NOTE:
In this review, I play around with swapping out the stock fan for quieter ones. After ~24 hours of tinkering or so, I've concluded that it's best to leave the stock fan on if you are running default 350MHz clocks and above. Adding a pull fan makes little to no difference with the stock push fan. These units appear to perform best when run at a board temperature below 60C.---
Full Disclosure: I was offered a preview unit but did not feel right accepting one as I have been critical of the S3 launch. I purchased two Batch 1 units with the aim of replacing two older A1 28nm rigs, and hopefully getting it quiet and cool enough to run in a bedroom (tl;dr: Not likely even at 54dBA with quieter fans in push/pull)
Background: I’ve been involved in home mining in since May of 2011. CPU mined my first block as a curiosity in August of 2010.
Started with a dual AMD 7970 rig in 2011 and grew my farm out from there after learning of the Bitcointalk forums. Have been practically living in the Hardware section ever since, trying to keep up with the shifting landscape of mining hardware suitable for use in North American homes running on standard 115VAC residential circuits.
My farm today: I’m practically at the limits of what my home is able to reasonably power, which gives me an approximate hash rate of about 12THs spread across Bitmain S2’s, Bitmain S3’s, A1 Clones, and SPTech SP20E's.
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Unboxing photos.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F9ufz9EB.jpg&t=665&c=1xYKisOZExrFMQ)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FCmFTuDP.jpg&t=665&c=iZoXIYKpVL09qg)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FBBqy6Bo.jpg&t=665&c=3VfEdR3fWpD_zQ)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FHZo8IEY.jpg&t=665&c=IhRxZZ7o1MBW5Q)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fd3WlRqX.jpg&t=665&c=XM3mkvdNYP5V7A)
Stock fans are indeed loud. Way too loud to be near a bedroom (Measuring ~74dBA)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FE5LYPKR.jpg&t=665&c=02D_NPu3yN3bpA)
Off to experiment with some other fans.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FTjNtYY6.jpg&t=665&c=GF9hp6Fd9rVXlw)
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Yep, that's better. Still too loud to be in a bedroom, IMO, but quiet enough to put in the living room.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FxRPLInq.jpg&t=665&c=MVZmQUwyRXBAZA)
591W at the wall
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fz3R1bpq.jpg&t=665&c=VeARss_RcwGtRA)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F32S8sI2.png&t=665&c=uj5sIekFjH-Jjw)
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Much better with some different fans with manually adjustable flows. Have it set up nicely in a push/pull configuration.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FDWh8Dl0.jpg%3F1&t=665&c=UoPhC87zjdpkTw)
Board temperatures have settled at 63/58 at room temp of 25C pulling 592W from the wall using a Corsair TX750M Bronze power supply.
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Initial Thoughts: Lots of room for improvement making the units quieter, but it performs to spec, and has lots of room for modding and tweaking.
Will update this thread as I play with them more. Will definitely be looking to acquire a few more of these.
Bitmain has another winner on their hands, and looks like the production issues faced with the initial S3 batches have been largely resolved if we take other reviews into consideration.
Cheers, Bitmain !
Other reviews:
philipma1957 -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907219.0klondike_bar -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=908494.0bgibso01 -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=908483.0Syke -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=908126.0