AlcheMiner 96MH/s Alchemist Scrypt Miner Unboxing / Review

[twentyseventy]

It seems that many people here on the boards aren't familiar with AlcheMiner, a Scrypt-miner company located in Taiwan.

You can see more information about the company at www.alcheminer.com - current pricing is:

96MH/s Alchemist - $1,500  $1,199
256MH/s Alchemist - $3,900 $3,099

This review/unboxing will be focused on the 96MH/s version

Actual Hashrate:
100MH/s @ GHash.io LTC, 50,000 Diff
94MH/s @ Clevermining (still testing), 65,536 Diff

Power draw: 900W (haven't tested at the wall)


With KNC's Titans plagued with such issues, it's been great to see that the Alchemists were made with such high quality.

NOTE: I maintain a business relationship with Alcheminer, so I have a vested interest in the company's success - please take this into account when reading this review. All information here is true and complete, but bias (recognized or unrecognized) is always a possible issue.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the build quality and, after the last firmware update, the hashing capability.

I received it about a week ago and, after two substandard power supplies, am finally hashing away with no problems.

Finally arrived from Taiwan!





Packed very well -


Box only includes the miner and two screw-on plates (not pictured) for rack-mounting





Looks very slick; the casing is like a thick computer tower case, not flimsy metal.





The front has three fan intakes - this is the 96MH version, so there is only one set of boards and fan. The 256MH/s model would have all three. The top right hand corner has the LED display screen and the power button.





The rear has the fax exhaust port, a PCIE 8-pin power port for the controller board and three more for the mining boards themselves. Last is of course the ethernet port.




Looking good with the wireless bridge




Get a good PSU!

It will need 900W @ 12v, so ensure that your PSU can handle that - I've got a EVGA 1300W just to ensure that there's enough for the draw. Also, the EVGA PSU came with a pin connector so that you don't have to short the PSU with a paper clip to start it - talk about foresight!






The LED fades in and out constantly while it's hashing - you wouldn't want it in your room for this reason... or because it's loud and hot!

The hashrate, when first powered on, spikes up to well above 100MH, but later comes back down to the standard 90 - 98MH/s range. I'll be interested to see if the boards can support higher hashrates with future firmware updates.






...and he lives in the garage now! 'Wife doesn't like the noise and heat' is almost a cliche on these forums - but it's true! This is best suited to a garage, cool basement, or other area away from main living area. The fan is pretty loud and it does generate a significant amount of heat if kept enclosed with little venting.





The backend is easily interfaced through a web browser and allows pools settings, hashrate monitor, IP settings, password change, and firmware updates.



Performance


The miner did require a firmware update when I first received it; there was an issue with the pool settings.

After getting everything set up, I was hashing at Ghash.io LTC pool at an average of about 75MH/s - there would sometimes be a ramp up and down, but that was the average after about 24 hours.

Tom, the lead engineer, sent a new firmware update with promises of better performance. After breaking it in for 14 hours, it was hashing at an average of 100MH/s!

You can see here in GHash's performance history - the change in variance is the new update. The miner does better with larger shares (50,000+) instead of smaller shares like 4096 or 8192.

This is the cause of the big variance and the increase in stales/rejects. Even with the increase in rejects, the hashrate is still far better than before.



Clevermining is still coming along as well, but I have yet to get a full 24 hours on the pool.






Hope you enjoyed the unboxing! Please let me know if anyone here would like additional pictures or information  

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[110110101]

Interesting post twentyseventy, nice with the pictures!
Glad that you got your asic. I stopped ordering hardware after a couple of incidents with BFL... I run only cloud-miners now.

Is the unit up-gradable? There looks like you have room for more chips, or perhaps the unit cannot be rebuilt into a 256 asic?

[twentyseventy]

Interesting post twentyseventy, nice with the pictures!
Glad that you got your asic. I stopped ordering hardware after a couple of incidents with BFL... I run only cloud-miners now.

Is the unit up-gradable? There looks like you have room for more chips, or perhaps the unit cannot be rebuilt into a 256 asic?

Thanks! This is my first ASIC purchase - I did a bit of GPU mining back in the Spring, but I was (obviously) too late to the game at that time. I'm wary of the cloud hashing services but it seems that the litecoin community has had more luck with cloudhashing than the BTC community did/does.

The 256MH/s unit has two additional sets of boards, that's the reason for the extra space; I'm not sure if it's possible to add-in additional boards after the fact. I'm going to see how Scrypt profitability does for the time being and maybe ask in a while 

[emdje]

Quick question:


If one chip of 1 MH uses 4.5 Watts, meaning that 98 MH would use 98*4.5=432 Watts in total. How come that the 98MH unit uses 900Watts???!!
Did you measure the power use? Can you elaborate?

[twentyseventy]

If one chip of 1 MH uses 4.5 Watts, meaning that 98 MH would use 98*4.5=432 Watts in total. How come that the 98MH unit uses 900Watts???!!
Did you measure the power use? Can you elaborate?

I don't have a kill-a-watt to measure, but another user (https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=21959.msg212939#msg212939) has reported about 900W-919W.

I'm not an expert on the inner workings, so I'll ask the devs if the rest of the hardware (besides the chips) would be counting towards the rest of the power usage.

[Prelude]

Seems to be about the same efficiency as A2 Terminators. Can you post pics of the Web interface?

[twentyseventy]

If one chip of 1 MH uses 4.5 Watts, meaning that 98 MH would use 98*4.5=432 Watts in total. How come that the 98MH unit uses 900Watts???!!
Did you measure the power use? Can you elaborate?

I don't have a kill-a-watt to measure, but another user (https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=21959.msg212939#msg212939) has reported about 900W-919W.

I'm not an expert on the inner workings, so I'll ask the devs if the rest of the hardware (besides the chips) would be counting towards the rest of the power usage.

Talked to Tom about the power consumption; basically the power conversion and power transfer efficiency on the boards make up the remaining ~400 - 500W of power consumption. The chips themselves use ~4.5W each, but there's more to account for than that.

Seems to be about the same efficiency as A2 Terminators. Can you post pics of the Web interface?

Sure!

It's simple, but effective - here's an album of the screens, pretty self explanatory but let me know if you have any questions about them.

https://imgur.com/a/zrU7R

Running about about 96MH for the last 24hours on Ghash LTC

[twentyseventy]

I've managed to quit messing with the difficulty setting and switching pools long enough to have it hashing for 48 hours straight (hard for me!  ) and it's doing really well.

Averages about 96MH - 100MH on the daily average and no restarts or other issues; still performs best with 50,000 Diff; I tried both 65536 and 32768 on LTC Ghash and neither provided better hashrate.

[tom99]

  nice miner gear but power use too much for 96 almost 1KW and 256 MH 2.2KW that overkill power use.

[twentyseventy]

  nice miner gear but power use too much for 96 almost 1KW and 256 MH 2.2KW that overkill power use.

It's not optimal, but luckily my power costs aren't too high ($0.12 per kWh) and, like I said, it lives in the garage so at least I don't have to cool it.

Thanks for looking!

[wunkbone]

  nice miner gear but power use too much for 96 almost 1KW and 256 MH 2.2KW that overkill power use.

Agree about the power usage, need it to be more efficient.

[twentyseventy]

  nice miner gear but power use too much for 96 almost 1KW and 256 MH 2.2KW that overkill power use.

Agree about the power usage, need it to be more efficient.

I'll be keeping track of the power usage and mining profits closely; the miner is actually on its own power meter so that'll be easy to calculate per month.

[twentyseventy]

Someone asked via PM if the fans could be switched out for 120mm (quieter) Corsair fans. They can be switched, Tom said, but the machine would probably need a cool/colder environment to do so because, obviously, the fans are there to cool the chips. Anyone wanting to switch the fans would nee to watch for a drop in hashrate, as that would show that the chips are not being cooled enough.

[twentyseventy]

Just FYI for anyone in the market:

96MH/s was $1,500 and has been lowered to $1,199

256MH/s was $3,999 and has been lowered to $3,099

Enjoy 

[edonkey]

It looks like a nice box, but at even at the reduced price it's just a non-starter.

In order to get to a break even point of 90 days, the price would have to fall to $600. That's as calculated with free power, not including shipping or PS costs, and a 3% difficulty increase. That's close enough that I might take the risk, if the price ever falls that low.

I'm interested in new hardware, but until BTC or LTC goes way up, or hardware manufacturers dramatically cut their profits, I'm just going to keep the miners I have and stay on the sidelines.

[suchmoon]

It looks like a nice box, but at even at the reduced price it's just a non-starter.

In order to get to a break even point of 90 days, the price would have to fall to $600. That's as calculated with free power, not including shipping or PS costs, and a 3% difficulty increase. That's close enough that I might take the risk, if the price ever falls that low.

I'm interested in new hardware, but until BTC or LTC goes way up, or hardware manufacturers dramatically cut their profits, I'm just going to keep the miners I have and stay on the sidelines.

I agree. "A" for the effort but still seems to be too expensive for this level of power consumption. If Bitmain and/or Zeus deliver as promised in Dec this will need to cost ~$400 by then to remain competitive.

[twentyseventy]

I agree. "A" for the effort but still seems to be too expensive for this level of power consumption. If Bitmain and/or Zeus deliver as promised in Dec this will need to cost ~$400 by then to remain competitive.

Keeping close track! Have made about .473 BTC between GHash.io LTC and, now, Clevermining. GH.io was getting really finicky with the hashrate and stales, so I've moved over to CM where I'm getting between 90 - 94MH per 24H.

[AlcheMinerIR]

https://i.imgur.com/evcB4cr.png

AlcheMiner Anniversary Sale Part II

AlcheMiner is having an anniversary sale featuring a Buy Two, Get One limited promotion!

All miners are in hand and shipping immediately!

AlcheMiner Alchemist 256MH/s Scrypt Miner
Was $4,497 - Now $1,499 each!

Buy Two, Get One Free: $2,998 + $780 Shipping = 768MH/s for $3,778 shipped!

Ultra Lower Power Consumption: ~2200W per 256MH/s Unit

$4.92 $/MH
8.594 W/MH

To see more information or to purchase an Alchemist, visit www.AlcheMiner.com! You can also email sales@alcheminer.com!

[Erkallys]

AlcheMiner Anniversary Sale Part II

AlcheMiner is having an anniversary sale featuring a Buy Two, Get One limited promotion!

All miners are in hand and shipping immediately!

AlcheMiner Alchemist 256MH/s Scrypt Miner
Was $4,497 - Now $1,499 each!

Buy Two, Get One Free: $2,998 + $780 Shipping = 768MH/s for $3,778 shipped!

Ultra Lower Power Consumption: ~2200W per 256MH/s Unit

$4.92 $/MH
8.594 W/MH

To see more information or to purchase an Alchemist, visit www.AlcheMiner.com! You can also email sales@alcheminer.com!

Is there some in stock ?

[hdmediaservices]

Hmm - so it doesn't come with any PSU?  What would you use for 2.2Kw?  And you'd need two separate circuits 15 Amp Circuits (US)?  Sounds a little dangerous unless you get an electrician to wire a special circuit.

Also - this company only accepts BTC?  What prevents them from scamming everyone?

And on top of that shipping of the unit is $260?

Does not seem like that great of a deal in the end - and could easily be an exit scam.