Topic: ASICs - which should you choose? (Read 12919 times)

0. Introduction
Bitcointalk.org forum member SolarSilver mentioned to me that Avalon had updated the shipping dates, and thought it be a good idea to update the earnings estimates, and I had to agree.

Since the simplified earnings charts from the last post seemed to most readers to be preferable to the previous charting methods, I've extended that idea somewhat. I decided to make the earnings estimates agnostic so they could be used for any mining device. To do this, the daily and cumulative BTC earnings charts are per Ghps.

To obtain the btc amount earned for your device, take the daily or cumulative BTC earned and multiply by the hashrate (in Ghps) of the device in which you are interested. The amount you'll need to subtract for electricity costs are given by the final two charts.

Another change I've made is to provide historical data as well, so the amounts earned by Jeff Garzik and Chinese Avalon miners can be estimated. Since I'm have trouble obtaining this data from blockchain.info, I've used the nethash data from http://blockexplorer.com/q/nethash. The disavantage of this is that data is only available for every 144 blocks, and the charts show this.

In order to estimate the network hashrate, I use a  Gamma family generalised smoothing spline. I obtain better results when using network hashrates with constant time intervals (rather than constant numbers of blocks) and Poisson family smoothing splines, but the results are sufficient for this analysis. The chart of the estimate and the actual per 144 block hashrates are shown below for the interested reader.

I've also provided a dataset of the earnings estimates if you have trouble reading values from the charts.

0. Introduction
Errata: In post 9.9 I made a late night error, incorrectly naming a variable. This lead to Difficulties being applied one retarget early, and thus underestimating earnings. This has been fixed for this post. All previous "ASIC choices" posts are not affected.

Bitcointalk.org forum members MrTeal and schmadz requested a slightly different data presentation, which I think will be more flexible than previous presentations. The changes are:

Daily and cumulative earnings are in BTC
Daily and cumulative earnings do not account for power costs.
Daily and cumulative power costs are shown in two other charts.
If you want to estimate costs, then convert to US$ using whatever rate you think will be appropriate (US$25 to US$30 / BTC are probably safe values) and then use charts three and four to caculate costs. (more details in charts sections).

This removes the necessity of using scenarios, and allows much greater flexibility.

^THIS^ is an awesome idea! let people do some of their own calculations/estimations on their daily costs. maybe make it a new blog post, so as not to clutter up the excellent one already made.

I envision multiple price points but stick with a static hashrate, it could even be $/day/GH/s though I imagine $/day/66GH/s would make more sense to everyone, since 66 seems to be the consensus entry point.

and please, PLEASE, PLEASE! (with a cherry on top! i.e. a 1 btc tip from me ) include $0.00/day

Rather than separate charts for each unit and electricity cost, why not just make a set with cost to run per day? The cost for running a BFL Single at $0.30/kWh should be roughly the same (depending on actual power numbers) to running an Avalon with $0.05/kWh electricity, so they could both be put under a $0.75/day chart.

I'm handling pre-orders for them - $150  (£95 real money) - will secure a Goblin ASIC when delivery arrives on 31st March.

0. Introduction
Avalon confirmed they have started shipping the first ever ASICs designed to perform SHA256(SHA256()) hashes, and I congratulate the Avalon team on being the first. Since their shipping dates had always been later than BFL and the now sadly departed bASIC I didn't think they'd be shipping first, but they worked quietly toward their goal and only made changes to reduce the time to shipping or increase the devices output.

Once I have more information about the Avalon specs I'll post an update of the usual charts. For today, I'm going to post some lighthearted and probably not very accurate earnings estimates, jam packed with assumptions that may or may not be correct.

I think you should choose something tangible...not some pixels ( to be read as advertisements )

newegg(.com) is the go-to computer hardware store for most of the US and Canada. Bastards just have to be located in California too, so I'm the only one that gets charged tax (well and 34million others but they don't count).

200W PSUs tend to be notoriously cost ineffecient (I wouldn't trust most of the sub $30 offerings with my enemies computer components) though.
I think the Antec EarthWatts 380D is probably one of the better low cost solutions out there (~$45 for 32A combined on 12V rails), though I will admit I've never really looked that hard for low power items.

EDIT: also a sweet seasonic 300W on sale for $39.99, 80% Bronze and all that.

I was going to do an update for the new bASIC specs, but then I read that they won't be shipped with PSUs, which I'll need to include in the ROI costs. What sort of wattage would the average buyer use - how many are buying multiples? Or should I just assume a 200W PSU is being used for one bASIC?

Also, I know how much PSUs cost where I live and I have no idea which places are preferable for purchasing such products. So if someone has an idea how much people in the US pay for say a 200W PSU, it would save me some google time.

It won't play a big difference for the first few months, but going from 2 Singles to 2 Avalons can mean the difference between $15/mon and $90/mon in costs.