FPGA's pricing themselves out of the market

[zvs]

I ordered with BFL on Feb. 23 and still don't have a single.(Not a complaint) On that same day I ordered 8 7970s for $529 each and they were up and running two days later on the 25th. Each machine is getting 2.5GH/s so I added 5GH/s on the 25th. I believe those machines have been paid something like 150BTC. I am pretty happy with my choice to order GPUs when looking at the possible unknown with the reward cut.

recent prices on ebay for used 7970's:

apr 17th - $415
apr 18th - $470
apr 18th - $530
apr 18th - $510
apr 19th - $423 (+ "variable" shipping rate)
apr 19th - $435 (+ "variable" shipping rate)
apr 19th - $405
apr 19th - $435
apr 20th - $420
apr 20th - $450
apr 21st - $515 (+ "variable shipping rate)

so you could sell those eight for maybe $475/ea on eBay (being generous), subtract the 9% eBay electronics fee + the paypal fee....  end up with around $430 (more likely, $20 or $30 less)?   you're down $800 since feb 23rd, 150BTC doesn't even cover that

[Buckwheet]

I ordered with BFL on Feb. 23 and still don't have a single.(Not a complaint) On that same day I ordered 8 7970s for $529 each and they were up and running two days later on the 25th. Each machine is getting 2.5GH/s so I added 5GH/s on the 25th. I believe those machines have been paid something like 150BTC. I am pretty happy with my choice to order GPUs when looking at the possible unknown with the reward cut.

recent prices on ebay for used 7970's:

apr 17th - $415
apr 18th - $470
apr 18th - $530
apr 18th - $510
apr 19th - $423 (+ "variable" shipping rate)
apr 19th - $435 (+ "variable" shipping rate)
apr 19th - $405
apr 19th - $435
apr 20th - $420
apr 20th - $450
apr 21st - $515 (+ "variable shipping rate)

so you could sell those eight for maybe $475/ea on eBay (being generous), subtract the 9% eBay electronics fee + the paypal fee....  end up with around $430 (more likely, $20 or $30 less)?   you're down $800 since feb 23rd, 150BTC doesn't even cover that

I wouldn't sell them on Ebay first of all. I have gaming forums I belong to where I could get $450-$475 pretty easily with payments that are fee free. So lets just say $450 for each card. I am down $80 per card. I purchased an $80 motherboard for each rig, and a $8 stick of RAM, and I got the processors and harddrives/cables as freebies from work as they were junking out machines. I purchased a $250 powersupply for $200 and I know I can re-sell for $200 for each rig. Taking all that into account I would be down $640 in cards, $0 in supplies, $160 in boards, and $16 in RAM. So a grand total of $810 in "loss" right now.  That 150BTC that I just sold for $5.30 per covers most of the hardware depreciation cost so far. On top of that I have none of the Singles I bought since then. So I would have made zero money if I had just bought all BFL singles. I have no idea when the singles are going to show up.

I am still satisfied with my purchase of the 7970s. I played around with voltages and I am now down to 940W per 2.5GH/s.

Extrapolate your numbers until December 23 assuming $5 per BTC, 940W@$.06 per KW. Set the resale value of BFL to $0, and the resale value of the 7970 at $250. Let me know what you come up with. Also set the delivery date of my BFL singles to May 1st at the earliest.

Then move the price of recovery of the BFL single up until you get a break even point with the 7970s. Let me know what it would have to resell for, and when, for it to have been a better purchase than the 7970s.

I bought the XFX Black Edition 7970s, and I might have to go to $425 due to the price drop.

[Shadow383]

I want to invest some money into mining but atm - all offerings have serious short comings.

All FPGA's with the exception of BFL have a ROI time of over 1.5 years often over 2 years.
Unfortunately BFL's have a wait time of 3-4 months which also makes its ROI time over 1 year.
Were I to order one now I could expect to start using it August - Sept, just ~2-3 months shy of the reward being halved and I would have waited 4 months not earning anything from my investment.

Im looking at buying 1-2 ATI 7970's despite the massive power consumption I can still make money off them until the end of the year (I live in au, power is $0.22c/kwh) and then reuse the cards for gaming and my media pc.

My prediction for ~4-5 months into the future:

* all FPGA's will drop price 50% to 33% due to being out performed by the latest GPU's again and due to difficulty adjustment.
* Several FPGA's will simply be pulled from the market or sold at a loss when their ROI times go past 2 years (nearly there already for quite a few).
* China starts thrashing out FPGA's priced to put all western competition out of the market.
* Difficulty goes through the roof due to mass amounts of BFL's online and possibly vladmir and other companies as well.
** All current FPGA investors lose out horribly due a massive difficulty spike - ROI times go past 2 years, for large investors possibly 4 years.

This made me laugh.
Do you really think bitcoin mining is a big deal in the FPGA industry?
Sure, we'll see repurposing of obsolete hardware (like in the BFL singles) but major FPGA manufacturers designing bitcoin mining hardware? No chance.

[Tomatocage]

This made me laugh.
Do you really think bitcoin mining is a big deal in the FPGA industry?
Sure, we'll see repurposing of obsolete hardware (like in the BFL singles) but major FPGA manufacturers designing bitcoin mining hardware? No chance.

Gotta love security through obscurity.

[ElectricMucus]

FPGAs get new generations as well, as fast as GPUs.

They will always be more power effective and less cost effective. We are just using cheapo FPGAs which are mainly educational products slapped on prototyping boards. The industry either uses the high end range (1-5k USD per piece) in single quantities or low end stuff for consumer electronics.
High performance FPGAs will never be cost effective for bitcoin mining because after a certain volume you quickly arrive at costs equal to ASICs masks.

Time will tell when the first ones come out. But this isn't the end of the road either since bitcoin is the first application where wafer scale integration makes sense.

[BlackPrapor]

* all FPGA's will drop price 50% to 33% due to being out performed by the latest GPU's again and due to difficulty adjustment

Seriously? Get back to school and study the math....just another troll on my ignore list 

[mem]

* all FPGA's will drop price 50% to 33% due to being out performed by the latest GPU's again and due to difficulty adjustment

Seriously? Get back to school and study the math....just another troll on my ignore list  

seriously - you disagree with someone and their instantly a troll ?

You kids that fail to grasp memes but shoehorn them into every retort you possibly can.
Shouldnt you be screeching on xbox live ?

[ARapalo]

FPGA's will eventually get cheaper once china starts churning out clones  . This will force current FPGA manufacturers to drop prices.

Supply and demand. So for now, I'll hold out until it hits mainstream prices.

[dropt]

FPGA's will eventually get cheaper once china starts churning out clones  . This will force current FPGA manufacturers to drop prices.

Supply and demand. So for now, I'll hold out until it hits mainstream prices.

Methinks you're going to be waiting a long time then.  Don't see china making counterfit FPGAs anytime soon;  Last I checked they weren't making counterfit AMD/Intel processors and that's a much more lucrative market.

[mem]

FPGA's will eventually get cheaper once china starts churning out clones  . This will force current FPGA manufacturers to drop prices.

Supply and demand. So for now, I'll hold out until it hits mainstream prices.

Methinks you're going to be waiting a long time then.  Don't see china making counterfit FPGAs anytime soon;  Last I checked they weren't making counterfit AMD/Intel processors and that's a much more lucrative market.

I had a quick scout myself, they all seem stuck on the Spartan 3 atm - definitely no cheap spartan 6's floating around.