ASIC = The end of decentralized mining

[zvs]

LMAO watching Cablepair guy fight and cling for the last few days of his business is so entertaining. HAHA!

Your FPGA days are over son !

Your such a clown you have no idea what your talking about

ASICS arent even out yet.

no one can dispute FPGA is #1 right now, the debate is what will happen when ASICS DO come out.

Myself and the other FPGA manufacturers are enjoying sales in the many tens of thousands, you really need to get a clue your just making yourself look foolish at this point.

FPGA #1 for what?  

not for making profit

if my power costs were over 10-11c, i wouldnt be mining


and my one 5830  i have left is still worth the same as it was 16 months ago

[cablepair]

your seriously going to sit here and try and say that GPU mining is more profitable than FPGA

where have you been for the last six months? in a solar powered windmill with no internet access?

I cant waste my mental energy any longer on people who have no idea what they are talking about


please please someone correct this boy


dont worry guys I will give you another good reason to argue with me soon

but I need a break from this one....

this is getting ridiculous

[SgtSpike]

your seriously going to sit here and try and say that GPU mining is more profitable than FPGA

where have you been for the last six months? in a solar powered windmill with no internet access?

I cant waste my mental energy any longer on people who have no idea what they are talking about


please please someone correct this boy


dont worry guys I will give you another good reason to argue with me soon

but I need a break from this one....

this is getting ridiculous

It is in some cases... particularly where the user has very inexpensive electricity.

[cablepair]

YES WHEN ELECTRICITY IS FREE

i understand that

i mean for 99% OF EVERYONE ELSE



you guys forget I mined with GPUs for over a year, I had a 10 ghash mining farm
ive bought sold traded and mined on every radeon hd gpu there is

want to see pics?

http://btcwebhost.com/images/rig/

WHY DO THEY LOVE TO ARGUE WITH ME SO MUCH???

I knew I should of helped that old lady cross the street today  - damnit karma



.....


with that I bid you a good day as I have a busy evening ahead of me processing fpga orders and fielding emails.
take care!

[SgtSpike]

When you make all-encompassing statements like "your seriously going to sit here and try and say that GPU mining is more profitable than FPGA," then I'll take it literally.  If you preface your statement with "Unless your electricity is free, blah blah blah," then I probably wouldn't bug you.

Also, have you done a recent analysis on how long it takes for an FPGA to out-profit a GPU setup at different electric rates?  I doubt it is just at $0.00/kwh where it would make more sense to buy GPU's instead of FPGA's...

[cablepair]

When you make all-encompassing statements like "your seriously going to sit here and try and say that GPU mining is more profitable than FPGA," then I'll take it literally.  If you preface your statement with "Unless your electricity is free, blah blah blah," then I probably wouldn't bug you.

Also, have you done a recent analysis on how long it takes for an FPGA to out-profit a GPU setup at different electric rates?  I doubt it is just at $0.00/kwh where it would make more sense to buy GPU's instead of FPGA's...

damn it I knew you were going to get me to answer one more time, I am really not interested in nit picking semantics but...

Your forgetting the fact that blocks will be halved to 25 BTC per block by the end of the year in that case free electricity WILL be the only way GPU mining would be profitable and you know as well as I do that most serious miners have either already moved past GPU or are in the process of doing so,

GPU mining had its run and I am very happy I was able to make some good money off of it, I started mining when coins were trading for 80 cents a piece and the difficulty was incredibly lower than it is today (I was getting 8 coins a day with a single 5870) but those days are over and never coming back ...

Ive been there and done that, I sold my GPU farm two months ago and haven't looked back - Ive got over 8ghash of FPGA and building and let me tell you what, when my wife opens the electric bill each month and sees $200.00 instead of $600.00 - its priceless

Now you gentleman have a good evening, it was nice chatting with you but Ive got to go - my wife has a nice Delmonico steak on the grill and a cold beer waiting for me in the fridge

[SgtSpike]

Certainly the block reward halving will be interesting...  I bet a lot of GPU miners will drop out.

I'd still say that those with free electricity won't be the only ones GPU mining though.  Some have very cheap electricity, $0.03/kwh or less.  Even with the block reward halving, they'd still be very profitable.

Honestly, to get those with some of the more efficient GPU setups out of the game who have $0.03/kwh electric rates, you'd have to see difficulty increase five fold without any increase in Bitcoin price AND including the coming block reward halving.  Of course, that's not a perfect metric, as it doesn't account for hardware failures outside of warranty, etc, but it still shows that there is a long way to go before GPU mining is completely unprofitable for everyone.

[rjk]

How much do you wanna bet he'll still be here in 15 minutes...

Kidding man, don't take it literally.

[rudrigorc2]

I dont think it is wise giving all the power to a single hardware company.

There is still room and time to everyone profit, but If we are letting ASIC in, at this point, then everyone will be smashed hard and that talk about bitcoins being the peoples currency its all suddenly crap. I guess it we can call people-with-lots-of-money-to-buy-ASIC currency.

I say we should prevent ASIC from mining until everyone has fair access to it.

[SgtSpike]

I dont think it is wise giving all the power to a single hardware company.

There is still room and time to everyone profit, but If we are letting ASIC in, at this point, then everyone will be smashed hard and that talk about bitcoins being the peoples currency its all suddenly crap. I guess it we can call people-with-lots-of-money-to-buy-ASIC currency.

I say we should prevent ASIC from mining until everyone has fair access to it.

There is no way to prevent ASIC mining.  It is coming whether you like it or not.

[Transisto]

To everyone else I respect your opinion a great deal,...
for me its back to work

Have a nice day Gentleman its been nice debating with you.

Now, could you like STFU ?

[rudrigorc2]

I dont think it is wise giving all the power to a single hardware company.

There is still room and time to everyone profit, but If we are letting ASIC in, at this point, then everyone will be smashed hard and that talk about bitcoins being the peoples currency its all suddenly crap. I guess it we can call people-with-lots-of-money-to-buy-ASIC currency.

I say we should prevent ASIC from mining until everyone has fair access to it.

There is no way to prevent ASIC mining.  It is coming whether you like it or not.

I love it, but its no good for btc at this point.

[SgtSpike]

I dont think it is wise giving all the power to a single hardware company.

There is still room and time to everyone profit, but If we are letting ASIC in, at this point, then everyone will be smashed hard and that talk about bitcoins being the peoples currency its all suddenly crap. I guess it we can call people-with-lots-of-money-to-buy-ASIC currency.

I say we should prevent ASIC from mining until everyone has fair access to it.

There is no way to prevent ASIC mining.  It is coming whether you like it or not.

I love it, but its no good for btc at this point.

Why?

[Transisto]

Why?

Because I'm too cheap or to much of a pussy to get into the game.

GPU weren't risky at all compared to ASIC.   ASIC's are risky for both the buyer and the maker.
Ex : I sold used GPU for more than I had paid them 1 years back.

The risk being taken is to make the whole bitcoin network less risky.  Can't complain the fundamentals...

[lemonz]

When you make all-encompassing statements like "your seriously going to sit here and try and say that GPU mining is more profitable than FPGA," then I'll take it literally.  If you preface your statement with "Unless your electricity is free, blah blah blah," then I probably wouldn't bug you.

Also, have you done a recent analysis on how long it takes for an FPGA to out-profit a GPU setup at different electric rates?  I doubt it is just at $0.00/kwh where it would make more sense to buy GPU's instead of FPGA's...

A quick analysis using the following figure on bitcoinx.com using default values and the following:

GPU: 7970
Watts: 208 624/3 [wall draw / 3 for a 3 card system]
$570 ((470 * 3)+300)/3 [((card cost * 3) + base cost of a rig) / 3]

FPGA: USB-FPGA Module 1.15y
Watts: 38
$950

$/kw/h - cost per kw/h
GPU - days to pay off
FPGA - days to pay off

$/kw/h   GPU   FPGA
 $-         398   447
 $0.01    414   449
 $0.02    430   451
 $0.03    448   453
 $0.04    467   456
 $0.05    489   458
 $0.06    512   460
...
 $0.12    732   473


The number appears to be between 3 and 4 cents.  These are all meaningless though, since difficulty / price will not stay where it is, but does give an indication as to currently where that sweet spot lies.

[SgtSpike]

Nice work lemonz - I would have done the calculations, but was feeling rather lazy about it. 

It'll certainly be variable - I don't think anyone is arguing that it won't be.  But cablepair was trying to make the argument that, unless electricity was free, there is no way a GPU would be more profitable than an FPGA miner.

Now, I suppose that might be true down to the fractions of a cent for electricity if some level of difficulty increase was assumed, but assumptions are dangerous - difficulty is still in roughly the same spot as it was 10 months ago.

[mc_lovin]

I'm so glad FPGAs cost so much.  If they were cheap, all these Radeons would be useless!

[lemonz]

It'll certainly be variable - I don't think anyone is arguing that it won't be.  But cablepair was trying to make the argument that, unless electricity was free, there is no way a GPU would be more profitable than an FPGA miner.

Now, I suppose that might be true down to the fractions of a cent for electricity if some level of difficulty increase was assumed, but assumptions are dangerous - difficulty is still in roughly the same spot as it was 10 months ago.

I agree.  I would also add that once ASICs hit the market, I would expect there to be less development efforts being made on the FPGA front for Bitcoin mining given the cost / performance ratio of ASICs.  GPUs however will continue to evolve, drawing less power and putting out more performance.  So as GPUs continue to develop, I wouldn't be surprised to see GPU performance surpassing FPGA hardware, as it no longer is actively developed.  So GPUs could actually become more viable than FPGAs.

Just my thoughts though, and I'm sure someone will tell me why I'm wrong

[notme]

It'll certainly be variable - I don't think anyone is arguing that it won't be.  But cablepair was trying to make the argument that, unless electricity was free, there is no way a GPU would be more profitable than an FPGA miner.

Now, I suppose that might be true down to the fractions of a cent for electricity if some level of difficulty increase was assumed, but assumptions are dangerous - difficulty is still in roughly the same spot as it was 10 months ago.

I agree.  I would also add that once ASICs hit the market, I would expect there to be less development efforts being made on the FPGA front for Bitcoin mining given the cost / performance ratio of ASICs.  GPUs however will continue to evolve, drawing less power and putting out more performance.  So as GPUs continue to develop, I wouldn't be surprised to see GPU performance surpassing FPGA hardware, as it no longer is actively developed.  So GPUs could actually become more viable than FPGAs.

Just my thoughts though, and I'm sure someone will tell me why I'm wrong

FPGA hardware will advance at about the same rate as GPU hardware.  Even if they only put more cores per chip, they should see the same improvements as GPUs which are doing the same: more cores per chip.  The work you're referring to is all software, has already been done, and the situation is nearly identical to GPU mining software.  Both GPU programming and FPGA programming is somewhat specialized, but I know where I got my undergraduate degree we had to code for FPGAs as part of the degree program, but not GPUs.

[lemonz]

FPGA hardware will advance at about the same rate as GPU hardware.  Even if they only put more cores per chip, they should see the same improvements as GPUs which are doing the same: more cores per chip.  The work you're referring to is all software, has already been done, and the situation is nearly identical to GPU mining software.  Both GPU programming and FPGA programming is somewhat specialized, but I know where I got my undergraduate degree we had to code for FPGAs as part of the degree program, but not GPUs.

This is reasonable, and only time will tell.  I just can't help but feel that the GPU market (as a whole) will move faster than the FPGA market due to demand and market size.  Of course technology across the board will benefit from advancements, but I believe the larger and more profitable markets will see it first.

However, it is also possible that AMD will change their architecture and hashing won't be as feasible in future generations of hardware.  Given the nature of FPGA, we know that performance there will always rise.

Thanks for the insight notme!