GPU vs FPGA help me out..

[dropt]

That argument doesn't hold any water with FPGA's, so why not just skip the middleman and just buy btc?

The argument does hold water with FPGA. But instead of selling them, you would need to have other profitable things to do with them.

...for example...

FPGAs are immensely powerful devices.  Only problem is, unless you're an Electrical or Computer Engineer they're not going to do you much good.

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[bitcool]

That argument doesn't hold any water with FPGA's, so why not just skip the middleman and just buy btc?

The argument does hold water with FPGA. But instead of selling them, you would need to have other profitable things to do with them.

...for example...

FPGAs are immensely powerful devices.  Only problem is, unless you're an Electrical or Computer Engineer they're not going to do you much good.

I am an Electrical and Computer Engineer, for example .....

Edit: Found more information here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68742.msg801269#msg801269
sounds like souped up breadboard, will be very useful for super geeks but it's going to be hard to make it "profitable"

[Dabs]

FPGA can be used for other cryptographic purposes. Cracking TrueCrypt containers, RAR files, WEP / WPA. Or do protein folding, prime numbers.

The CIA / NSA might also want to buy your hardware if you sell it to them.

[DeathAndTaxes]

FPGA can only be reprogrammed if the FPGA has bitstream encryption disabled, or if you have the encryption key.

A certain vendor has locked down FPGA which require an encrypted bitstream.  That makes non-Bitcoin resale value essentially $0.00.

[rjk]

FPGA can only be reprogrammed if the FPGA has bitstream encryption disabled, or if you have the encryption key.

A certain vendor has locked down FPGA which require an encrypted bitstream.  That makes non-Bitcoin resale value essentially $0.00.

Are you quite sure? My understanding was that a key was flashed into a non-readable and non-reversable memory area on the device, which could be consulted as necessary if the bitstream was encrypted. Otherwise, the key would be ignored.

Reagrdless of having a key in efuse or BBRAM, you may always use a non-encrypted bitstream through JTAG (see the configuration users guide, pp 83, paragraph 5.

Quote from: http://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Spartan-Family-FPGAs/Spartan-6-BRAM-AES-Key-Programming/m-p/194462/highlight/true#M14434

[-ck]

As far as I'm concerned, in practical terms of realistic usefulness, FPGAs are nothing but door stops if you stop bitcoin mining with them. So in my opinion, betting on FPGAs is betting 100% on bitcoin mining.