Topic: A4 Dominator - Pre-Order Group Buy - 280mh, roughly 1000w, $1800 + shipping - page 67. (Read 122577 times)

I completely agree that the video is long overdue and was promised.  Agreed, the Aug/Sept is manufacturer talk for your lucky to see something by Sept 30th. 

So I will wait until the last week of August before I start getting more persistent for info from them, but please feel free to reach out to them and see what they say.  Maybe I am being "too patient"?

The video is technically not "more info", but rather overdue and promised information.  They said Aug/Sep for delivery of the units themselves but are way overdue for delivery of the A4 Dominator video.

Aug/Sep is manufacturer speak for "Your lucky if you see anything before Sep 30..."

I haven't asked for any followup yet with Inno lately.  I am going to wait a little while before I start pinging them for updates.  I will give them a week or two yet before I start asking for more info.  They said Aug/Sep so they still have time.

It's way, way past time for Innosilicon to provide a video of the A4 unit happily hashing away at 280MH - that should be the easy part for them. They must know confidence is slipping and why they wouldn't do the simplest and most obvious thing is a mystery.

They produced a test chip video, they've published the final specification, there is no good reason that they can't show ANY A4 in stock, prototype or whatever.

In the ASIC arena reputation is only as good as your next product. Many good companies have gone under as well as bad ones. I would not purchase anything based on reputation, especially an ASIC miner. We need to see proof of a miner hashing away.  What is a bit scary is that I read a post that said they only have a cell phone number to answer calls.

You could be right I have 2 rigs that are at the 22 month rank and going strong yet...I managed via a corp default sale to get one NEW Nov 2014 300mh 4 cube Titan (split with a buddy) for $1750 usd with my share of shipping of $75 bucks..so $1825 Total. I also managed by just dumb luck ...(we asked about the knc bankruptcy law firm if they had any RMA stuff they would sell before it hit the dumpster on a hope/prayer...they led us to the 1st closed bid auction we got 24 at 1900 each including shipping (my share was 6)

So anyway with 7 new titans and the other 2 going strong....we should be fine.

Still off topic but I will be quick the key here is WITH the mods (esp the 3000 rpm fan and heatsinks and cleaning and repaste) my 22 month Titans GAINED 35mh total. Also
they are running cooler now with the maxumark x  bracket mods heatsinks repaste and 3000 rpm to the extent of 10c to 15c less per die...THUS at 84F in my basement the
old Titans now are running at the DOWN 10c to 15c in temp per die..they are running lower temps then all of this last winter at 60F ...by about 8c in an 84F basement

yeah ....some may die ...due to age as you say...and perhaps your point is important....but more and more people are using the gen tarkin firmware and the above mods
so we will see...in my case....I'm probably good with the old stuff for another 2 years from these results ..and of course the new stuff will be mod'd as such immediately

it is about 60 bucks  a cube if you say it costs $3 each for the repaste tossed in


As to the A4's I kinda doubt they will shoot out the numbers of the Titans...I think KNC said they made 5k of Titans.....in reality I think it was no more then 3.5k and
they made those numbers as a batch for the dies when LTC was about 10 bucks. So I suspect MAYBE the most A4's we might see would be 1.5k and that imho would
be a huge dump for the price LTC is now.

So again for Titans the 'modifications are coming" Maxumark just made an order for another 500 sets of X brackets at 10 bucks each and has pm's probably eating up 300 so far....it is
JUST like the A2's or Alcheminer 256 miners whatever it takes to keep them as far away from 'space heater' and/or doorstops as long in the future as possible

But as to myself and those who want to ask us.....we have a hook on this .....and should be hanging around our 'cousins' on the A4 batch just fine imho

But again the vast majority of Titan users maybe have gotten out....a lot of folk got their Titans used...as a result they do keep up on such things.....but then again
i could be wrong.

HOPEFULLY the A4's will have OPEN SOURCE stuff on github for their firmware..thus folk on here should chuck in 50 bucks each and 'gift' gen tarkin an A4 to port  his 3rd party
firmware software development NOW...his stuff is that good..if he made a version for the A4's it would kill..the stuff throttles down each die up down due to heat or off.it kills cube/die on fan death/ it finds the most eff elec use per die saving me probably 10-15% in electric....also I can over clock the Titan to 325mh for all and if too hot or does not
like it...it will throttle it back to the standard 300mh....the stuff is great....a version for the A4 would kill ..just trying to be fair here (i still may get an A4 .) On summer
heat/hot days they throttle down the dies in the day and back up to max at night..the stuff is SOOOO slick.

anyway with the A2's and others out of scrypt and likely only the A4's and Titans left in the scrypt playpen at this time ...we should all do just fine imho  at least for the next 1/2 year imho



depending on how these A4's are setup I would say that FANS are huge....my upgrade from the crummy 1500 speed knc cheap fans to the 3000 rpm fans was huge..noise also was not an issue maybe 20% louder for 2x the speed.

.knc had a large kludge heatsink using FOAM (rubber) between the H shapped legs of stuff to the dies all 8 at once to a slap of 6x4" metal ugh.....was dumb as heck...replacing the X brackets by maxumark and just plain individual
copper heatsinks for the 8 individual dies...with that 3000 rpm fan was the kicker...not sure how A4's are setup but a few pics to titan owners may save you a lot of grief on a cheap/quick improvement.

On the Titans you kinda have to do a repaste to get a all this and put the X brackets on...probably it would be easier to mod the fans and add heatsinks on an A4 unit w/o such issues.

But anyway something to consider out of the gate imho

I will wait to see what the temps and fans are like before I plan to tear one down.  If heat is an issue then I will certainly plan on greasing and looking at the fans.  Gonna play by ear I guess.  I would love to know more about the fans, sound levels, temps... I am getting a little antsy... 

Anyone planning on a teardown/rebuild of their A4 when they get here?
Typical stuff, like swapping the grease, upgrading the fans etc???

At this point it looks like the guys who have the Titans have figured out the secrets to keeping them running cool and efficient.  I don't think those that know what they are doing will have any issues keeping these rigs running for quite some time from the results I have seen from the mods they have done.  This is why I believe they are able to command such a high price still today.  The A4 with the announced hash rate doesn't change the game much so I don't think Titan owners have much to fear from the A4 with the currently announced hash rates. 

If Inno somehow starts cranking out the numbers they originally announced in the A4 then it would be game over for the Titans.  Who knows if we will see that? 

I agree with the statement about Inno having a good track record.  My A2 was rock solid for me and it was practically a set it and forget it rig.  I am hoping the A4 will be just as solid as the A2 was for me.  That was one of the deciding factors for me to just take the plunge and order. 

Now I just hope that Inno delivers!

 On the other side of the scale, Titans have shown a VERY VERY POOR record for longevity, while earlier Innosilicon-based miners like the LKEtc Dragon line and the A2 Terminators have shown rock-solid LONG TERM reliability.

 The ONLY saving grace to the Titan at this point is that they're all well past their HUGE ISSUES with infant mortality.

As you imply above,  due to age these Titans are failing.  Today a Titan may be close to an A4 for efficiency, but even with add-on heat sinks, X-brackets and GenTarkin upgrades, these rigs are slowing down.  As with any capital investment of computer technology, Titans have a lifecycle and  are coming to their end of life.  Days, weeks, months, even years, depending on multiple factors but they are declining.   Refreshing Titans with A4s just makes sense if you're in this for the long term while you have the hashrate. 

Now, if we could just see an A4 in the wild that would be huge!.  We still don't have the promised Youtube video of the final product, final warranty, release date, RMA process or any evidence that the A4 is close to release other than a web page posting, some emails and a video of a test chip.  Fortunately Innosilicon is an established reputable player so we remain hopeful they can overcome their design/manufacturing issues and bring the A4 to market soon.

I haven't heard anything mentioned yet.  People are just waiting for new batches to be released at this point. 

A 325mh used Titan does 1250 watts vs a 280mh at 1000 watts.

Maybe 1 out of 20 used Titans could still do 350mh now as a prudent speed due to age
A 400mh has better effencency then that

Thus it is so close in electric vs hash imho as to be oranges to oranges and at the point a Titan can no longer be run the same could be said about an A4. They are so close when both get to that point on difficulty you'd be selling either in your stock or more likely both.

I know it's off topic, but since someone else brought it up, has there been any talk of a follow-on miner for the S9?

 S9 batch hashrates have actually bounced around a bit - mostly 11.73 and 12.83 or something like that.
 Seems like Bitmain had to start testing the chips individually before binning them for various clock speeds and resulting various hashrates.

A2's, Alcheminers, and especially Titans won't "flush out" for quite a while for those of us with VERY CHEAP electric - I've already RUN those numbers for my A2 farm and I update occasionally to account for price variation.
 I haven't bothered running the numers for "update the firmware to one of the varients that let me run the thing in even more efficient mode" yet as I suspect there isn't a lot efficiency gain available past the "non-turbo" setting of the stock firmware.

Folks mining with A2s/Alcheminers at "average US rates" will get flushed pretty fast, but if you're at 5c/KWH or less you've got a LOT of space for maintaining profitable mining.

 Gridseeds, on the other hand, are ALREADY very marginal to losing money at 5c/KWH - won't take much to start flushing those.
 Zeus, Silverfish, etc, fall somewhere inbetween depending on the specific miner.


 The joker in the pack is "when will the S9 get COMPETITION" - if it's in the next month or two, that will probably put a significant crimp on A4 sales.

As you know, it's not about the money you save on the purchase but rather the return on the money invested based on difficulty, power costs and coin price.   If the A4 is wildly successful from a units sale, we're going to experience real pressure on difficulty thus the ROI.

I haven't done the math yet, but hopefully it will flush out  the  old Gridseeds, Zeus, Gawminers, even the A2s to losing positions and drop that collective hashrate if they start delivery in September.  I believe we can expect the old scrypt technology hash rate to drop off in early fall, only to return when the "space heater" effect again begins with the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere.  If Innosilicon delays deliver to late September, early October, then the space heater effect will have begun and the hashrate could be ugly.  The  sooner delivery starts, the sooner the recovery of capital can begin.

Keep in mind the A4 Dominator is in competition with the Antminer S9 for customer mining rig dollar spend as far as ASIC mining rigs goes.

Putting aside the hobbyist market, businesses will purchase ASIC based rigs based on projected ROI, long viability of mining technologies, future demand for digital currencies, etc.

There's only so many mining rig dollars available in the market so it'll be interesting to watch how this new scrypt mining technology unfolds

Historically the opposite has been true and there's little evidence that will change.  For instance, look at Bitmain pricing.  The price drops with each new batch released of a new  model when the BTC price is "stable".

The advantage of a pre-order is about the difficulty advantage, not purchased $/MH.  As the market floods with new hashrate, which it will with the A4,  this increased total network hashrate drives down the effective return per MH as the difficulty increases for scrypt coins.

Basically, the purchase price remains unchanged but the ROI time period will increase for subsequent batches effectively making subsequent batches "more expensive" and a riskier investment.

This effect will also drive down the purchase $/MH for Titans to a max of $6.42/MH (probably $5/MH as they are less energy efficient) as the increasing network hashrate of A4s devalues and knocks the reigning king off the throne.

When the A4s start coming on the market is the time to start selling Titans and convert to A4s.

The only way the $/MH price increases is if there's an explosive upside in the LTC price.

If we assume today's LTC price, plus a .5% difficulty increase (really, really low), it will take 448 days to ROI at USD $0.1/KWh for USD $2100 rig ($1800 + $100 shipping + $200 PSU).  I firmly believe there will be no price increase until the LTC price explodes.
http://www.vnbitcoin.org/detailcalculationltc.php?name=LiteCoin_Mining_Rig&startdate=2016-08-06&costperunit=2100&wattperhour=1000&gigahazarate=280000&daytoincrease=3&testlopfirst=1&diffincrement=0.5&bitcoinperdollar=3.74&electriccostinput=.1&begindifflevel=52332

This is a similar ROI for a new S9 bought on ebay ($2500 plus $200 PSU) which is approximately 470 days to ROI at today's BTC price
http://www.vnbitcoin.org/detailcalculation.php?name=Bitcoin_Mining_Rig&startdate=2016-08-06&costperunit=2700&wattperhour=1390&gigahazarate=12930&daytoincrease=14&testlopfirst=9&diffincrement=0.34&bitcoinperdollar=585.9&electriccostinput=.1&begindifflevel=201893210853