Spondoolies is already starting to gear up their 3rd-gen stuff; I'm not sure if it's just planning stages or if they have a solid footing on the chip design yet. Those guys are pretty good at getting things done quickly, given they've went from cold to cycling through two generations in about a year. Spondoolies is no longer manufacturing the SP20. If you get one, it'll be from a third-party reseller. I think about the only thing they have still in stock is the SP31.
The Avalon 4.1 is a bit overpriced, but by no means is it loud - certainly not compared to the stock-configuration SP20 and S5. The 4.1 if I'm remembering right has an option to self-optimize, wherein you can set the clock frequency and it'll automatically undervolt itself to the lowest stable voltage (and therefore total power draw) but I could be remembering wrong. I do believe the Avalon4 can operate at the same W/GH points as the S5 and SP20 (but not at the same $/GH). Avalon is taking a lot of flak from screwovers in the past, but as far as I know the company is basically the same name applied to an entirely different management set from previous generations of hardware (and dickery).
Bitmain's S5, and very likely the S2 Upgrade and S6, are string-topology miners which means increased efficiency comes from not losing power in a low-voltage high-current conversion. One principal problem with this topology is lack of regulation. A PSU operating at higher than 12V will cause increased power consumption at frequency setpoints, while a lower voltage could cause instability. There is no ability to undervolt these miners with hardware or software settings (without external apparatus or special PSUs) so the flexibility and futureproofing of them is reduced over standard VRM designs.
ASICMiner's BE300 chips should be funneling in from the factory any time, unless the schedule Friedcat implied some months ago has not been followed. They promise to be the most efficient chips in active deployment (with the exception of BitFury hardware, though I'm not sure if they have their super amazing new stuff in hand yet), with W/GH about half what we see in S5 and SP20 machines. Retail-available miners based around them are still a couple months out, for sure.
Thanks for the informative post.
It does seem to line up with what I've managed to gather...
As I recall, I believe ASICMiner's new BE300 chips are going to be 28 nm.
Do you (or any knowledgeable forum member) know if Spondoolies new gear is going to be on a new (smaller) process, or have any other kind of improvement, or might point me to where I might find out more info related to this (I tried their website/blog, no dice)?
