The more I think about it. Now is a better time to get into bitcoin mining than it was a year ago. One does not have to be concerned with as large of an increase in difficulty now as they did a year ago. I can't imagine having to increase my hash rate more than 700 times what it was a year prior to mine the same amount of bitcoin that I mined a year prior. The main thing holding most back at the moment is the price of bitcoin in relation to their power costs. Those who move to an area with extremely low power costs stand a better chance of surviving. Especially, when the blocks halve.
This may and may not be true. Yes, it s correct, we do not see those 40% monthly diff jumps anymore and I hope we ll not see this with current available hardware. However, I m sure companies are working on next gen and next next gen which might increase their efficiency big time. Probably the only limiting factor is this limping BTC price. If it starts picking up, more money will be available for development as well.
If the S7 includes .22nm chips, we could see .35 watts per GH. If the S7 includes next generation 16nm or 14nm chips, we could see efficiency in the .21 to .14 watts per GH/s range. It's really hard to say what chips Bitmain will use in the S7 to possibly be released in July. This has me wondering why an S6 would be made with present chips used in the S5? Are they going to do the same thing again like they did with the S4? Meaning, come out with a rig like the S4 that's only on the market for 3 or 4 months then it's gone again because of new technology. The S4 came out in October and only went through 2 batches. We may see the same thing with the S6 if Bitmain comes out with an S6.
If we have .35 watts per GH/s in the S7, lets see if it is enough to create a "Farm War" which can affect difficulty:
.35 watts per GH/s
A 1,655 GH/s rig @ .35 watts per GH/s would total 579.25 watts. I chose to keep the S7 at a similar total wattage as the S5. It only makes sense to keep it there to avoid making consumers purchase new PSU's to power the new rig. I've put the difficulty at 55,000,000,000 because that is where I believe it will be by the time July arrives.
$112.80 in one month with difficulty at 55 Billion and BTC price @ $248.401 (BTC-e Exchange)
$ 40.92 in one month with 10.5 cents per kWH for power costs.$ 71.88 in one month after power costs.
Present cost per GH/s without shipping for the S5 is $0.29437229 per GH/s. If it were the same for the S7, the costs of the S7 would be $487.19 with a 22nm chip @ .35 watts per GH/s efficiency. Again, this is only speculation to see if this would create a "Farm War." ROI on this rig would be 6.7 months at present price of BTC with 10.5 cents per kWH power costs.
That ROI did not include shipping costs. Not really much of a game changer to create a "Farm War" in my opinion.
However, if the next generation were 16nm or 14nm at [lets say] .21 watts per GH/s as a conservative estimate, this could be a game changer. Lets see [This time I'm using a similar wattage to the S3 (347.55 watts) for the sake of the sheer size of the rig]:
An estimated 1,655 GH/s @ .21 watts per GH = 347.55 watts total for the rig. The example below includes difficulty at 55 Billion and price of BTC @ $248.401
$112.80 in one month with difficulty at 55 Billion and BTC price @ $248.401 (BTC-e Exchange)
$ 24.52 in one month with 10.5 cents per kWH for power costs.$ 88.28 in one month after power costs.
Present cost per GH/s without shipping for the S5 is $0.29437229 per GH/s. If it were the same for the S7, the costs of the S7 would be $487.19 with a 16nm chip @ .21 watts per GH/s efficiency. This would have ROI at 5.52 months if difficulty and price of BTC went up and/or down the same percentage during that time frame.
This ROI did not include shipping! The ROI would be very close to 6 months with shipping.
This would definitely encourage more to invest into new hardware. Especially, the big mining operations.
I think more people would be willing to buy a miner this efficient because they reason it will last a fairly good while after ROI.