Cairnsmore1 - Quad XC6SLX150 Board - page 104.

spiccioli

legendary

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nec sine labore

Quote from: yohan on June 06, 2012, 03:50:05 PM

Update

Ok today saw the first bitstream in operation working correctly in all FPGA positions. We found a magic combination of coms stability and tool settings to allow a Icarus style bitstream to build. Now don't to excited as to achieve the coms stability we made the serial interface and hash core all run on a common clock of 50MHz so that's way off on the performance. However we are migrating this now to 100Mhz operation as the next stage and crossed fingers that will work. After that we will improve the coms modules and fix the problem properly so we can go faster again.

We needed a small tweek for stability on the in-built programmer but that tweek has worked and we are now checking that is ok on a large sample of boards.If that sample test proves positive we will move to full shipping release tomorrow.

Yohan,

goood news! Are you using a miner to test them or are you feeding them by hand, so to speak?

spiccioli

yohan

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Update

Ok today saw the first bitstream in operation working correctly in all FPGA positions. We found a magic combination of coms stability and tool settings to allow a Icarus style bitstream to build. Now don't to excited as to achieve the coms stability we made the serial interface and hash core all run on a common clock of 50MHz so that's way off on the performance. However we are migrating this now to 100Mhz operation as the next stage and crossed fingers that will work. After that we will improve the coms modules and fix the problem properly so we can go faster again.

We needed a small tweek for stability on the in-built programmer but that tweek has worked and we are now checking that is ok on a large sample of boards.If that sample test proves positive we will move to full shipping release tomorrow.

Keninishna

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Quote from: yohan on June 06, 2012, 01:29:24 AM

Depends where in the queue you are what your ETA is. At the moment we are not far off our indicated shipping dates.

On bitstreams we probably won't release our advanced versions bitstream source code. There will be far too much work simply to hand this away to our competitors.

Yea, I have no idea where I am in queue but I put in a pre-order pretty early, (2nd page of this thread I think?) How are you planning on securing your advanced bitstream? I ask because it may be best to implement something like the AES key to the hardware now while its in production vs having to send the boards back for programming later. Of course simply not releasing the source code could prove difficult to port the bitstream to other boards but maybe not since its all just LX150s anyways.

DILLIGAF

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Quote from: yohan on June 06, 2012, 01:29:24 AM

There will be far too much work simply to hand this away to our competitors.

I think most would be fine with that as long as it is not the same stupid idea behind the endertyrell bitstream of a central server that everything has to go through to use. Where you get to enjoy looking at your expensive paper weight when the inevitable downtime/DDOS against it happens.

yohan

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Activity: 462

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Depends where in the queue you are what your ETA is. At the moment we are not far off our indicated shipping dates.

On bitstreams we probably won't release our advanced versions bitstream source code. There will be far too much work simply to hand this away to our competitors.

Keninishna

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Is there an ETA on ship time? I don't wanna have you guys rush or anything but time is money. To me it looks like 2-3 weeks from now.

rampone

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dafq is goin on

OFFTOPIC:

Quote from: MXRider on June 05, 2012, 02:42:06 PM

God Save the Queen!

I was so amazed, when i saw a picture series of her shaking so many politicians hands... presidents come and go, the queen stays on and on.

to enterpoint: wow, pre orders are filles until September. Congrats. Wink

Lethos

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Keep it Simple. Every Bit Matters.

Quote from: yohan on June 05, 2012, 03:48:52 PM

We might get a bitstream into the board this week based on a re-build of standard stuff but for higher performance one of our own is probably about 4 weeks away. That's also dependent on what else we have to do in the next few weeks on other projects. There may be third party solutions available before our optimised solution is available. So don't expect spectacular bitstream results from us this week. You are going to have to be a bit patient on this. Our target this week is ensuring that the in-built programmer is totally rock solid, getting the production line more optimised, actually shipping boards and trying to get a standard bitstream working to our satisfaction. That's all on top of a large number of UK people being on holiday this week.

Although we have not had a massive amount of time to work with standard bitstreams but we have had some progress and can get a test nonce to run now using our CGminer based test harness. We still have some coms issues to resolve and that is the main area of work this week at the bitstream level.

Are you planning on keeping your bitstream opensource and viewable via something like github?
Something many bitstream developers have done for other spartan 6 based boards.

yohan

sr. member

Activity: 462

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We might get a bitstream into the board this week based on a re-build of standard stuff but for higher performance one of our own is probably about 4 weeks away. That's also dependent on what else we have to do in the next few weeks on other projects. There may be third party solutions available before our optimised solution is available. So don't expect spectacular bitstream results from us this week. You are going to have to be a bit patient on this. Our target this week is ensuring that the in-built programmer is totally rock solid, getting the production line more optimised, actually shipping boards and trying to get a standard bitstream working to our satisfaction. That's all on top of a large number of UK people being on holiday this week.

Although we have not had a massive amount of time to work with standard bitstreams but we have had some progress and can get a test nonce to run now using our CGminer based test harness. We still have some coms issues to resolve and that is the main area of work this week at the bitstream level.

MXRider

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God Save the Queen!

Now give us some performance numbers Grin

I don't remember when was the last time I wanted to buy something so badly.

zefir

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Quote from: yohan on June 04, 2012, 11:45:43 AM

We have been looking at high power ATX PSUs and have a few coming in this week to sample and try out. We will use them on our burn in rig. There are several that offer 8 PCIe connections plut Disk Drive connections and we are looking at how best to extract the power and deliver to the boards. One way might be a combined switch on and distribution board and we are looking at whether that is worth doing for our own test purposes or even more generally.

Yohan

Yohan,

could you maybe clarify whether you are John (like you signed one of your last posts here)?
Just to prevent you entering schizo mode when I write 'Hi John, yohan said...' to boadsales@enterpoint Wink

yohan

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We have been looking at high power ATX PSUs and have a few coming in this week to sample and try out. We will use them on our burn in rig. There are several that offer 8 PCIe connections plut Disk Drive connections and we are looking at how best to extract the power and deliver to the boards. One way might be a combined switch on and distribution board and we are looking at whether that is worth doing for our own test purposes or even more generally.

Yohan

zefir

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Quote from: rjk on June 04, 2012, 10:48:15 AM

Giving it a nice round even 50 boards, = $32,000. That would result in 40 Ghash/s at the bare minimum, at 2KW. With an improved bitstream, it takes on the Rig Box (which has been replaces with the Mini Rig). If we assume 1ghash/s from a new bitstream, that works out to 50 Ghash/s hopefully at no additional cost, and maybe a few additional watts. This really is competitive at the $640 price, but that will be going up in the future by about 50%. However, I think there will be plenty that will pay even the higher price for a good product.

That's the math I did when I decided to jump in. The 40$ premium over a BFLS will equalize for me (.15$/kWh) within 9 months. Enough time to drive out GPUs and remain profitable in the long run.

OTOH - if BFL's ASIC comes too fast, we all are going to be pushed out and I'll maybe need to re-program the boards for WPA2 cracking or some other 'useful' work Sad

rjk

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1ngldh

Giving it a nice round even 50 boards, = $32,000. That would result in 40 Ghash/s at the bare minimum, at 2KW. With an improved bitstream, it takes on the Rig Box (which has been replaced with the Mini Rig). If we assume 1ghash/s from a new bitstream, that works out to 50 Ghash/s hopefully at no additional cost, and maybe a few additional watts. This really is competitive at the $640 price, but that will be going up in the future by about 50%. However, I think there will be plenty that will pay even the higher price for a good product.

zefir

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Quote from: MrTeal on June 04, 2012, 10:12:40 AM

Quote from: zefir on June 01, 2012, 12:29:08 PM

Assuming each board will consume less than 40W, I prepared two 1.2kW PSUs and need some additional information to prepare power and communication cabling. If it was not already answered somewhere else, could you please respond to the following:

Wow, how many boards did you order?

I see, you did not read the announcement in my sig Wink

50 from the first batch go to my mining company. I'd be able to replace 4GH/s GPU force with 10x more FPGA force at the same energy consumption. Now that's what I call significant improvement

MXRider

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Quote from: steamboat on June 04, 2012, 10:26:08 AM

Quote from: MrTeal on June 04, 2012, 10:12:40 AM

Quote from: zefir on June 01, 2012, 12:29:08 PM

Assuming each board will consume less than 40W, I prepared two 1.2kW PSUs and need some additional information to prepare power and communication cabling. If it was not already answered somewhere else, could you please respond to the following:

Wow, how many boards did you order?

2400/40?

No. If you had components drawing about 600W would you use 600W or 800W or maybe even 1000W PSU.

My guess is 40-50 boards max.

steamboat

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Quote from: MrTeal on June 04, 2012, 10:12:40 AM

Quote from: zefir on June 01, 2012, 12:29:08 PM

Assuming each board will consume less than 40W, I prepared two 1.2kW PSUs and need some additional information to prepare power and communication cabling. If it was not already answered somewhere else, could you please respond to the following:

Wow, how many boards did you order?

2400/40?

MrTeal

legendary

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Quote from: zefir on June 01, 2012, 12:29:08 PM

Assuming each board will consume less than 40W, I prepared two 1.2kW PSUs and need some additional information to prepare power and communication cabling. If it was not already answered somewhere else, could you please respond to the following:

Wow, how many boards did you order?

wildemagic

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Yohan, so long as it hashes like other quad spartans, in the ballpark of 800Mhash/sec, I dont mind.

Its well priced hardware that looks pretty good.

kind regards

yohan

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Enterpoint. like all the hardware producers, has a ready made charging model in the shape of the boards and that is initial intention that's a straight forward sale. Obviously if the bitstream gets ripped off and used elsewhere we might have to look at that again. It's different for firmware and software producers that don't have the hardware dongle.

We might. or not, end up with the fastest bitstream done by ourselves but the key to anything being scccessful is a good hardware platform and I think we have that in Cairnsmore1. It's up to customers which bitstream provider they want to use and how much they might pay for that. We don't have any problems with this model.

Regards
John

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