Topic: 1GH/s, 20w, $700 (was $500) — Butterflylabs, is it for real? (Part 2) - page 13. (Read 146880 times)

Their website still says guaranteed shipment 4-6 weeks from order.  Obviously 'guaranteed' means nothing.

I presume that 2nd part is only for people in the first batch ...

Now the magic question is, if they are shipping, what is their production run. Do new orders have to wait 4-6 weeks?

Phil

Where did they say that?

They said now that they are shipping, refunds will not be given for cold feet.

Thanks, I was thinking of a special BFL related one to support him personally and not his pool, but it maybe does not matter in the end...

its 168Bgg6HL6bLiUxQDBbdmHRbXtSsMixYCT

check his signature.

Thanks a lot for this report, Inaba.

I've got an order in place and will sleep better now.

You did basically the PR that we Bitcoiners expected from BFL. I hope they will be fair enough and give you one BitForce to pay tribute for your hard efforts. Anyhow, please post your donation address.

And I'm sure they sanded the part numbers off from the chips to increase thermal conductivity, right?   

The device was originally designed to displace 20W of thermal load based on widely optimistic specs.  The only reason to put a heatsink on bottom is because you can't displace enough heat from the top.  The heatsink on the bottom is probably very inefficient but pulls just enough thermal energy to avoid internal temp of FPGA from getting critical.

Now you could say "just use a bigger heatsink" but there are problems with that.  As heatsink gets larger it disipates more heat but it isn't linear.  What matters is the temp at the core of the FPGA so while a larger heatsink may reduce the surface temp of the heat sink a lot it will have a smaller effect on the FPGA core.  The design of FPGA makes their ability to disipate heat limited.  Intel/AMD put a lot of design into making the chip package able to move heat to the heatspreader and then to the heatsink.

Each FPGA is dumping ~35W+, the board (designed when estimate was chips produce 6W) puts the chips side by side, which complicates effective cooling.

If they have a lot of these last gen chips I would imagine a redesigned board will be made eventually.  Seperating the chips and putting more clearance space around them would allow mounting a "CPU style" heatsink on each.   If they have a limited number it probably isn't worth a redesign as (just my guess) they will use the capital from this 65nm product to skip right to a 28nm product in late 2012.

It's really bizarre that they mounted a heat sink onto the underside of the board. It's hard to believe that: 1) the FPGAs heat up the FR4 enough to require a heat sink and 2) that the PCB can actually transfers heat effectively through a heat sink enough to cool it.

Yes, the question is when will get their first actual unit to keep?

The website still says 4-6 weeks.

What are people's best estimate of when someone would get a unit if they ordered via the website today (February 15, 2012)?

Do you think April 30, 2012 is possible?

Might be faster for my friends and I to try making our own?

Thanks Inaba, great report.

I wish BFL would come back onto the forums and give some "official" updates as to the progress beyond this loaner unit.

Thanks Inaba for the report!

I'll take a ghetto miner today over a pretty box tomorrow any day!
If it hashes and power is somewhat on target, there will be no complaining here.

Hell that post must have taken you a while
Excellent.

Firstly the obvious:
 Yes it's rollntime. No magic there.

Question: ambient temperature?

Edit: LOL missed that at the top 80F

Edit2: OK so 26C not hot but not cold - hmm hopefully being in a hotter climate isn't an issue.
But at least it does have temperature measurement available.
2.2.3 gives temps for bitforce so I guess people will find out quick once they actually ship ...

I believe that's just Inaba being funny

I'm not a troll here but the flying pigs motif is somewhat worrying.

Thanks for the report btw! 

Ugh, hacky heatsinks!. Nm, needs must. Any idea when I can buy one now that the market is tanking again?

Brilliant Inaba, just brilliant.   Thanks so much for taking the time to do all that.   Very excited for these to turn up now.   As for the "ugly" box, right now I have my (huge) PC case open, lying on it's side, with 2 GPU's balanced on the top, and a giant fan pointed at everything (its Summer here).  Compared to that horrible mess, these things are an Adonis

Bring it on bitches.