FPGA life expectancy?

[PulsedMedia]

ngzhang offers great customer support and Icarus boards have the highest resale value compared to X6500 because there are many available IO pins (80-100+), not to mention chip interconnection paths.
Also his design uses 100% solid state capacitors which is good for longevity.

* I'm not implying that X6500 is bad, just pointed some pros of Icarus.

Just an another example how chinese made stuff can be of amazing value
But yeah, one could use that board for something else too

[TheSeven]

Icarus comes with best performance guarantee too

What kind of "performance guarantee" do you mean? X6500 boards (if properly cooled) run fine at 400MH/s, with the new firmware probably even more.
The Icarus boards are factory-programmed for 380MH/s and seem to still have some issues at 400MH/s.

[Turbor]

I own Icarus and ZTEX boards and both are worth their money. Keep in mind that Icarus uses only SG2 chips. You compare a tuned Lancer Evolution with a Porsche. Like others wrote, a question of preference.

[DeepBit]

I own Icarus and ZTEX boards and both are worth their money. Keep in mind that Icarus uses only SG2 chips. You compare a tuned Lancer Evolution with a Porsche. Like others wrote, a question of preference.

Chip's speed is not the only difference.
Icarus also uses "Industrial" grade Spartans, rated up to +100 °C

[PulsedMedia]

Cool, sold me on Icarus

Also decided i will re-arrange my GPU cluster to my 2nd location by fall, which needs heating 7-8months of a year, means getting some electrics installed tho. But that is "free power" in the sense that the location does need heating. We spent some 500€ heating the place late november to mid february even tho heat was rarely needed because it's so friggin' cold there.
Thanks to taxes etc. heating on heating diesel and electricity cost pretty much the same, very marginal difference.

[Defkin]

I own Icarus and ZTEX boards and both are worth their money. Keep in mind that Icarus uses only SG2 chips. You compare a tuned Lancer Evolution with a Porsche. Like others wrote, a question of preference.

Chip's speed is not the only difference.
Icarus also uses "Industrial" grade Spartans, rated up to +100 °C

Another important pro for Icarus is that it is open source.

[PulsedMedia]

I own Icarus and ZTEX boards and both are worth their money. Keep in mind that Icarus uses only SG2 chips. You compare a tuned Lancer Evolution with a Porsche. Like others wrote, a question of preference.

Chip's speed is not the only difference.
Icarus also uses "Industrial" grade Spartans, rated up to +100 °C

Another important pro for Icarus is that it is open source.

True.

For now tho, i decided to build on the GPU cluster for the next additional 3500W (25A circuits only as it's industrial location).
Also on this 2nd location electricity is billed annually so i can utilize the best possible BTC sell rate to cover that by choosing my time of the year to sell (when i think it's highest).