we see a major price drop on the S3+, or BMT pulls the line to scrap the ASICs for future products.

Word has it, and I have solid info on this... they still have 1000s in stock unreserved for B8.

They are going to have to do something with those once they stop using them for mining.

Strato

Speaking of scraping ASIC's for future products, you know what would be nice.

BMT offering a "trade in" old equipment for coupons or something without expiration to be used on future equipment. I'm sure there's thing from the S1 to the S2, even the S3 that can be re-purposed for later equipment.

I think return shipping the unit to China would make that profit prohibitive.

[MoreBloodWine]

And I honestly would not be surprised if we see a major price drop on the S3+, or BMT pulls the line to scrap the ASICs for future products.

Word has it, and I have solid info on this... they still have 1000s in stock unreserved for B8.

They are going to have to do something with those once they stop using them for mining.

Strato

Speaking of scraping ASIC's for future products, you know what would be nice.

BMT offering a "trade in" old equipment for coupons or something without expiration to be used on future equipment. I'm sure there's thing from the S1 to the S2, even the S3 that can be re-purposed for later equipment.

I think return shipping the unit to China would make that profit prohibitive.

Shit, I didnt even consider that lol

Still something to think on though for people who save up old equipment for a rainy day or w/e.

[Stratobitz]

And I honestly would not be surprised if we see a major price drop on the S3+, or BMT pulls the line to scrap the ASICs for future products.

Word has it, and I have solid info on this... they still have 1000s in stock unreserved for B8.

They are going to have to do something with those once they stop using them for mining.

Strato

Speaking of scraping ASIC's for future products, you know what would be nice.

BMT offering a "trade in" old equipment for coupons or something without expiration to be used on future equipment. I'm sure there's thing from the S1 to the S2, even the S3 that can be re-purposed for later equipment.

I think return shipping the unit to China would make that profit prohibitive.

Shit, I didnt even consider that lol

Still something to think on though for people who save up old equipment for a rainy day or w/e.

I'm only guessing here, but my view would be after R&D costs, initial production setup costs, etc... The actual cost to Stamp an ASIC chip would be a few dollars at most.

[9600]

Worth mentioning. I lost the ability to edit my S3+ order today. As some of you know, this has been a past indicator of BMT preparing to ship.

[CHAOSiTEC]

Worth mentioning. I lost the ability to edit my S3+ order today. As some of you know, this has been a past indicator of BMT preparing to ship.
[/quote

been so for the last week

[chunkyjunkie]

Worth mentioning. I lost the ability to edit my S3+ order today. As some of you know, this has been a past indicator of BMT preparing to ship.

I hear yah, and that has been the case in the past.  However, some people had that option disappear last week and before.


BTW, I would be a little upset had I had a preorder in, we get a huge decrease in the net hash and all of a sudden the s3+ start shipping.

Sure, it could be coincidence and I fully understand they need to test them.  But for me, had I had an order in, those 2+ weeks are the difference in losing a ton or losing a little on this hobby.  

[Atomar]

For the PCI-e cables; What's the MINIMUM AWG cable I have to use for the S3 using only 1 PCI-e connector per blade ?
I know Sidehack uses AWG16 for his cables. Would a AWG18 also work ?

On the other hand, Gigampz sells 24" PCI-e cables with AWG18 ....

use the cables that comes with Corsair if you have it (I believe that they are 18AWG), they get a little worm when OC to 237.5 (42C).
If you need splitters to split a single to two, I used Startech (they are also 18AWG).

I have the 2000 watt ibm psu here and ordered one of the breakout boards.
Thats why I need some cable to it. I will try with awg18 and see, how warm they get.

Thanks for you help

[Phosphorous]

BTC rise in value is irrelevant when considering profit. If you purchase the unit WITH BTC, had you simply just saved the BTC, at the end of 3 years you would still have the same amount of BTC.

So if .58 BTC cost will return .58 BTC return over a term of 3 years, had you simply held and not purchased, you would still have .58 BTC.

And in 3 years, the Miner, and PSU, will be worth nothing.

Purchasing a S3+ at .58 BTC is 100% - Hands Down - Burning your Money. You are essentially buying a device that costs .58 BTC that will, factoring all the near impossibilities I listed, return .58 back.

It's a lose lose.

Strato

And that is why I said to do the calculation with different time frame. S3 will still have value in 1 year, just like S1 still has value today. If you sell the equipment when it still has value you can come out ahead. You would likely be able to re-use the PSU if you upgraded to newer equipment so no loss there.

[Moria843]

The ROI with bitcoin purchases can depend on how you look at it. I purchased some S1s with bitcoins that I purchased at about $350. To keep the math simple, say the bitcoin value was $650 when I purchased an S1 at 1 BTC. Did the S1 cost me $350 or $650?

I feel that it only cost me $350 since that's what I paid for the 1 BTC.

For tax purposes, I'm using FIFO accounting similar to when opening and closing a stock "tax lot". But for tax purposes I'm not sure whether I should be taking a capital gain of $300 for when "I sold" the bitcoin and then claiming the S1 cost me $650.

Guess it depends on how the IRS treats. Will be fun at tax time.

[Biodom]

The ROI with bitcoin purchases can depend on how you look at it. I purchased some S1s with bitcoins that I purchased at about $350. To keep the math simple, say the bitcoin value was $650 when I purchased an S1 at 1 BTC. Did the S1 cost me $350 or $650?

I feel that it only cost me $350 since that's what I paid for the 1 BTC.

For tax purposes, I'm using FIFO accounting similar to when opening and closing a stock "tax lot". But for tax purposes I'm not sure whether I should be taking a capital gain of $300 for when "I sold" the bitcoin and then claiming the S1 cost me $650.

Guess it depends on how the IRS treats. Will be fun at tax time.

interesting...I say that if you purchased 1 BTC for $350, then bought something that cost $650 with that bitcoin, then yes, you had capital gains of $300, but if you bought miner for BTC, then you just spend your original $350, UNLESS you later sold your miner. Selling would close the "circle" of transactions back to cash.