Topic: DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI - page 78. (Read 99458 times)

easily ? no.

Raven is using 16 different algos.  The dev time complexity of implementing 16 different kernels into an FPGA will be significant.

@whitefire990 are you coding on pure VHDL/Verilog or are you using HLS/HLX?

Things to ponder.

FPGAs are expensive.
Dev time is significantly higher than other code.  Compile times are even higher (days or even weeks)
If you don't get modified bitstream files to keep up with any algo related changes, you'll be stuck with an expensive piece of HW.

With all that said this is a good initiative.

If the alternative serial pins are mutually unused on the other board then:
- you can transmit on both TX pins.
- enable the pull up for RX pins, because in idle state the serial lines are in high state. Then you can make a common RX signal: RX_COMMON=1'b1^RX_A^RX_B.

@OP Whitefire990 :
you write that you will distribute the bitstream file but what about the miner itself ?

wow 100$ per VC  I will save and buy too so I can start mining too. thanks for the information.

I'm using the 3u8g-c612. It's about $3K.


It requires the PCI-E power, a full 75W. But you can provide that through a powered riser. I would expect him to implement a PCI-E interface at some point though.


Some (Most) of your assumptions here are false. Can't really say more as it's all covered under NDA. You're also looking at a 50% +/- recovery rate removing and reballing a FPGA.

Sure. Risers are only needed if it does not fit in the regular pci-e slots.

If i were to buy just one of theese cards, could i not just put it in my computer then as it fits in the PCI slot? But communicates through usb and only use PCI for power was that it?

I got the same lead time in EU. Can you recommend any rack server for these? I guess they won't fit in normal 2U servers like HPE Proliant as most spec only one full width full height card as the board is double height if I understand it correctly.

BTW , do you plan to support high-end Intel/Altera device/board in the coming future ? Thanks ~

The same idea as mine , but this kind of business opportunity will belong to mining FARM owners with enough resource to transform their hardware computing service from crypto mining resouce to AI mining resource ...

Interesting but i dont see the logic here Xillinx is selling the chip used in these cards on its own for utterly ridiculous price, now they will provide much cheaper source of this chip, if your not interested in crypto mining but you have a product to sell using this chip, buy this card desolder the chip reball it and use it in your own product. I dont see this happening in the long run. Its a great marketing strategy but wont bring big revenue for Xillinx in a long run.

Part of the point of FPGAs and AI specific chips is energy efficiency, but yes.

I also think so, building a Skynet, making huge energy consumption a meaningful thing.

As far as im not leaving on american continent, i called my local Bittware reseller several time last week. He is well introduced into this FPGA field, selling and developping on those kind of board and technology since more than 10 years.
Therefore, he has knowledge and skills, also has in his professionnal network some independant developpers with more skills and knowledge in this area. He already inform them of the existence of this thread and waiting their feedback.
Local reseller are valuable consellor.

It doesn't help much and in my opinion it is actually detrimental. Those devices you mentioned have the similar conceptual limitation: they encourage thinking of solving tasks in terms of sequences of steps. Very much like many early "home computers" programmable with BASIC.

The thing is that a random guy can conceivably be much better at FPGA programming, even without previous exposure to computers.

I believe it starts much earlier and is conditioned with the type of toys one played as a kid. Here's my theory:

If as a kid somebody played

(1) with mechanical toys that allow to build working things out of building blocks

or

(2) with electrical toys that allow building working circuits out of components connected with pluggable wires

then as an adult such person will have natural aptitude for

(a) FPGA programming

or

(b) parallel programming

or

(c) electronic engineering

To such a person the FPGA development kit is very much like their dream toy from the childhood upgraded to a true professional tool with nearly unlimited quantity of building blocks and connecting wires.

So I disagree with your premise that the aptitude for FPGA programming is rare, it just isn't discovered and developed in many people.

In the past I was frequently surprised that some people with advanced computer science degrees from reputable schools have extremely hard time understanding that some device can concurrently work doing many things simultaneously. No need to explicitly state the order in which things need to be done.

You may now know it, but FPGAs don't need to be programmed using some language like Verilog or VHDL. They can be designed using schematic capture of assembling blocks and connecting them with wires. And this comes naturally to some grade school kids with no computer science exposure whatsoever.

So the TL;DR of the above is: it really depends on what kind of toys you played with when you were a kid.

I'm curious why he's not just using PCI-E for comms. You need the board in that PCI-E slot for the +75W. Get rid of that mess of USB cables and use an AXI4-Lite interface. The PCI-E block would be identical on both boards.