High Efficiency FPGA & ASIC Bitcoin Mining Devices https://BTCFPGA.com

[Keefe]

Keep in mind that even if a 54 GH bASIC uses 150W (2.5x) and a 60 GH BFL Single uses 60W, they're competitive for the first year of operation (assuming $0.12/kwh), regardless of the difficulty factor:
bASIC: $1099.99 + $157.68, $23.29/GH
BFL: $1333.00 + $63.07, $23.27/GH

And surely both will be obsolete within a year, so don't tell me about how many pennies you'll save after the first year.

And if it turns out the bASIC will use 250W, CablePair can simply lower the price by 10% or overclock to 60 GH to regain competitiveness.

The important factors to be considered when investing in ASICs is price per GH and delivery speed. The big question one should ask right now, is will a new BFL order be delivered before or after a new bASIC order, as that will affect the bottom line far far more than power cost. We have some estimates when each will ship the earliest orders, but in BFL's case especially, the delivery date of new orders is a wild guess. The sooner BFL figures out and publishes estimates of when they'll catch up with all pre-orders, the more sales they'll take from bASIC.

This is a good point, but I think your missing the point of the ASICs.  If you invest in a high power consumption ASIC, it ceases to become profitable much faster than a lower power one.  You say that they will both be obsolete in a year, but that just doesn't make sense.  They become obsolete when they no longer have a positive ROI - so naturally, the one with the lower power consumption becomes obsolete later.  In the case of a 2x bump in power consumption that means your device becomes completely useless much sooner than a comparable device.  

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn.  Tom is basically the only hold out on the ASIC front as far as power figures go and it makes me question why that would be.  Either he or his engineers have a rough estimate (or at least I would hope so!), and putting that out there would be the transparent thing to do, even if it's with the caveat that "it's only an estimate and may change by 20%" or something similar.

That's a good point also. But if the next generation of hardware (after the upcoming ASICs) is 10x better in terms of $/GH (i.e. 500 GH for $1000), even the first-gen BFL SC line will soon become unprofitable at average power cost. BFL can probably turn a profit selling a 500 GH unit for $1000 with even the first-gen BFL SC chips, now that NRE is covered. But obviously it can't obsolete itself, so a new chip will need to be made on a smaller process node with much less power draw, for example moving from 90nm to 45nm when 45nm is affordable.

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[kano]

... and getting to the end of the day - yep the Mh/s has dropped a couple and the HW % has also dropped

(5s):493.5M (avg):834.9Mh/s | Q:787  A:10442  R:26  HW:121  E:1327%  U:11.2/m

MMQ 0: 40/39/41/36 C  | 656  M/835  Mh/s | A:10443 R:26 HW:121 U:11.24/m

Gives: 1.14% HW errors - and with my settings it should end up between 1% and 0.75% but hopefully still above 830Mh/s

Still looks OK IMO - and in case anyone felt like trying it, the pull has been there for 7 hours:
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/319
(and there's plenty of comments about some of the changes in there )

To actually get my git changes to the current code it's in my mmq branch:
https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer/tree/mmq
(but it calls itself 2.8.3)

Still plenty of work to be done of course ... but it should work fine now on any linux
Any bugs found - please let me know

[dani]

Keep in mind that even if a 54 GH bASIC uses 150W (2.5x) and a 60 GH BFL Single uses 60W, they're competitive for the first year of operation (assuming $0.12/kwh), regardless of the difficulty factor:
bASIC: $1099.99 + $157.68, $23.29/GH
BFL: $1333.00 + $63.07, $23.27/GH

And surely both will be obsolete within a year, so don't tell me about how many pennies you'll save after the first year.

And if it turns out the bASIC will use 250W, CablePair can simply lower the price by 10% or overclock to 60 GH to regain competitiveness.

The important factors to be considered when investing in ASICs is price per GH and delivery speed. The big question one should ask right now, is will a new BFL order be delivered before or after a new bASIC order, as that will affect the bottom line far far more than power cost. We have some estimates when each will ship the earliest orders, but in BFL's case especially, the delivery date of new orders is a wild guess. The sooner BFL figures out and publishes estimates of when they'll catch up with all pre-orders, the more sales they'll take from bASIC.

This is a good point, but I think your missing the point of the ASICs.  If you invest in a high power consumption ASIC, it ceases to become profitable much faster than a lower power one.  You say that they will both be obsolete in a year, but that just doesn't make sense.  They become obsolete when they no longer have a positive ROI - so naturally, the one with the lower power consumption becomes obsolete later.  In the case of a 2x bump in power consumption that means your device becomes completely useless much sooner than a comparable device. 

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn.  Tom is basically the only hold out on the ASIC front as far as power figures go and it makes me question why that would be.  Either he or his engineers have a rough estimate (or at least I would hope so!), and putting that out there would be the transparent thing to do, even if it's with the caveat that "it's only an estimate and may change by 20%" or something similar.

3 years vs 1 year seems wrong to me, if you compare 60watt vs 250watt or so.
example in €: 20cent/kwH, 60watt makes 8,64€/month. 250watt makes 36€/month. if you do only generate 36€ or less with an asic, how much more money will you generate until it hits 8,64€? If the generated btc value meets 36€/month, it wont take much longer to hit those 8€. If it will happen that the generated value of an asic will meet 36€ in one year, then i doubt it needs 2 years to get from 36 to 8.

i guess you can understand that.

[dani]

keep in mind that 250watt is more than 4 times 60watt.  Not just double, not tripple - let me say it again: more than 4 times. 1,2,3,.. 4!

[PuertoLibre]

Keep in mind that even if a 54 GH bASIC uses 150W (2.5x) and a 60 GH BFL Single uses 60W, they're competitive for the first year of operation (assuming $0.12/kwh), regardless of the difficulty factor:
bASIC: $1099.99 + $157.68, $23.29/GH
BFL: $1333.00 + $63.07, $23.27/GH

And surely both will be obsolete within a year, so don't tell me about how many pennies you'll save after the first year.

And if it turns out the bASIC will use 250W, CablePair can simply lower the price by 10% or overclock to 60 GH to regain competitiveness.

The important factors to be considered when investing in ASICs is price per GH and delivery speed. The big question one should ask right now, is will a new BFL order be delivered before or after a new bASIC order, as that will affect the bottom line far far more than power cost. We have some estimates when each will ship the earliest orders, but in BFL's case especially, the delivery date of new orders is a wild guess. The sooner BFL figures out and publishes estimates of when they'll catch up with all pre-orders, the more sales they'll take from bASIC.

This is a good point, but I think your missing the point of the ASICs.  If you invest in a high power consumption ASIC, it ceases to become profitable much faster than a lower power one.  You say that they will both be obsolete in a year, but that just doesn't make sense.  They become obsolete when they no longer have a positive ROI - so naturally, the one with the lower power consumption becomes obsolete later.  In the case of a 2x bump in power consumption that means your device becomes completely useless much sooner than a comparable device.  

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn.  Tom is basically the only hold out on the ASIC front as far as power figures go and it makes me question why that would be.  Either he or his engineers have a rough estimate (or at least I would hope so!), and putting that out there would be the transparent thing to do, even if it's with the caveat that "it's only an estimate and may change by 20%" or something similar.

I understand what you are trying to say, but there are two large issues to your position on this matter.

Respectfully, the first issue is that BFL and bASIC are both selling a tethered device which means it must be connected to a desktop PC, Laptop PC, or other mobile device.

------------------------------

The average desktop PC at idle consumes about 150watts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_computer

The average laptop (depending on specific design) consumes anywhere from 30watts (ultra portables) to 90watts (DTR's [DeskTop Replacements]).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_replacement_computer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-mobile_PC

So you are never actually running a BFL device with a mere 60 watts. You are consuming 60 watts plus the overhead for the tethered PC. At best your total power consumption is greater than 60watts. Either it is at 30watts extra or closer to 210watts.

* Not including the Host PC monitor which ads anywhere from 20 to 80watts depending on monitor quality.

The same will be true for bASIC mining hardware.

This is why I chose Avalon instead of BFL or bASIC. As long as their standalone system comes somewhere near 200 to 300 watts they are pretty much in the same neighborhood as BFL and bASIC actual operating expense. If they do better than that they are still competitive.
------------------------------

The second large issue is that you ?appear to assume? the individual isn't going to make a sufficient amount of BTC or Fiat Money to cover the costs of an upgrade to a second or third generation BitCoin mining device in a years time.

If the Mining device is that unprofitable over the span of a single year...then why bother selling them if you can't replace the cost of the device plus a healthy profit margin within 1 year?? (Heck, even in 3 months of mining)

This ultimately means that unless the device is seriously underperfoming or consuming a significant amount of power, it will make it's ROI (Return on Investment) with ample profit. There will be those with a few hundred dollars less in their pocket due to higher electrical costs. While others with a few hundred more in their pocket due to power efficiency.

The difference is relatively minimal (IMO) considering the overall net income from mining over 1 year.

 

[psilan]

keep in mind that 250watt is more than 4 times 60watt.  Not just double, not tripple - let me say it again: more than 4 times. 1,2,3,.. 4!

So you pulled 250W out of your ass and then went on to put emphasis on it?

Let's wait until Tom releases the info. He said he'd have more information soon, maybe it's power specs.

[PuertoLibre]

@ BFL_Josh (Inaba)

The biggest concern of mine is not electricity use if it remains within a certain range. What concerned me the most is what was the safe operating temperature for the mining hardware.

Winter is coming to the northern Hemisphere. So the heat put out by these devices will not be noticable if BFL or bASIC ships out in the next 2 to 3 months. But after Febuary, if one of these devices has to be cooled with Air Conditioning, then that would make a big dent in the profit margin. It would have been a deal breaker to add 1 to 2 kilowatts of power consumption during the following spring, summer and fall. As well as affect the reliability of the device.

Thank you for your recent answers on your mining device. That helped me understand that you have taken this into account and have designed safety features (well BFL_Engineer did at least) so that the device would not suffer from a heat related issue.

 

[PuertoLibre]

By the way, if anyone is wondering where I got my estimates from, I have a device called a Kill-A-Watt meter that tells me what the power consumption is at the electrical socket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt

I have one of the P4400.

[Unacceptable]

@ BFL_Josh (Inaba)

The biggest concern of mine is not electricity use if it remains within a certain range. What concerned me the most is what was the safe operating temperature for the mining hardware.

Winter is coming to the northern Hemisphere. So the heat put out by these devices will not be noticable if BFL or bASIC ships out in the next 2 to 3 months. But after Febuary, if one of these devices has to be cooled with Air Conditioning, then that would make a big dent in the profit margin. It would have been a deal breaker to add 1 to 2 kilowatts of power consumption during the following spring, summer and fall. As well as affect the reliability of the device.

Thank you for your recent answers on your mining device. That helped me understand that you have taken this into account and have designed safety features (well BFL_Engineer did at least) so that the device would not suffer from a heat related issue.

 

From the BFL forum,posted by BFL_Josh:

"We can't guarantee that the Single SC will operate at full load at 100F.

With stock cooling, you can expect full performance between +/- 10% 40F and 90F. Outside of those parameters, more testing would have to be done over an extended period of time."

[mdude77]

Sorry squid, but you're incorrect.  Tom spoke up about the power, of which he knows nothing about, making seemingly factual statements.  I am here to correct him and get answers to the questions about his power consumption as well as what he means by "competitive." 

If he knows so much about our power, it stands to reason he knows even more about his power consumption, so again I ask, why is he hiding this information from his customers?  What's wrong with the power consumption on these boards that he has to hide even the estimates of what it might be?  Why does he say that the refund policy will change when he releases the power information?  He "guarantees" that the power will be competitive, but doesn't say what competitive is.  What is this "guarantee?" 

He leaves lots of open questions for supposedly being "transparent" and lots of wiggle room to back out and keep our money if he ends up with a board that has 2 or 3x the power consumption of the competing products.  I know, for my part, I would not want a device that runs at 200w at 60 GH/s - it would never see a positive ROI.  Even at 150w, your ROI would be measured in years, not months.

So I want to know if I can get a refund if it turns out his power is not "competitive," since he "guarantees" that it will be. 

Dude, quit while you're behind.

M

[dani]

keep in mind that 250watt is more than 4 times 60watt.  Not just double, not tripple - let me say it again: more than 4 times. 1,2,3,.. 4!

So you pulled 250W out of your ass and then went on to put emphasis on it?

Let's wait until Tom releases the info. He said he'd have more information soon, maybe it's power specs.

i pulled 250W out of my ass to show some worst case scenario. So yes, it put emphasis on it. Should i not? Maybe i should have calculated with 60watt vs 40 watts..

[Syke]

Tom spoke up about the power, of which he knows nothing about, making seemingly factual statements.  I am here to correct him and get answers to the questions about his power consumption as well as what he means by "competitive."
...
a device that runs at 200w at 60 GH/s - it would never see a positive ROI.  Even at 150w, your ROI would be measured in years, not months.

You criticize Tom for doubting your energy claims, then you come along and state some ROI claims as fact? It sure must be nice knowing what the future difficulty level will be. You know the future. Care to share next month's difficulty level with us? Or are you just a hypocrite and a troll.

[gyverlb]

i pulled 250W out of my ass to show some worst case scenario. So yes, it put emphasis on it. Should i not? Maybe i should have calculated with 60watt vs 40 watts..

Might I remind everyone here that the bASIC1 54GH/s can be powered by a single molex connector?
In case you are wondering why I point it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector#Disk_drive_connector_.28Molex_8981_Series_Power_Connector.29

Max current/pin: 11A
Assuming the absolute worst case scenario, there is a 12V and 5V pin: 187W.
Assuming a realistic worst case scenario, only the 12V pin will be used: 132W

Knowing the varying qualities of molex connectors/spitters/... I bet the actual power usage is quite lower than these worst case numbers to include safety margins. Even if BFL actually delivers 60GH/s at 60W they can't be sure to have the best power efficiency... Maybe this is why Inaba is reacting awkwardly here.

[Graet]

@ BFL_Josh (Inaba)

The biggest concern of mine is not electricity use if it remains within a certain range. What concerned me the most is what was the safe operating temperature for the mining hardware.

Winter is coming to the northern Hemisphere. So the heat put out by these devices will not be noticable if BFL or bASIC ships out in the next 2 to 3 months. But after Febuary, if one of these devices has to be cooled with Air Conditioning, then that would make a big dent in the profit margin. It would have been a deal breaker to add 1 to 2 kilowatts of power consumption during the following spring, summer and fall. As well as affect the reliability of the device.

Thank you for your recent answers on your mining device. That helped me understand that you have taken this into account and have designed safety features (well BFL_Engineer did at least) so that the device would not suffer from a heat related issue.

 

Those of us coming into summer will have this well tested before your summer rolls around
(assuming delivery before your summer)

[crazyates]

keep in mind that 250watt is more than 4 times 60watt.  Not just double, not tripple - let me say it again: more than 4 times. 1,2,3,.. 4!

5 is right out!

[bobitza]

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn. 

Imo, who wins the power consumption race will win the ASIC race in the long term.

The difference between the Gh/$ and the Gh/W is the difference between short-term and long-term decisions (buying the device vs operating the device).

In the short term I'm interested in buying the device with the best Gh/$ so I can recoup the initial costs faster. But what happens after I get my money back in 6 months, 12 months, etc.? Do I still mine with it? That decision will be made on power consumption costs, in other words I will keep operating the device if electricity costs per Gh are below profits obtained from a Gh mined.

[Bogart]

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn. 

Imo, who wins the power consumption race will win the ASIC race in the long term.

The difference between the Gh/$ and the Gh/W is the difference between short-term and long-term decisions (buying the device vs operating the device).

In the short term I'm interested in buying the device with the best Gh/$ so I can recoup the initial costs faster. But what happens after I get my money back in 6 months, 12 months, etc.? Do I still mine with it? That decision will be made on power consumption costs, in other words I will keep operating the device if electricity costs per Gh are below profits obtained from a Gh mined.

More than that, it's who continues to develop subsequent generations of the technology.

If these guys are smart, they're already working on designs for the next generation, using a smaller process size, as well as any other improvements they can manage.

Not that energy efficiency isn't nice to have.

[Kuma]

I dunno about you, but I'd rather mine on a device for 3 years than 1 year and have to fork out more money to stave off obsolescence.  Not everyone can keep investing money year after year.  That's why power is the most important aspect of an ASIC device and it literally defines if the device is viable or stillborn. 

Imo, who wins the power consumption race will win the ASIC race in the long term.

The difference between the Gh/$ and the Gh/W is the difference between short-term and long-term decisions (buying the device vs operating the device).

In the short term I'm interested in buying the device with the best Gh/$ so I can recoup the initial costs faster. But what happens after I get my money back in 6 months, 12 months, etc.? Do I still mine with it? That decision will be made on power consumption costs, in other words I will keep operating the device if electricity costs per Gh are below profits obtained from a Gh mined.

You are right but you must count, that the hw becomes obsolete due to the increasing difficulty. So I think the best is to count max. with 2 years hw so count the price of purchase + the consumption during expected life.

[itsgoldbaby]

I just pre-ordered a 27GH/s ASIC unit from you, looking forward to getting it! I remember seeing a contest to win a quadminer from you, but can't seem to find the thread anymore. Is this still on going?

[Epoch]

Imo, who wins the power consumption race will win the ASIC race in the long term.

The difference between the Gh/$ and the Gh/W is the difference between short-term and long-term decisions (buying the device vs operating the device).

In the short term I'm interested in buying the device with the best Gh/$ so I can recoup the initial costs faster. But what happens after I get my money back in 6 months, 12 months, etc.? Do I still mine with it? That decision will be made on power consumption costs, in other words I will keep operating the device if electricity costs per Gh are below profits obtained from a Gh mined.

In the context of bitcoin, terms such as 'short-term' and 'long-term' do not have the same meanings as we might normally attribute to them. For bitcoin, just a few weeks or months can have significant shakeups: BTC exchange rates, new products or services being introduced, major exchanges or businesses being hacked or exposed as scams, new government regulations being introduced.

Planning anything in the bitcoin realm beyond half a dozen months, let alone a year, is rolling the dice.

How long did CPU mining last once it became mainstream, before it was obsoleted by GPU mining? How long did GPU mining last before it was obsoleted by FPGAs? And by 'obsoleted' I don't mean 'unprofitable'. After all, GPU mining is still profitable (but CPU mining is not). I simply mean that a device has been introduced that is significantly more efficient in terms of GH/W and in terms of GH/$. And how long did FPGA mining last now that ASICs are around the corner?

All of these technologies (CPU, GPU, FPGA) lasted roughly a year. I was a small-time GPU miner back in July of 2011. I ordered BFL FPGAs as soon as they were announced. My first pair of Singles was mining in March, merely 7 months ago. I don't expect them to be mining come January, however.

Not that they will no longer be profitable ... they will ... but consider this: with a difficulty of 3 million, an FPGA Single makes $3/day while using $0.15 in electricity. This is quite efficient. Let's say that by the end of January enough ASICs will have been installed to drive the difficulty up 5x, to 15 million. In that environment, my FPGA Single will only be making $0.30 per day (1/5th due to difficulty increase, another 1/2 due to block reward dropping to 25BTC/block), but still requiring $0.15 in electricity.

So my FPGA profit will drop from about $2.85/day down to $0.15/day. Still a profit, but it would be silly to continue mining with such a device. Would I want to live with the heat and noise and wasting of space for a mere $0.15/day? Nope. I'd rather sell it. Or, if I couldn't sell it, I'd throw it away ... even though it was technically 'profitable'. Profitability is not the only criterion for determining whether to continue mining or not; there are many other variables to consider.

Same with GPU mining. GPU mining today is still technically 'profitable'. But to earn more than a few dollars a day after paying for electricity would require a large amount of GPUs. If they were quiet, and cool, and reliable, and didn't take up space, I would be happy to run them in a cupboard somewhere earning spare change. But they are nothing of the sort. I would not tolerate putting up with a bunch of GPUs unless they were generating significant profit. In today's environment, unless electricity is free, mining with GPUs is something I have no interest in.

Come January, FPGAs will be in the same boat as GPUs are today. As to my previous example of a BFL Single earning $0.15/day after the block reward cut and a 5x increase in difficulty: the ROI at $0.15/day would be ridiculous.

And back to OT, I would not personally be too concerned if the bASIC consumed 1.5x, or 2x, or 3x the power of BFL's offering; I think the 'short-term' profitability of all 1st-gen ASIC devices will be high enough that electricity costs (whether $0.10/day or $0.50/day) will be insignificant relative to gross profit. If you are looking for an ROI of 6-9 months, you will very likely achieve it regardless of power consumption. Higher power consumption would have mostly a logistical effect: how many I can run off a single wall outlet.

Only when the 'next generation' of hardware comes out, again with significant GH/$ advantage over these 1st-gen ASICs, will power consumption play anything more than a minor role. And is history is any indication, that could happen in the latter half of next year.