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Topic: FPGA Miners and their ilk... (Read 10291 times)

newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 14, 2012, 06:09:19 AM
#20
legendary
Activity: 3878
Merit: 1193
hero member
Activity: 1596
Merit: 502
March 13, 2012, 12:58:38 AM
#18
And everybody knows, sexy red is like CAPS LOOK INSTAND COOL!
legendary
Activity: 1012
Merit: 1000
March 12, 2012, 07:17:50 PM
#17

Don't forgot the red PCB is sexy.
hero member
Activity: 720
Merit: 525
March 12, 2012, 02:38:26 PM
#16
Quote
This one has some nice new features, most notable of which is probably the on board temperature sensors. I believe that none of the other FPGAs have this.
not true

the BFL BitFORCE Single has temp sensors - it automatically throttles itself down if it gets too hot - also the latest compile of cgminer shows accurate temps for BFL.


Ah, I didn't know this. Thanks. Then, we're the only Spartan 6 miner with temp sensors. Smiley
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 1000
Buy this account on March-2019. New Owner here!!
March 12, 2012, 12:13:42 PM
#15
Cool! Nice to see this information in one place. A couple clarifications about the X6500.

First of all, it's not my X6500. It's the FPGA Mining X6500. We are made up of fpgaminer, li_gangyi, and myself. Also, Cablesaurus.com is our distributor, so that we can focus on working with FPGAs instead of USPS. Smiley

Our forum thread is here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/x6500-custom-fpga-miner-40058

Our website is: fpgamining.com

The X6000 has been discontinued, due to lack of demand. Dual FPGAs really makes much more sense anyways.

I've been doing a lot of careful power measurements over the last few days. At 200 MHz (400 MH/s total), I'm seeing 16.36 W, measured at the board directly. It would be nice to get power measurements of each of the FPGA miners under the same conditions for a proper comparison. I'll be posting the results of my tests (power consumption measured at a range of clock speeds) in our thread and on our website soon. I'll also do the same tests on several different boards to see how much it varies from FPGA to FPGA.

Finally, we're about to start shipping the latest incarnation of X6500, the rev 3. This one has some nice new features, most notable of which is probably the on board temperature sensors. I believe that none of the other FPGAs have this. I think it is a crucial feature to protecting your FPGA miners when something goes wrong (e.g., fan failure). Here's a glamour shot:  Tongue




Updated Cheesy

nice to see those improvements on ztex but jut want to note

Quote
This one has some nice new features, most notable of which is probably the on board temperature sensors. I believe that none of the other FPGAs have this.
not true

the BFL BitFORCE Single has temp sensors - it automatically throttles itself down if it gets too hot - also the latest compile of cgminer shows accurate temps for BFL.
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 12, 2012, 12:01:58 PM
#13
Cool! Nice to see this information in one place. A couple clarifications about the X6500.

First of all, it's not my X6500. It's the FPGA Mining X6500. We are made up of fpgaminer, li_gangyi, and myself. Also, Cablesaurus.com is our distributor, so that we can focus on working with FPGAs instead of USPS. Smiley

Our forum thread is here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/x6500-custom-fpga-miner-40058

Our website is: fpgamining.com

The X6000 has been discontinued, due to lack of demand. Dual FPGAs really makes much more sense anyways.

I've been doing a lot of careful power measurements over the last few days. At 200 MHz (400 MH/s total), I'm seeing 16.36 W, measured at the board directly. It would be nice to get power measurements of each of the FPGA miners under the same conditions for a proper comparison. I'll be posting the results of my tests (power consumption measured at a range of clock speeds) in our thread and on our website soon. I'll also do the same tests on several different boards to see how much it varies from FPGA to FPGA.

Finally, we're about to start shipping the latest incarnation of X6500, the rev 3. This one has some nice new features, most notable of which is probably the on board temperature sensors. I believe that none of the other FPGAs have this. I think it is a crucial feature to protecting your FPGA miners when something goes wrong (e.g., fan failure). Here's a glamour shot:  Tongue

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13472215/forum/angle_a_720.png


Updated Cheesy
donator
Activity: 367
Merit: 250
ZTEX FPGA Boards
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001
March 12, 2012, 05:45:31 AM
#11
Cablesaurus.com is our distributor, so that we can focus on working with FPGAs instead of USPS. Smiley

Cablesaurus appears to be doing a terrible job, as the X6500 does not appear to be listed on their website, and the link on fpgamining.com just takes you directly to cablesaurus.com.


Yeah.. Even when the X6500s were listed and showing as 'out of stock' - you couldn't put in a pre-order.  They've surely lost out on a few impulse buys that way.


legendary
Activity: 2646
Merit: 1137
All paid signature campaigns should be banned.
March 12, 2012, 03:25:28 AM
#10
very interesting
member
Activity: 111
Merit: 100
March 12, 2012, 03:24:56 AM
#9
Cablesaurus.com is our distributor, so that we can focus on working with FPGAs instead of USPS. Smiley

Cablesaurus appears to be doing a terrible job, as the X6500 does not appear to be listed on their website, and the link on fpgamining.com just takes you directly to cablesaurus.com.
hero member
Activity: 720
Merit: 525
March 12, 2012, 02:58:48 AM
#8
Cool! Nice to see this information in one place. A couple clarifications about the X6500.

First of all, it's not my X6500. It's the FPGA Mining X6500. We are made up of fpgaminer, li_gangyi, and myself. Also, Cablesaurus.com is our distributor, so that we can focus on working with FPGAs instead of USPS. Smiley

Our forum thread is here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/x6500-custom-fpga-miner-40058

Our website is: fpgamining.com

The X6000 has been discontinued, due to lack of demand. Dual FPGAs really makes much more sense anyways.

I've been doing a lot of careful power measurements over the last few days. At 200 MHz (400 MH/s total), I'm seeing 16.36 W, measured at the board directly. It would be nice to get power measurements of each of the FPGA miners under the same conditions for a proper comparison. I'll be posting the results of my tests (power consumption measured at a range of clock speeds) in our thread and on our website soon. I'll also do the same tests on several different boards to see how much it varies from FPGA to FPGA.

Finally, we're about to start shipping the latest incarnation of X6500, the rev 3. This one has some nice new features, most notable of which is probably the on board temperature sensors. I believe that none of the other FPGAs have this. I think it is a crucial feature to protecting your FPGA miners when something goes wrong (e.g., fan failure). Here's a glamour shot:  Tongue

newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 06, 2012, 10:42:40 AM
#7
fizzisist's FPGA Miner
http://cablesaurus.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=10

Dual FPGA X6500 Mining Card
Avg. hashrate: 300 MH/s Max. power draw: 20W
Cost: $580.00 + Shipping

FPGA X6000 Mining Card
X6000 150 MH/s @ 10 W
Cost: $390 + Shipping

With current firmware/bitstream versions those can do 400/200 MH/s. With the new firmware that's going to be released soon, they will add dynamic overclocking support, so they should end up at the same hashrate (or twice the hashrate for the X6500) that the ztex boards have.

Cheers Seven, that does change the stats a hell of a lot now.... seriously, that gives the x6000 series a bigger wedge to apply...Cheesy
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
FPGA Mining LLC
March 06, 2012, 09:19:42 AM
#6
fizzisist's FPGA Miner
http://cablesaurus.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=10

Dual FPGA X6500 Mining Card
Avg. hashrate: 300 MH/s Max. power draw: 20W
Cost: $580.00 + Shipping

FPGA X6000 Mining Card
X6000 150 MH/s @ 10 W
Cost: $390 + Shipping

With current firmware/bitstream versions those can do 400/200 MH/s. With the new firmware that's going to be released soon, they will add dynamic overclocking support, so they should end up at the same hashrate (or twice the hashrate for the X6500) that the ztex boards have.
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 06, 2012, 08:13:50 AM
#5
you definitely missed a "major player"

FPGA development board "Icarus"
ngzhang

Technology: Spartan6 -LX150 -2I (or -3C)
speed (MH/s): 380
$: 569 (1) / 469$ (multiple of 30) (-5$ if you do not need the adapter, recommend for bulk orders, they are heavy)
W: 4.5 for idle / 19.5 for full load. (notice this is the on wall power, include the adapter losses)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fpga-development-board-icarus-discontinued-important-announcement-51371



Cheers mate, i had previously seen this guy, and was looking through his posts and comparing his offerings with the rest...
now updated Smiley
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 1000
Buy this account on March-2019. New Owner here!!
March 06, 2012, 07:24:27 AM
#4
you definitely missed a "major player"

FPGA development board "Icarus"
ngzhang

Technology: Spartan6 -LX150 -2I (or -3C)
speed (MH/s): 380
$: 569 (1) / 469$ (multiple of 30) (-5$ if you do not need the adapter, recommend for bulk orders, they are heavy)
W: 4.5 for idle / 19.5 for full load. (notice this is the on wall power, include the adapter losses)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fpga-development-board-icarus-discontinued-important-announcement-51371

hero member
Activity: 481
Merit: 502
March 06, 2012, 07:21:29 AM
#3
Thanks for this, looks like it'll be quite helpful. Maybe list the prices in one currency for easy comparison?
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 06, 2012, 05:04:00 AM
#2
So... the whole FPGA thing is now really biting me......

surfing around, looking at designs ( not that i know a thing about it ) i am slowly starting to understand implications.

So this post is for supplementary information that i find... in the hop that some FPGA dev's might find this useful.

http://www.hdl.co.jp/en/spc/lib/php/liblist.php/XIN.html
Whole load of FPGA circuit diagrams and other odds and sodds.

http://www.opalkelly.com/products/
Some nice Spartan Dev Boards
newbie
Activity: 51
Merit: 0
March 06, 2012, 05:03:33 AM
#1
So, being a miner of small repute, mainly cos i like to play with old hardware and fit it to a new purpose, and i also hate to throw something away if i can use it for something else....I've been following this FPGA trend closely as it's pretty interesting what folks are up to..

So much information is out all over the place so i thought I'd condense it down purely for my own needs, but you guys can use it also.

General Comparison site :
http://bitcoinfpga.com/

General FPGA Performance Analysis
http://www.wikifpga.com/index.php?title=Performance_Analysis   ( if anyone has something more up to date.. please let me know )


Butterflylabs Single
http://www.butterflylabs.com/product-details/
Raw performance: 832 Mega Hash / second  (+/- 10% running variance)
Power consumption: 80w at load
Cost: $599 + Shipping


ZTEX
http://www.ztex.de/btcminer/
http://stores.ebay.de/ZTEX-Shop/   Grin
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ztex-usb-fpga-modules-115x-and-115y-215-and-860-mhs-fpga-boards-49180
1.15x Version Board
Cost: 309.51EUR + Shipping
205~215MH/s @ approx 9.4W


FPGA Miner
http://cablesaurus.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=10

Dual FPGA X6500 Mining Card
Avg. hashrate: 400 MH/s Max. power draw: 20W
Cost: $580.00 + Shipping

FPGA X6000 Mining Card ( DISCONTINUED )
X6000 200 MH/s @ 10 W
Cost: $390 + Shipping

FPGA development board "Icarus"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fpga-development-board-icarus-discontinued-important-announcement-51371
ngzhang
Technology: Spartan6 -LX150 -2I (or -3C)
speed (MH/s): 380
$: 569 (1) / 469$ (multiple of 30) (-5$ if you do not need the adapter, recommend for bulk orders, they are heavy)
W: 4.5 for idle / 19.5 for full load. (notice this is the on wall power, include the adapter losses)



There are others... but I've limited it to these as they are probably the most serious players in the market to date.

So this is just some info scanned from the various forums and such into one place. I'm been looking at other FPGA set-ups, and whilst they all look pretty intriguing, I'm no where near closer to figuring out which one look the best in terms of economics.

From the comparisons, and from the set-up cost, per unit, vs eventual power usage I'm kinda leaning towards the ztex boards as they offer the best power conversion rate to btc. The best thing i like about this is the lower power consumption requirements, which might fit neatly into my Solar experiments I'm going to start in the summer.

I think, in terms of space taking motherboards, psu, graph cards, worrying about the heat generation, noise levels, safety concerns, power usage, the FPGA does have the ability to clear my entire spare room of junk boards currently grinding away to earn a pittance....
if i think real hard ( which is a rare event ) i'm pretty sure that after all the 5870/6790/6990 setups, planning, tubing for vents, extractors, ice trays, kitty litter trays and weird 2am confabs... a small fpga miner means i can have my spare room back....

trouble is... at roughly 400euro a pop its not a cheap alternative... but the power savings over my own rigs would in the long run save me power and increase btc profits... but they aren't all that resalable after im done with it......yeah, i know.. there's always resale value in ati cards.. but seriously... once im done with mining... i'll just start tinkering with something else that will end up costing me money, time, and patience lol

So i've also done some research into China for FPGA setups... i found a few that have ready made FPGA Spartan6 board with USB.... thing is, i haven't found out yet if a i need some jtag conversion box to talk to them yet.. ( im a FPGA n00b ) so the search is on.. .i suspect at some point, in china somewhere in Shenzhen a plan will be released to make them available en mass... when that happens... i suspect difficulty will rise 10 fold 6 months after that. Then im probably going to be looking for a new tinkering hobby.


Comments, flames, buckets of water all welcome... but please refrain from throwing rotten fruit.... aim it towards my biomass generator please.

Salt 'O' the rock
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