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Topic: Closed - page 6. (Read 19482 times)

hero member
Activity: 854
Merit: 1002
January 24, 2014, 07:55:05 AM
Tell me if I'm right, is it 50 watts per unit ?

because 500 watts seems too much for just one cooling system shown here
sr. member
Activity: 384
Merit: 250
January 24, 2014, 06:58:35 AM
Does anyone know why they'd be able to release a BTC+LTC asic a lot easier than an exclusive LTC asic? There is a huge arms race right now in the LTC world for the first ASIC so I don't understand why these guys wouldn't go "all in" on a LTC asic.  They would be the first, and reap huge rewards for that.
Because scrypt requires SHA2 circuitry anyway. SHA2 related transistors would be in the chip, idling 90% of the time. Why not use that part of the chip to mine BTC during those idle cycles?

What they can fine tune is how many SHA2 units they choose to put in a chip, to control die area and costs. That has to do with it's size vs the rest of the required logic. If they are small, why not?

I'm doubtful that any of the SHA256-dual hashers are shared between the BTC and LTC cores. The spec shows 160 BTC units and 4 LTC units. Each of the LTC units will contain perhaps one or two SHA256-single non-midstate hashers and these need not be fully unrolled pipelines either as the time required to compute the PBKDF2 hash is very short compared to the salsa hash. It would be just too much trouble to share the SHA256 hashers between the BTC and LTC cores (time is money in ASIC design, it would not be cost effective to do it this way).

I agree that the LTC cores are prototypes. My guess is that GridSeed had a foundry slot available for the BTC ASIC, so decided to add a prototype LTC hash design to the die. This would have been quite expensive in area as the embedded RAM would take up significant space, but its a sensible decision as it gives them a huge advantage in being first to market. I'll be interested to see what their next-generation pure LTC ASIC will do (I think we can assume one is in the pipeline).
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
January 24, 2014, 02:13:26 AM
Does anyone know why they'd be able to release a BTC+LTC asic a lot easier than an exclusive LTC asic? There is a huge arms race right now in the LTC world for the first ASIC so I don't understand why these guys wouldn't go "all in" on a LTC asic.  They would be the first, and reap huge rewards for that.
Because scrypt requires SHA2 circuitry anyway. SHA2 related transistors would be in the chip, idling 90% of the time. Why not use that part of the chip to mine BTC during those idle cycles?

What they can fine tune is how many SHA2 units they choose to put in a chip, to control die area and costs. That has to do with it's size vs the rest of the required logic. If they are small, why not?
+1

Glad someone around here is knowledgeable.

Last I heard, there were 40 batches of 10 being passed out, along with anything developed from the chips and reference designs made available at a trade show in early December.  Plenty of time for a few variants to pop up, especially with the throughput and work ethic in China.
sr. member
Activity: 840
Merit: 255
SportsIcon - Connect With Your Sports Heroes
January 24, 2014, 02:07:39 AM
Does anyone know why they'd be able to release a BTC+LTC asic a lot easier than an exclusive LTC asic? There is a huge arms race right now in the LTC world for the first ASIC so I don't understand why these guys wouldn't go "all in" on a LTC asic.  They would be the first, and reap huge rewards for that.
Because scrypt requires SHA2 circuitry anyway. SHA2 related transistors would be in the chip, idling 90% of the time. Why not use that part of the chip to mine BTC during those idle cycles?

What they can fine tune is how many SHA2 units they choose to put in a chip, to control die area and costs. That has to do with it's size vs the rest of the required logic. If they are small, why not?
full member
Activity: 121
Merit: 100
January 23, 2014, 05:47:56 PM

Its legit. The jig is up for those of us with huge mining rig farms. Be careful, the chip manufacturer said there are 3 or 4 scammers who got samples and are taking orders for thousands but they only have a few samples in the wild.



quote author=rammy2k2 link=topic=424987.msg4682910#msg4682910 date=1390474578]
So...a fabled LTC/BTC mining device sent from China 'at the weekend'? 

- A device that no-one has heard of before, and is probably impossible because ASICs don't work that way. 
- A device that can't have any power circuitry in that tiny package, especially anything that uses 600W. 
- A device in a tiny package that needs to dissipate 600W of heat.  The heat sink of an Avalon Blade has to dissipate 600W and it's 6" high and 18" long at least. 
- China is basically closed down for holidays from today, so there'll be nothing shipping 'at the weekend'.  

Terrible scam, photoshop pics and didn't even do any research.

FAIL.


a device that no one heard before ? dude .. before posting crap, try to do a lookup, they are very popular in china, and yes, they are real
[/quote]
full member
Activity: 236
Merit: 100
January 23, 2014, 05:23:22 PM
Does anyone know why they'd be able to release a BTC+LTC asic a lot easier than an exclusive LTC asic? There is a huge arms race right now in the LTC world for the first ASIC so I don't understand why these guys wouldn't go "all in" on a LTC asic.  They would be the first, and reap huge rewards for that.

Good question, not sure why they would do this either... my guess is they are hedging their bets. Remember, when they started making this chip doing anything "scrypt" was a big risk compared to doing something for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is established, and while we all here (most likely) believe in Litecoin, etc.. its one thing to believe in it like that and another to design a chip for it which is a huge investment.

Things have calmed down now and I think scrypt has proven there is demand for it but we will see if a company does a chip for it.

Think about it, the scrypt portion is pretty slow... almost an afterthought really. I guess they figured, if we can throw it in there, why not.
hero member
Activity: 574
Merit: 500
January 23, 2014, 05:08:14 PM
Does anyone know why they'd be able to release a BTC+LTC asic a lot easier than an exclusive LTC asic? There is a huge arms race right now in the LTC world for the first ASIC so I don't understand why these guys wouldn't go "all in" on a LTC asic.  They would be the first, and reap huge rewards for that.
hero member
Activity: 736
Merit: 500
January 23, 2014, 03:22:52 PM
very interesting!
Want minimum 1 big one!

 Cool
donator
Activity: 686
Merit: 519
It's for the children!
January 23, 2014, 10:57:48 AM
- A device in a tiny package that needs to dissipate 600W of heat.  The heat sink of an Avalon Blade has to dissipate 600W and it's 6" high and 18" long at least.
It has been written that one device dissipates 60 W, a set of 10 devices dissipates 600 W. Looking at pictures it seems to be possible.


It should also be pointed out the heatsinks in the picture have a lot better surface area and direct airflow than the absolute garbage avalon blades come with.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 504
I know the voices in my head aren't real.
January 23, 2014, 08:02:44 AM
i just went through www.cybtc.com/thread-5203-1-1.html (use google page translator) as was referenced earlier and lots of info about it. it seems the Chinese are working and improving it. they sold some for 400 yuan ($66) and they are testing them and making recommendations for improvement.
legendary
Activity: 1974
Merit: 1003
January 23, 2014, 05:56:18 AM
So...a fabled LTC/BTC mining device sent from China 'at the weekend'? 

- A device that no-one has heard of before, and is probably impossible because ASICs don't work that way. 
- A device that can't have any power circuitry in that tiny package, especially anything that uses 600W. 
- A device in a tiny package that needs to dissipate 600W of heat.  The heat sink of an Avalon Blade has to dissipate 600W and it's 6" high and 18" long at least. 
- China is basically closed down for holidays from today, so there'll be nothing shipping 'at the weekend'.  

Terrible scam, photoshop pics and didn't even do any research.

FAIL.


a device that no one heard before ? dude .. before posting crap, try to do a lookup, they are very popular in china, and yes, they are real
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
January 23, 2014, 04:57:25 AM
#99
- A device in a tiny package that needs to dissipate 600W of heat.  The heat sink of an Avalon Blade has to dissipate 600W and it's 6" high and 18" long at least.
It has been written that one device dissipates 60 W, a set of 10 devices dissipates 600 W. Looking at pictures it seems to be possible.
sr. member
Activity: 324
Merit: 250
January 23, 2014, 04:51:41 AM
#98
Site down now because of Chinese New Year.
hero member
Activity: 1246
Merit: 501
January 23, 2014, 04:48:26 AM
#97
So...a fabled LTC/BTC mining device sent from China 'at the weekend'? 

- A device that no-one has heard of before, and is probably impossible because ASICs don't work that way. 
- A device that can't have any power circuitry in that tiny package, especially anything that uses 600W. 
- A device in a tiny package that needs to dissipate 600W of heat.  The heat sink of an Avalon Blade has to dissipate 600W and it's 6" high and 18" long at least. 
- China is basically closed down for holidays from today, so there'll be nothing shipping 'at the weekend'.  

Terrible scam, photoshop pics and didn't even do any research.

FAIL.
sr. member
Activity: 256
Merit: 250
Because it's sterile...
January 23, 2014, 02:08:19 AM
#96
The manufacturer has plans to release more efficient devices mid to late February.

http://www.cybtc.com/thread-5203-1-1.html
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
www.DonateMedia.org
January 23, 2014, 01:34:12 AM
#95
I think I will be waiting for dense Gridseed based hardware, but nice to see them in the wild at least.

For those defending GPUs as more profitable:

GPU:

Energy hungry
Hot
Hard to scale at a point without industrial cooling and power
Less up-front cost, but long term pain due to the above

ASIC

Energy efficient
Much less heat
Easier to scale (Simple USB hosts compared to also needing an entire PC to run multiple GPUs)
More up front cost, but savings in the long term due to the vastly increased efficiency.

Pluses and minuses as with all things. Anyone spouting off about how GPUs are so much superior are not considering all points.
sr. member
Activity: 256
Merit: 250
Because it's sterile...
January 22, 2014, 11:48:31 PM
#94
These scrypt guys are serious about protecting their GPUs.

Some people seem to forget this chip has nominal SHA capabilities which will not break the bank but will be a nice addition. It also makes the price a little better when you consider 80 Gh/s or 160 Gh/s plus 3 Mh/s and 6 Mh/s scrypt, respectively.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 250
Hell?
January 22, 2014, 11:06:45 PM
#93
looks like an empty heatsink. lol

Agreed!

I thought so too but then I found the site below (scroll far down to see photos).

http://mall.diginforce.com/goods.php?id=39

I still don't know what to make of it.  I have not seen any photos/videos showing that the thing actually mines.

I'm hoping that it is the real deal.  But why bury it inside of a heat sink?



hmm looks pretty legit, gonna wait this out and see i guess
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
January 22, 2014, 10:51:04 PM
#92
GPU's are currently more profittable and cheaper. Fact. These aren't worth it yet unless your electric rate is something like 50 cents per kwh.
FIFY

If these are real, then GPU miners will need a new algorithm to hash by the end of this year.
Pfft. GPUs will have long paid themselves back by the end of the year. Hell, if it takes me 4 months to earn back our investments I would be shocked. And then after that, I can sell everything for 80% what I paid for it. You can't do that with this ASIC.
full member
Activity: 224
Merit: 100
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing
January 22, 2014, 10:47:37 PM
#91
looks like an empty heatsink. lol

Agreed!

I thought so too but then I found the site below (scroll far down to see photos).

http://mall.diginforce.com/goods.php?id=39

I still don't know what to make of it.  I have not seen any photos/videos showing that the thing actually mines.

I'm hoping that it is the real deal.  But why bury it inside of a heat sink?

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