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dominicus

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Quote from: dominicus on July 22, 2013, 11:59:50 PM

Quote from: dominicus on July 05, 2013, 11:37:46 AM

Quote

All it is, is a firmware flash that essentially overclocks your unit.

You should also read the section on "considerations":
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-subproducts/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

The upgrade is from 5GHz->7GHz, that's 40% faster hash. BFL states overclocks are possible only on high-grade ASICs from 250->294 MHz. That's only a 17% overclock...no enough to get you 40% higher hashrate.
So the upgrade likely involves cherry-picking the better ASICs. Getting one of the 60% of chips have all their engines working, and out of those, one that will also stably overclock to the higher frequency.

I'd say if >40% of the backlogged customers go for the upgrade, they could have issues keeping the order of the queue without injecting further shipping delays.

Well, my prediction on this issue turned out to be the eventual outcome.

Read'em and weep:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/bfl_jody/251-monday-july-22-2013-shipping-update.html

This is the classic risk behind offering a cherry-picked component for profit, and ending up with a huge share of customers ordering the tail of your distribution.

If the imbalance in share of upgraded orders vs. availability of faster ASICs persists through the queue (no reason to think otherwise), the difference in ship dates for regulars vs. upgrades units will increase non-linearly.

Silver-lining: if your Jala order date is beyond Dec'12, cancelling the upgrade and trying your luck overclocking yourself will surely help get your unit earlier.

Confirmed by BFL_Josh

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/pre-sales-questions/4031-2gh-upgrade.html#post49429

nairna53

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.

p. s. i like the first post in this thread.

dominicus

member

Activity: 97

Merit: 10

Quote from: dominicus on July 05, 2013, 11:37:46 AM

Quote

All it is, is a firmware flash that essentially overclocks your unit.

You should also read the section on "considerations":
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-subproducts/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

The upgrade is from 5GHz->7GHz, that's 40% faster hash. BFL states overclocks are possible only on high-grade ASICs from 250->294 MHz. That's only a 17% overclock...no enough to get you 40% higher hashrate.
So the upgrade likely involves cherry-picking the better ASICs. Getting one of the 60% of chips have all their engines working, and out of those, one that will also stably overclock to the higher frequency.

I'd say if >40% of the backlogged customers go for the upgrade, they could have issues keeping the order of the queue without injecting further shipping delays.

Well, my prediction on this issue turned out to be the eventual outcome.

Read'em and weep:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/bfl_jody/251-monday-july-22-2013-shipping-update.html

This is the classic risk behind offering a cherry-picked component for profit, and ending up with a huge share of customers ordering the tail of your distribution.

If the imbalance in share of upgraded orders vs. availability of faster ASICs persists through the queue (no reason to think otherwise), the difference in ship dates for regulars vs. upgrades units will increase non-linearly.

Silver-lining: if your Jala order date is beyond Dec'12, cancelling the upgrade and trying your luck overclocking yourself will surely help get your unit earlier.

Zanatos666

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 250

Sometimes man, just sometimes.....

Quote from: Trillium on July 05, 2013, 07:01:49 PM

Do you have a watt meter and could measure the power consumption after the overclock?

I do, but its in another location. Will have to report back.

Trillium

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Activity: 546

Merit: 500

Do you have a watt meter and could measure the power consumption after the overclock?

Zanatos666

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 250

Sometimes man, just sometimes.....

Quote from: dominicus on July 05, 2013, 02:25:00 PM

Quote

I just flashed (well, Runlinux did while I watched) my firmware and went from ~5.8Gh/s, to ~8.5Gh/s.

Zanatos, that's awesome news, and congrats on being able to apply such a FW upgrade. I stand humbly corrected, I didn't consider BFL would leave 70% harshrate headroom. Yet thinking these are first-production units, it actually makes sense for them to spec very conservatively.

Were you able to purchase the upgraded FW after receipt of your unit(s)?

What effect did this have on operating temps?

I didnt upgrade my unit before it shipped, so it was a ~5Gh/s unit, but BFL says it has an +/-10% variance level, obviously I was on the plus side as I was running about 5.8 at first. Temps then were about 40C, but that was fully cased. Everyone said to take the case off and flip the fan to blowing down and it would run cooler, I just didnt want to mess with it. After the flash though it is now running case-less with the fan blowing down, and my temps are actually lower, around 33C.

dominicus

member

Activity: 97

Merit: 10

Quote

I just flashed (well, Runlinux did while I watched) my firmware and went from ~5.8Gh/s, to ~8.5Gh/s.

Zanatos, that's awesome news, and congrats on being able to apply such a FW upgrade. I stand humbly corrected, I didn't consider BFL would leave 70% harshrate headroom. Yet thinking these are first-production units, it actually makes sense for them to spec very conservatively.

Were you able to purchase the upgraded FW after receipt of your unit(s)?

What effect did this have on operating temps?

Zanatos666

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 250

Sometimes man, just sometimes.....

Quote from: dominicus on July 05, 2013, 11:37:46 AM

Quote

All it is, is a firmware flash that essentially overclocks your unit.

You should also read the section on "considerations":
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-subproducts/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

The upgrade is from 5GHz->7GHz, that's 40% faster hash. BFL states overclocks are possible only on high-grade ASICs from 250->294 MHz. That's only a 17% overclock...no enough to get you 40% higher hashrate.
So the upgrade likely involves cherry-picking the better ASICs. Getting one of the 60% of chips have all their engines working, and out of those, one that will also stably overclock to the higher frequency.

I'd say if >40% of the backlogged customers go for the upgrade, they could have issues keeping the order of the queue without injecting further shipping delays.

Josh has stated before that all it is is a firmware flash, basically tricking your Jala into thinking its a single.

With that being said, within the last couple hours of my last post here, I just flashed (well, Runlinux did while I watched) my firmware and went from ~5.8Gh/s, to ~8.5Gh/s.

dominicus

member

Activity: 97

Merit: 10

Quote

All it is, is a firmware flash that essentially overclocks your unit.

You should also read the section on "considerations":
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-subproducts/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

The upgrade is from 5GHz->7GHz, that's 40% faster hash. BFL states overclocks are possible only on high-grade ASICs from 250->294 MHz. That's only a 17% overclock...no enough to get you 40% higher hashrate.
So the upgrade likely involves cherry-picking the better ASICs. Getting one of the 60% of chips have all their engines working, and out of those, one that will also stably overclock to the higher frequency.

I'd say if >40% of the backlogged customers go for the upgrade, they could have issues keeping the order of the queue without injecting further shipping delays.

Zanatos666

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 250

Sometimes man, just sometimes.....

Quote from: dominicus on July 05, 2013, 10:57:19 AM

Quote

strange they didn't even make the upgrade tempting though, same $ per GH as just buying a new unit.

I'm quite suspicious of what the upgrade path would mean to your actual ship date.
If the upgrade involves cherry-picking an ASIC with more working engines to get this better performance, adding the upgrade may further delay delivery until such ASIC was available for the build.

The upgrade option does not affect your place in queue. They have stated that numerous times on their forums. All it is, is a firmware flash that essentially overclocks your unit. They just need to know before your unit goes into production so they know what version of firmware to flash onto your unit.

dominicus

member

Activity: 97

Merit: 10

Quote

strange they didn't even make the upgrade tempting though, same $ per GH as just buying a new unit.

I'm quite suspicious of what the upgrade path would mean to your actual ship date.
If the upgrade involves cherry-picking an ASIC with more working engines to get this better performance, adding the upgrade may further delay delivery until such ASIC was available for the build.

ilikehero

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Quote from: Arnald on July 01, 2013, 03:29:08 PM

I ordered in March, Still waiting for some news about it.

have to wait a long time

Bananery

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Activity: 108

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I wonder if they delay so much until others starts to deliver cheap products such as knc miner, it might kill bfl once and for all. They get new money in only because people are so desperate to buy cheap asics, but no one really delivers except for asicminer, but they are overpriced.

beardays

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Quote from: Asrael999 on June 28, 2013, 10:20:03 AM

the recent move to selling chips and offering upgrades for cash are classic signs of a company with cashflow problems......................

strange they didn't even make the upgrade tempting though, same $ per GH as just buying a new unit.

sriver

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You never know when BFL will deliver.....

goxed

legendary

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Bitcoin / Crypto mining Hardware.

August
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/pre-sales-questions/3611-buttefly-company-still-work-not-post44788.html#post44788

thebetis

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By the time you get it, you won't be able to recoup your investment IMO.

jazun33

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I was almost going to order a few weeks ago. But then I thought how awful it would be to have to wait so long.

R3dcell

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Activity: 78

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Since you ordered that late, I would expect it to be sometime in 2014. Sorry man.

Arnald

newbie

Activity: 22

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I ordered in March, Still waiting for some news about it.

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