Topic: ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread - page 218. (Read 355730 times)

Yes, when they say they are shipping 4-1-14, then that is probably right.  They've always been spot on with their shipping dates.  I've ordered a ton from them.

Small time miner - 1Th is small miner or better said hobbyist.

I have 4 ants S1 and 5200kh/s in GPU's at the moment which is nothing.
GPU's consume 1800W/h at 0,18$ KW/H
I'm going to sell all GPU's in April and I'm not sure if I should buy this TH miner or gridseed miners. 

Claiming they "don't exist" is a bit of a stretch. Bitmain has a track record of not announcing products until they are very close to shipping. They don't do 6 month in advance pre-orders like other companies.

The S2's main selling points over the S1 are the reduced power consumption and more integrated design (built-in PSU).

Most S1's will do 200 GH/s, so 5 S1's will equal an S2 (we don't know what overclocking ability an S2 will have, and it's pointless to speculate). 5 S1's are 5 BTC and you can buy a good 800W (2 Ants) and 1200W (3 Ants) PSU to run them for less than 0.5 BTC; an S2 is 6.1 BTC making it at least 0.6 BTC more expensive than an S1.

If you order 5 S1's today you'll have them 2-3 weeks before an S2. Not only are the S1's (plus 2 PSUs) cheaper, but you'll have 2-3 weeks worth of extra mining time with them. That will give you an extra 2 BTC.

Seems to me that unless power (or space) is a major concern, the S1 remains the more attractive product in terms of financials. Even more so when you consider that the S2 is still a pre-order product; they don't exist yet and there may be unforeseen delays. I can't speak for anyone except myself, but I'm done encouraging companies to keep playing the pre-order game, no matter who they are.

Overcloking also means much much MUCH more stress to other components than psu, if this is designed to be run 1th 1kw i doubt it could do oc 2kw or Bitmain would have shipped them as 1.4th miners

Chip designing costs up to millions $$$ Bitmain has already made ROI with BM1380. Minting the chips cost very little now.
Bitmain is just milking them more. Hats for them stretching it out to meet 1TH / 1KW

But 640 chips huh... Avalon3 is doing 1TH/780w with 210 chips. Which they will sell cheap. Avalon wants to compete with price. We will see how much Bitmain can fight with the price.

I am looking forward seeing some good opensource designs with the Avalon chips... we all hate Avalon but now they are chip minting factory offering oem designs with much better chips.

I was kinda hoping Bitmain to make a deal with Innosilicon and A1

Game is on! We will see the difficulty to jump 25% again.

Most of you are talking about ROI... I was looking at all of the pre-orders and by the time they come and you start mining you don't even make your money back...

In order to get 1TH/s with 5 x S1, you will need overclock it thus bringing the Watt consumption to roughly 2,000W... 5 x S1 = 4.96BTC, plus additional 8,760W = 1.3 BTC -- Total 6.26 BTC over a year

S2: 1TH, 1,000Watts, 6.1 BTC and not even overclocked... So you actually dont save much by buying 5 x S1, and you don't get much from S2 other then free PSU.

So stop complaining about the price or it is not 28nm or 20nm... Mining is pretty much Zero sums game with minimal profit unless you start building your asics to make $$$$.

You also need to ask the question, will the global hash rate grow at the same pace for another 10 - 12 months by 15 -20 % per increment? Cos if you do even a 2TH machine will make you as much as what what USB Asics make by January...

For the record, I don't care what your profession is or how long you've been at it.  I don't come into communities with no personal history and start telling off one of the only manufacturers that deserves some respect. Someone who posts a diatribe like:


who claims to have 'been "lurking" enough in Bitcoin business ...since summer of 2010' is either full of shit, or has not been paying attention to the mining market.  If you followed any of this you'd be well aware that people have been requesting a 1TH+ rack-mount solution for their product for the last month.  Further, you'd also be aware that people have been antsy to know what the details are for S2 since the existence of said product leaked.  

Bitmain is one of the only ASIC companies that has more-or-less kept their word and acted in a respectable fashion.  Further, in Bitcoin ASIC land, pre-orders are resigned to vapourware that ships at some "date" based on BS and assumption.  Consider this delayed shipping similar to what was done at the beginning of February over Chinese NY.

Exactly. I don't want to just sit on my mined BTC and hope the price goes up. Most people do not calculate selling the equipment into their ROI calculations. I almost came out 150% ahead on my investment in Cubes that I bought last year just by the fact I sold them for 50% of what I payed for them, while pocketing the mined BTC to buy 5 S1's this year.

If Bitmain wants to consider a lower price with no PSU on these units, I will roll the BTC I mined from 5 S1's into an S2. Power is $.08 KWh where I live, so I am willing to take the risk.

No Dropt...you "lurk more" ...I have been "lurking" enough in Bitcoin business ...since summer of 2010...

The fact that I just started posting here ...so called 'newbie" status ...doesn't make my opinions less "informed" than yours... ( I have Master's in Computer Science ...NOT in Electrical Engineering... + 30 years exp.)


2 weeks pre-order ...is 2 weeks "pre-order"...no matter how you slice it...

14 days of  NOT mining ...loss of revenue...@ 1T is currently about 0.8283 BTC per week =  about 1.5+ BTC ...In that business "The Time IS Money"...literally...   

This. I dont mind buying gear with BTC because Ive already sunk what fiat i was willing to into BTC. If i think a miner can return 10-20% on its BTC cost then i will buy it as an investment. if BTC drops, i still have physical equipment, which at least counts for more then numbers on a harddrive

Im currently a bit over-invested in BTC, and am considering selling 2-3BTC to give myself a few more dollars to spend in the 'real-world', particularly to offset fiat$ cost items like power use or electrical equipment

You're forgetting that this is business. No one is doing for your own good. They were reducing the price to create a demand, to clear the inventory of S1 boards and supplies. They'll have more reels of the chips than they had host boards, so with the S2 they're looking to clear the stock of chips by tweaking the product, undervolting to increase efficiency, hopefully to clear the chip inventory while the next chip is developed.

Bitmain have confidence and have demonstrated they can perform. Everything appears to be going to plan. Yes the price is initially high. It would have been nice to see an item in the middle ground for the hobbyist, because with import duties and power costs, this writes itself out of many budgets now, while the S1 was fantastically accessible.

If you can't mine more BTC than you can buy $ for $, buy BTC.  It doesn't matter what future exchange rates are or aren't.  The only consideration is the opportunity cost of having to mine the BTC over time vs. having the BTC in hand to sell (if that's your thing).

Lurk more.

This 'preorder' is for delivery just a couple of weeks away... That's not even a preorder.

Personally I think buying a mining equipment with your earned btc is a zero sum game.
In most cases ROI is achieved when btc goes up in value against the $.
So it's better for us to  buy in  $,  if btc goes up to 40k like what
the winklevoss said, by the time you ROI your btc is 280,000$ instead of 3899$.

Argument can go both ways but if we truly believe in crypto it's always better to buy with $.

I think i'm in agreement with NetTime, i'd rather have a Neptune than an S2.

LOL, why? With the S2 you'll get an extra couple months of mining in.

From BitMain website :
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"Bitmain is a team of technologists, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and Bitcoin enthusiasts. Our core members have years of ASIC development experience, and have designed and mass produced several digital signal processing ICs.

We reject some business practice in the community, which is intended to distribute the risk and benefit asymmetrically. We are here to change it:  we will not accept pre-order forever before we feel logically 100% sure that we can deliver on time. There will be no unexpected waiting and failed/delayed taping-out or any other kinds of delaying risks for our customers.

We created a myth in bitcoin community: no pre-orders, shipping on time, even pre- shipping.  We are earning more and more trust from worldwide customers..."
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What happened to all this...which made the BitMain the company that we all love and trust with our money...BTC...

Now they are trying to joint the ranks of all others BS manufacturers...BFL...etc...you name it...

Pre-orders...(never, right...?),...$ price...fix configuration...no data...specs...details...no open source firmware upgrades ...no communication...limited quantities...only missing point is "shipping delays" (very fast and on time up to the moment!)...

Very disappointed...WRONG direction, BitMain...very WRONG...imho...think about your moves better...

Disappointing indeed.  Guess I'll hold my Neptune preorders.

I doubt you will get anywhere near 2Th from an overclock.  I think a 10-20% increase may be possible with a second PSU, but any higher than that would require both modifications to the cooling as well as hardware modification to bring up the voltage a bit