Topic: Bitmain's Released Antminer S9, World's First 16nm Miner Ready to Order - page 154. (Read 531172 times)

True, it's very shortsighted of them to not cater to the wants of < 1% of their consumer base.  What are these people thinking by gearing their software towards the needs of those that buy 500-1,000 units at a time? 

Obviously people want the ability back to underclock. I've been mining for nearly 6 years now. It is extremely useful in so many scenarios. It makes 0 sense and is incredibly short sighted to defend removal of the feature.

When you operate, control, and expect ROI on more than a handful, you will. 

R4s are sold with auto-tuning.

You are putting home miners versus industrial miners all over and over again, but my disapproval for Bitmain removing features from miners has nothing to do with that.

I have no idea why you are defending their decision removing features.

Tbh, I'm too lazy to explain to you how a 3-4 week ship/return/repair/reship time has an effect on a 4 month old product "2nd run", its production, and how that relates to it still being a new product (even 6 months after its market debut).

Bottom line....

Buy an enterprise product and you have an enterprise product. If you do not want to use that enterprise product in an enterprise environment, then it's on you to create a "solution" for your non-enterprise environment, not the enterprise product manufacture.

Even Bitmain only needs 2-3 batches to correct whatever they consider major flaws. Given that, the s9's left infancy long ago with b16/17 the first major changes (auto-tune & Xilinx CPU) since putting a Vcore reg back in around batch 5. Since then all changes have been software. For miners, return/failure rates are a poor indicator of product maturity considering Bitmain seems quite content to keep them as they are despite known issues.

Und what do shipping routes & times have to do with anything?
Never said an R4 is identical to a s9. Just that they are close to on-par performance wise. Yes different chip count and slightly lower eff. Big whoop.

No, no, and no.

I own S9s, because I run a business. I do own some LNs converted into S7s, but that was only due to the under $250 purchase price.
R4 "Batch 2" was in December; a basic look at run-times, shipping routes and shipping times, return rates, and industry failure rates will tell you that R4s are still in their infancy (and S9s are barely out of their infancy).
R4s are not S9s, not even close (less chips running "higher", thus the energy cost difference).

Do you even have an R4? At > 4.4THs per-board in each of the 3 I have they match the s9's for per-board speed. Last batch produced was #6 so they are way past 'first run' stage. The only difference is the long more spread out design allowing for the much quieter longitudinal fan to be used.

They are the "home version" and there are bound to be issues with the "first runs" (just like any other new boards).
The cost is the trade off of trying to get S9-like numbers (since they are not "full" S9 boards) at a "quiet" level and ROI obviously isn't a concern with the crowd posting to this thread as of late.

My autotune r4 models both have issues .

Cost more per gh.

But when they run they are not loud.

I would have continued buying them if they did not break.

https://shop.bitmain.com/market.htm?name=antminer_r4_silent_bitcoin_miner_for_home

I'd think that the easiest and safest way Bitmain could offer "Eco-mode(s)" and still keep autotune (as said many times before - allows them them to mix 'n match boards made with better or 'meh' chips to hit target hash rate for the miner) is let Autotune do its thing to find full-speed (hashrate) optimum. Then give us a selectable Eco offset power or hash rate reduction %. Apply the offset to boards optimum, rerun temp test and adjust fan as needed to keep optimum chip temp.

Should be easy-peasy and I'd think that since part of auto-tune seems to be fiddling with fan speed to keep the chips hot, it running at lower speed should result in the fans also going slower.

only if you have free power and a 30 amp  pdu giving 22-24 amps.

with a need for quiet would you be wrong.

thing is the s9 started as  a down clock able miner.  the problem is when it turned into auto clock the transition was handle very poorly.

Again - right now you are correct.  No one should buy an S9 needing to underclock it.  Buy something else.  BUT - and I will say this again.  This is the first antminer that will not be able to be underclocked a year from now or whenever they are marginally profitable at full speed.  Is it a reason to not buy the miner now? Of course not.  But for people who have been mining for years and are used to the relatively short profitable life of a miner, being able to underclock them did extend their useful life.  That won't work with these S9s.  At least no one has tried yet because it's not worth bricking a miner.

To those lamenting about a feature being dropped by Bitmain.  I believe Bitmain's view is they are making the miner better right now, while profitable and that over rides any concern about underclocking when they get old.
 
Additionally, when these miners came out they were so far and away more efficient than previous miners that their useful life has already surpassed their predecessors.  I think the S9 will end up being the longest, profitably running miner since bitcoin really took off.
So you might have lost a feature, but this miner's useful life will be double to triple that of any of the prior Antminers.  So it's really not worth complaining about.

the bold part is correct.


but the first part is wrong.

Enough Free power in a space  to run 50th.

 1 cavat   can't be loud.



So 5 older s-9's clocked to 10th works in that space.

4 new s-9's  balls to the wall auto clock don't work in that space.


Just say  I am correct  about this and you are partly wrong.

waiting  for you to admit the error of your statement.

more so  I happen to have a space  exactly like I describe  so it is not a theory.

I run 3 and ⅓  old s-9s in it and 3 avalon 721's.  about 53th

 And all this gear will roi if it does not break.

Your pretty smart,  but you come across as a  very arrogant person at times.

to further explain myself the s-9's were available and the r4 did not exist.

  Even now the r4's break too often.  heck mine broke a month ago in a climate controlled spot.   using autotune.

If you under-clocked all of your rigs, you would go bankrupt and your backers would be pissed (and likely sue you). There is no practical reason to purchase a $1,500 piece of equipment and making it less profitable, and there's even less of a reason to do it with multiple rigs in a full-sized farm.

This is not about who is a hobby miner or who is crying.
Even if I would have a industrial grade mining farm, I would consider dropping features off not so nice thing to do.
There should be some kind of control ability even in the newest models.

OK, no more analogies ....
Don't buy a professional grade miner to use at home and cry because it's not some damn hobbyist toy!

Pizza ovens and trucks ? It boils down to choices - customer choice. Has anyone actually asked bitmain about this?