Topic: FPGA development board "Icarus" - DisContinued/ important announcement - page 49. (Read 207288 times)

  That still puts X6500 more expensive. ;p  Not trying to argue with ya, m8. But your orginal comment of it in comparison to the x6500 is off a bit.  Also, X6500 started out at 200. Icarus is in the same boat and has been stated as such by the developer that he is still working on optimizing the mining code.

  Point is, from the range Ng has hinted to thus far, his mark-up will be much less than others and his end-user price per MH is better...

250 and not 200: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.584606

The X6500 is only at that speed due to not very well optimized mining code which hasn't been touched for sometime.  They were saying in #bitcoin-fpga that now that the board production was all sorted some time was going to get spent on the mining code. It's using the same -3 grade parts which ZTEX gets 190MH/s per FPGA on (and ZTEX's code is OSS).  While it's possible that they flubbed the power design or the clock signal quality and can't actually get it to that speed, I think thats unlikely.

It appears that Icarus is using the "slower" -2 speed grade part— which is probably the best part to use in terms of $/MH from a parts cost perspective.  But the parts cost only matter if they're passed on to the buyer.

  ummm, the X6500 is $580 for only 200MH.... = $2.9/MH  This Icarus build, even at $620 and 360MH will be cheaper per MH. = $1.722~/MH  Even at my guess of $648, its $1.8/MH. He has plenty of room to work with there.  If it was me I'd start em at $700, or $1.94/MH, for the first round and move down from there as bulk improved costs..

Too much more that his costs and it's going to lose attractiveness vs the X6500 — yes, it's a more flexible board (it looks beautiful and deserves a good price) but for people who are primarily interested in mining the amount of premium they'd pay for that over a more minimal design probably isn't great.  (the idea of increased resale value is good, but it's pretty theoretical... and probably not worth that much in present day dollars)

Fortunately it looks like all the boards out there already have pretty healthy margins— they have to because of the small quantities we're talking about... so there should hopefully be room to take some of the increased parts costs without making it uncompetitive.

  He gave us enough of a range on price to do some math with. Less than $648 and more than $550(since he stated $500 was a bit less than his costs).

  I am still gonna stick to within 10% or so of my orig speculation once he crunches all the math on parts and labor costs involved. Unless he plans to order 500+ chips at once and contracts with an ultra cheap assembler in hopes you forum peoples will buy them before a cheaper design can be built.....

Those are pretty cool. Would love to know what the final price is going to be.

Same problem as BFL creation. No concrete offers and pricing and release dates At least this one is real.

So when can we expect to be able to order this ? :p

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Well ATM I think we should just focus on making this board really good for mining and mining only. All these extra parts make the device even more expensive I think. Please tell me when I can get an FPGA module of size smaller than a 5870 ( half size of a GPU ) and gets 500 Mhash/s and price is under $500 and consumption is under 20W.

exactly.

example1: build an WIFI daughter board and connect to the FX connector on the top, then implement some logic in FPGA, and then write some code, finally, Icarus can solo mining in a corner.

example2: connect some Power relay and a GSM module with it, write some code, then you can control your lamp with some SMS from your phone.

etc.

Alot of I/Os are routed to connectors so you may develop some neaty devices. For example, if you want, there will be no problem to develop and connect module with Ethernet, monitor, PC keyboard, USB host, etc...

What is this "other purpose" you keep talking about I thought these were on good for mining. Maybe good for WPA too ?

 

maybe slightly higher, but not much. in effect, 500$ is enough for the manufacture cost, but months work is a REALISTIC problem.


yes, the slot is used for connect to a motherboard. but in mining purpose, this architecture is highly NOT recommend. i design 2 of "link port" for cross boards connect. In fact, just 1 USB port could support hundreds of Icarus. (But by present firmware's coding bugs, this function can not work well. ) So, using a complex motherboard just for remove the power cable is inefficent.


highly NOT recommend. because of the chip packaging, a low thermal resistance cooling method is needed. relation to the size,  a 25mm fan is enough. now i use a NIDEC ball-bearing fan, high quality.



this function only need a slightly UCF code modification. certainly, you need build a mother board. the DIMM connector provide near 100 GPIOs, JTAG, and power.
attention: the FPGA's config bitstream CAN be stored on board. on this board, each FPGA has 1 64Mb SPI flash with it, so it can boot up when power on in 500ms.
this means the upper computer's work is simply transform the mining data. maybe a hacked router is fairy enough for it.
the bitstream download can be finish with a XILINX platform cable.


maybe lower. but please, this is a good development board, not just a mining machine. I think it's much ease for resell if you want to give up mining bitcoins   .


This is a development board. not just for mining. the DIMM connector is mainly for other purpose.


there is enough of product as you say, isn't it?   beyond that, there is another side: a 6 layers PCB's heat dissipation is much better than a 2 layer PCB, so the FPGA chips' core temperature will lower than just using a 2 layers PCB . there are about 3 complete copper planes in the PCB, and all signals has reference planes. and it's necessary for diff-pairs routing.



certainly they are for sell, if you don't need a "open box can use" mining code, i can ship you 1 today.
now we are debugging around the mining control software. and this will lasts some days.


and i do all of this for free?  

relax, it will not reach 648$.  


speak english please...

Oooo, those are sexy

The FPGA alone is going to be $150 ea.  So @ 180MH just the FGPA is $0.83 per MH.  Kinda unlikely that everything else including PCB, minor components, USB interface, assembly, and retail markup are <$0.17 per MH.

  I am hopefully wayy off.  My price speculation is bloated so I don't get my hopes up too much. ;p

IMHO that is enormous price if it were true. I was hoping $1/Mh was the maximum price point. Guess not ...

  Excellent work, Ngzhang!!


  Speculation on price; Those particular spartans are $158 for <60, the boards have a LOT of components and the PCBs not cheap. High amp regulator $30+. Maybe saved a few bukcs on a low end uart? Not seeing it but am not real familiar with them. Not sure if he has a license fee attached but will add it in case.


  builders markup included result = XLX $386, PCB+License $145, Components $110, usb and power cable $7

 =   ~$648  or $1.80/MH 

Did I miss any thing?

Great work.
For a such heavy routing 6 layer PCB its necessary. I'm waiting for a price...
I like the idea for routing I/Os, maybe I buy one... If you will sell those..