ANTMINER S2 upgrade kit? EDIT: BITMAIN WHERE ARE YOU?!?!

[HolgerDansk]

Testing was started 2 weeks ago.

Dang.  I thought I'd been following this closely.  Where did they say they were testing?  Thanks.

[adaseb]

I don't understand why everybody is so eager for these S6 upgrades. They probably will cost as much as a new S6  and buying 2/3x S5 seperately will be cheaper probably like it was with the earlier upgrade.

[Rabinovitch]

I don't understand why everybody is so eager for these S6 upgrades. They probably will cost as much as a new S6

It must be cheaper. You should not pay for shipping of the case, PSU and so on.

[mavericklm]

I don't understand why everybody is so eager for these S6 upgrades. They probably will cost as much as a new S6

It must be cheaper. You should not pay for shipping of the case, PSU and so on.

it will still not be a new miner. most of the components will be old and morally used.

and from all the bitmain's posts, it is not an s6, just an s2 upgrade

[Rabinovitch]

I agree for such upgrade. The main point is hashing chips AFAIK. ) All other S2 components (especially if you have already change the PSU) are reliable as a tank. 

[klondike_bar]

I agree for such upgrade. The main point is hashing chips AFAIK. ) All other S2 components (especially if you have already change the PSU) are reliable as a tank. 

+1. shipping weight and size will be about 1/4 that of shipping an S2 because there is not the weight of a PSU, case, fans, etc.

however, the S2 is still a practical miner in a lot of environments as it can run at 1w/gh. by upgrading it you would end up with a stack of old hashing boards that are likely worth $100-150 in hashrate.

ideally bitmain will come up with a clever way to sell a lightweight kit consisting of a backplane/beaglebone and a way to mount a few fans so that the old S2 boards are not just junk

[mammon]

Hi Guys,

How big is the chance that the Antminer S2 upgrade set will be using the same (newer) asic chips as the Antminer S6.
I truly believe there's a great chance.
I would be to expensive to create faster hashing chips in such a small timeline between S2 Upgrade an S6.
Using the same chips for S2 Upgrade and S6 gives them some extra space developing 16nm for future.

[quakefiend420]

Hi Guys,

How big is the chance that the Antminer S2 upgrade set will be using the same (newer) asic chips as the Antminer S6.
I truly believe there's a great chance.
I would be to expensive to create faster hashing chips in such a small timeline between S2 Upgrade an S6.
Using the same chips for S2 Upgrade and S6 gives them some extra space developing 16nm for future.

Definitely the same as the S5.  Given Bitmain's track record of creating one tube and one rack mountable miner with each chip generation, I'd say highly likely that the chips in the S2 kit will be the same as the S6.

[pekatete]

Hi Guys,

How big is the chance that the Antminer S2 upgrade set will be using the same (newer) asic chips as the Antminer S6.
I truly believe there's a great chance.
I would be to expensive to create faster hashing chips in such a small timeline between S2 Upgrade an S6.
Using the same chips for S2 Upgrade and S6 gives them some extra space developing 16nm for future.

From what I've heard from the people receiving batch 5 of the S5, some are receiving clearly used miners, so the educated assumption would be that bitmain are not simply testing the next-gen chip to feature in the S6, they are actually replacing their S5 rigs with the newer S6 in their facilities. What has that got to do with the S2 upgrade kits I hear you ask? Well, I bet top dollar that they will have the chips in the S6, seeing they could have released an S5 chip based kit by now.

[Meech]

Hi Guys,

How big is the chance that the Antminer S2 upgrade set will be using the same (newer) asic chips as the Antminer S6.
I truly believe there's a great chance.
I would be to expensive to create faster hashing chips in such a small timeline between S2 Upgrade an S6.
Using the same chips for S2 Upgrade and S6 gives them some extra space developing 16nm for future.

From what I've heard from the people receiving batch 5 of the S5, some are receiving clearly used miners, so the educated assumption would be that bitmain are not simply testing the next-gen chip to feature in the S6, they are actually replacing their S5 rigs with the newer S6 in their facilities. What has that got to do with the S2 upgrade kits I hear you ask? Well, I bet top dollar that they will have the chips in the S6, seeing they could have released an S5 chip based kit by now.

Agreed.  That's why they tried this before and are willing to lower the price of the S5.  Do you really think they did a huge batch run of thousands of S5's just to end it.  New tech soon I hope.  Us S2 owners may be in the sweet spot.

[Rabinovitch]

From what I've heard from the people receiving batch 5 of the S5, some are receiving clearly used miners

Many of Russian Bitcoin enthusiasts do receive definetely used S5s.

[pekatete]

Hi Guys,

How big is the chance that the Antminer S2 upgrade set will be using the same (newer) asic chips as the Antminer S6.
I truly believe there's a great chance.
I would be to expensive to create faster hashing chips in such a small timeline between S2 Upgrade an S6.
Using the same chips for S2 Upgrade and S6 gives them some extra space developing 16nm for future.

From what I've heard from the people receiving batch 5 of the S5, some are receiving clearly used miners, so the educated assumption would be that bitmain are not simply testing the next-gen chip to feature in the S6, they are actually replacing their S5 rigs with the newer S6 in their facilities. What has that got to do with the S2 upgrade kits I hear you ask? Well, I bet top dollar that they will have the chips in the S6, seeing they could have released an S5 chip based kit by now.

Agreed.  That's why they tried this before and are willing to lower the price of the S5.  Do you really think they did a huge batch run of thousands of S5's just to end it.  New tech soon I hope.  Us S2 owners may be in the sweet spot.

You have to bear in mind that even bitmain themselves were unsure of whether the S5 had a place in the bitcoin mining-scape prior to releasing batch 5 (aka post 2015 Chinese new year). In fact, I'll go as far as suggesting that batch 5 of the S5's was merely a hedge against the supposed impending release of next gen chips by their competitors, that has turned out to be the only in-production rig on the market at the moment. In the event and in effect, it has become their unheralded cash-cow .... massive cash cow infact! But events will mean that the S5 will naturally retire as more efficient chips come onto the market.

And seeing they are shipping their used miners, I have no doubt the S6 is a lot more faster and efficient than anything we've seen. It may turn out to be a re-engineered S5 chip (just like the S5 chip is a re-engineered S3 chip), but the signs are it is going to be a decent step up and that bodes well for the S2 upgrade kit.

[dropt]

Agreed.  That's why they tried this before and are willing to lower the price of the S5.  Do you really think they did a huge batch run of thousands of S5's just to end it.  New tech soon I hope.  Us S2 owners may be in the sweet get shafted again spot.

FTFY  

[Finksy]

As much as I'd like to see these just like everyone else, remember how the S1 upgrades went. They were some time (months?) after the S3 release, and the price difference was around 20% less than a fully assembled S3+.  Granted, the S2 case and PSU should be worth proportionately more than the S1 frame and fan, but don't hold your breath on these being amazing value. 

Also, along the same train of thought, it was mentioned in a thread that the cost of the chips amounts to somewhere around 80% of the entire miner, whether that was true or not I'm not sure, but would explain the seemingly high price of even simple board upgrades.  I guess time will tell, if they do release them.

[Meech]

It's good that they have been silent in the threads the last few days ... may mean they're preparing for announcements.  
I think we have a general estimate what to expect from the kits, all positive, except for cost.  The cases and psu's must cost them a small fortune alone to ship, usually 2nd day air to U.S..  The S1 kits weren't much of a savings and appeared late in the S3 life cycle.  One saving grace is Bitmain seems to have paid attention to their customers concerns on cost.  Except for their recent price hike and the "Look at us, we are the only one shipping" mentality.  "Good things come to those who wait"  "Great things come to those who don't!"

[HolgerDansk]

I don't understand why everybody is so eager for these S6 upgrades. They probably will cost as much as a new S6  and buying 2/3x S5 seperately will be cheaper probably like it was with the earlier upgrade.

I'm not looking for an S6 upgrade... since there's not even a released S6 to be able to upgrade.

A lot of us are eager for an upgrade path for the S2, since it's been a great workhorse.  Probably... could be... I bet they.... is all speculation.  Which is all we have at the moment.  It might be costly, it might be cost-effective.  So we're anxious to see exactly what Bitmain will have to offer.

Having said that, Pekatete has some great logic on the concept (and others). 

[sidehack]

If we're looking at a 36-chip board (18x2 string) and 6 boards per S2, I think that's between $500-600 in chips. Since at those numbers an S5 has about $150 in chips and the thing costs about $350, less than half of an S5 is chip cost. However, for a lower-clock more chip-dense miner like the S2 it would likely be a higher proportion of the total price. And a much higher proportion of the total price if they didn't have to worry about literally anything except the PCB with chips on it.

[lex_minutor]

Something's going on.
Bitmain's antpool went from 60PH to 30PH, and it doesn't seem to be under DDoS again.
Could this be them taking offline a big batch of S5's and replacing them with the newer chips?
I guess we'll see when the pool is "back" at 100%.

[MyRig]

Umisoo.com sent out some e-mail notifications to the customers their miners are offline due to the facility move and Spring Dust Cleaning of each miner.

All umisoo hosted miners are turned off and being moved out of Umisoo.com to Bitmain owned facility but that process would take physical hardware move and may take a few days.  (The new location to be in a remote area of China and, the Power outage and very limited internet bandwidth be reported as of 2 days ago)

Currently S5 is our primary miner that is the most power efficient.

Something's going on.
Bitmain's antpool went from 60PH to 30PH, and it doesn't seem to be under DDoS again.
Could this be them taking offline a big batch of S5's and replacing them with the newer chips?
I guess we'll see when the pool is "back" at 100%.

[pekatete]

Umisoo.com sent out some e-mail notifications to the customers their miners are offline due to the facility move and Spring Dust Cleaning of each miner.

All umisoo hosted miners are turned off and being moved out of Umisoo.com to Bitmain owned facility but that process would take physical hardware move and may take a few days.  (The new location to be in a remote area of China and, the Power outage and very limited internet bandwidth be reported as of 2 days ago)

Currently S5 is our primary miner that is the most power efficient.

No wonder the network seems slow today in findsolving blocks ..... this should spike up the BTC value in the short term!
I also do not believe the S5 is bitmain's most efficient miner, else how would you explain shipping used S5's to a growing (reported) number of people? Too many orders for batch 5?