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