Mini-Rig from Butterflylabs

[1l1l11ll1l]

My point is, to wait 8 weeks for two rig boxes does not bother me in the least because I am not delusional enough to think that BFL should be perfect or that it's a cake walk to get more GPUs running.

If we had faith in their lead times this would all be moot...

Singles are taking 14-16 weeks now.  They are saying NOTHING publicly about what has happened and why we SHOULD believe their current claims on delivery.  As D&T said, they need a PR person in the worst way.

Rig Box is 12-15 weeks per Sonny (according to e-mail this week).  I fear it is closer to 20...  

EDIT - Sent e-mail to Sonny on this topic and asking for confirmation on mini-rig.  Might as well ask these questions directly...

Similar situation with wicked lasers. They released the arctic, people paid, and months went by without delivery. Eventually all were delivered and they're continuing to innovate and deliver great lasers. BFL never went into this saying "in stock ready to ship" they went in with calculated estimations, those estimations were definitely high, but the moment they figured that out, they announced it lowered the price, and made design adjustments to accommodate higher power requirements. Sonny has always been prompt to reply to my questions, my first order was delivered and I've already got my second order in.

[JWU42]

Good e-mail exchange last evening 

[kunibopl]

Thanks for rehashing the same old tired "reasons" that have been stated 100 times before and everyone is already aware of.  Welcome to November 2011!

you miss one thing:

same old reasons since Nov, right, but if I'd run that company, I would have learned something in the last 4 month - they didn't.

[Inaba]

Thanks for rehashing the same old tired "reasons" that have been stated 100 times before and everyone is already aware of.  Welcome to November 2011!

you miss one thing:

same old reasons since Nov, right, but if I'd run that company, I would have learned something in the last 4 month - they didn't.

How is that missing anything?  It has nothing to do with the topic. The same old, tired arguments are trotted out.  Everyone is already aware of them.  OP is 6 months behind the times.  No one cares. End of story.

[kunibopl]

How is that missing anything?  It has nothing to do with the topic. The same old, tired arguments are trotted out.  Everyone is already aware of them.  OP is 6 months behind the times.  No one cares. End of story.

I think many care, because it's hard to explain why BFL doesn't improve the support. it's their easiest way to improve their earnings.

[Inaba]

You misunderstand me.  Nobody cares about people posting the same old tired "reasons" again and again in the thread, like it's some revelation and only that person who posted was clever enough to figure it out.  Really... we don't care about revelations that were revealed 6 months ago.

[fulepp]

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

[fulepp]

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

I wonder that myself.  I wonder how large it will need to be not because the FPGA take up a lot of space but due to the fact that 2.5KW is a lot of energy and the smaller the pkg the harder it is to cool.  

A visual excercise:
A 4x5970 rig is ~1KW.  Open framed it requires good amount of airflow to cool.   In a closed case, forget about it.  Now 1.25KW would be 20% more thermal load so image a hypothetical 5x5970 rig (pretend no 8 GPU limit). The "full rig box" (if it ends up getting built) would be double that.   To get an idea of the thermal energy vs volume visualize a 4U server chassis w/ 5x5970s inside now stack two of them on top of each other to simulate 2.5KW of power draw.  That is a pretty big box (8U = 14" by 19" by 24").  Could you cool that with air?
 How noisy would it be?  We already have a pretty large "rigbox".  Going larger would make it somewhat easier to cool.

Before I get flamed:
I am not saying the rigbox isn't more efficient.  It is.  The same sized box with the same amount of electricity/heat would produce 50 GH/s vs ~7 GH/s (10x 5970s). Still the laws of thermodynamics don't care what (or how much) the 2.5KW produced.  50GH/s on 2.5KW or 7GH/s on 2.5KW is still 2.5KW either way.  

That is an interesting challenge.  In mining the difficulty in cooling 1KW+ heat loads is what has lead to open frame rigs, extenders, extra high rpm fans, etc.  Will be interesting to see how they intend to cool them and how noisy they will be.  Not saying high potential noise is a problem (it isn't as most will be in datacenters or semi-industrial locations).  It just may shock some people who think of FPGA as silent and cool but that is just because nobody has scaled FPGA up to tens of GH/s in a compact space yet.

So BFL come on at least give us some estimated dimensions and db specs.

[nedbert9]

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

I've seen the Mini Rig CAD mockup and the dense board placement makes my sphincter tense up.  Which sphincter?  All of them.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I've seen the Mini Rig CAD mockup and the dense board placement makes my sphincter tense up.  Which sphincter?  All of them.

So share the images (the CAD ones not the sphincter ones).

[BFL-Engineer]

Is there any information how the mini rig or the rig bix will look like? I am wondering what will be their phisical dimension, are they going to be expandable, etc.

I wonder that myself.  I wonder how large it will need to be not because the FPGA take up a lot of space but due to the fact that 2.5KW is a lot of energy and the smaller the pkg the harder it is to cool.  

A visual excercise:
A 4x5970 rig is ~1KW.  Open framed it requires good amount of airflow to cool.   In a closed case, forget about it.  Now 1.25KW would be 20% more thermal load so image a hypothetical 5x5970 rig (pretend no 8 GPU limit). The "full rig box" (if it ends up getting built) would be double that.   To get an idea of the thermal energy vs volume visualize a 4U server chassis w/ 5x5970s inside now stack two of them on top of each other to simulate 2.5KW of power draw.  That is a pretty big box (8U = 14" by 19" by 24").  Could you cool that with air?
 How noisy would it be?  We already have a pretty large "rigbox".  Going larger would make it somewhat easier to cool.

Before I get flamed:
I am not saying the rigbox isn't more efficient.  It is.  The same sized box with the same amount of electricity/heat would produce 50 GH/s vs ~7 GH/s (10x 5970s). Still the laws of thermodynamics don't care what (or how much) the 2.5KW produced.  50GH/s on 2.5KW or 7GH/s on 2.5KW is still 2.5KW either way.  

That is an interesting challenge.  In mining the difficulty in cooling 1KW+ heat loads is what has lead to open frame rigs, extenders, extra high rpm fans, etc.  Will be interesting to see how they intend to cool them and how noisy they will be.  Not saying high potential noise is a problem (it isn't as most will be in datacenters or semi-industrial locations).  It just may shock some people who think of FPGA as silent and cool but that is just because nobody has scaled FPGA up to tens of GH/s in a compact space yet.

So BFL come on at least give us some estimated dimensions and db specs.

I wish I could give you some info, but at this point please let us have our final unit in front of us before
giving out details. Regarding the dB, it will be virtually silent when compared to GPUs... In fact, it is
engineered that way...


Good Luck,

[DeathAndTaxes]

I wish I could give you some info, but at this point please let us have our final unit in front of us before
giving out details. Regarding the dB, it will be virtually silent when compared to GPUs... In fact, it is
engineered that way...

Interesting.

Good Luck,

Why does BFL always wish me good luck?  Do they think I am in competition with them?

[nedbert9]

I've seen the Mini Rig CAD mockup and the dense board placement makes my sphincter tense up.  Which sphincter?  All of them.

So share the images (the CAD ones not the sphincter ones).

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

[jamesg]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

[rjk]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

The Golden Sphincter Award. You've earned it, nedbert9.

[wogaut]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

The Golden Sphincter Award. You've earned it, nedbert9.

Epic!

And here's the pic courtesy of Google:
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/461193010.jpg?key=157360&Expires=1332789717&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=nnS02jNGZayfrIxgBTGlXJuip5mHukWlM-ffJqAFG0YcgdBwk8nqq4qN9UBMGGav2IcyAGTIt-TxmF09u~23sobcz-1ey4~xoVcmZM94zxxAgDeqkkr5rzfQiXf5jgCxxOFbTaCVbSIZgKs7NTw4nJ0MjCu9gLtugf8nWUdg3fg_

[triplehelix]

Good Luck,

Why does BFL always wish me good luck?

[insert joke about bfl delivery here]

[JWU42]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

The Golden Sphincter Award. You've earned it, nedbert9.

Epic!

And here's the pic courtesy of Google:
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/461193010.jpg?key=157360&Expires=1332789717&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=nnS02jNGZayfrIxgBTGlXJuip5mHukWlM-ffJqAFG0YcgdBwk8nqq4qN9UBMGGav2IcyAGTIt-TxmF09u~23sobcz-1ey4~xoVcmZM94zxxAgDeqkkr5rzfQiXf5jgCxxOFbTaCVbSIZgKs7NTw4nJ0MjCu9gLtugf8nWUdg3fg_

[nedbert9]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I had this "friend."  Let's say this hypothetical friend had super powers much like a theoretical rainman-style, although mute, kid on a possibly terrible new Fox action-drama staring a one-style-fits-all actor, who coincidentally has a fellow actor father that possesses acting chops that far surpass his own with a last name of Sutherland.

So, hypothetically remember, this mute kid might leave an etch-a-sketch laying around with the words, "16 boards, vertical orientation, in a 10"x24" area."

All that trouble to describe a diagram. I would like to give nedbert9 an award, but I'm still trying to figure out which one is most appropriate.

I'd prefer the Kids-that-should-not-follow-their-successful-parents-in-to-acting-except-for-the-Douglas'-and-Sheen's humanitarian award.

I'll take the STFU award, too.