ASIC's doesnt exists in the real world, or they do, but not as much as it should do, and thet are pretty stupid of themselves, becasue they can only do one thing.....
Huh? They do exist, and they only do one thing, but they do that one thing quite nicely, with very little power! You jelly? 
Topic: FPGA - profitability vs effeciency? - page 2. (Read 1963 times)
I have mixed feelings about FPGAs. Ifd like one to play with but as far as $$ goes it doesn't seem practical to pay 800-1000$ for 800 mhash. I understand they are pretty effecient but with the upcoming asic boom ddoesn't seem loike they would even pay for them selves anytime soon with increases in difficulty looming. YET i see people buying them all over. Am I missing something?
Don't want to be seen as encouraging the purchase of FPGA's (people are probably buying them because they are available, as opposed to ASICs, that are virtually unavailable), but you can always resell a FPGA when you are done. There will always be buyers for applications other than sha-256 hashing. Especially if you want to tinker around a little, see how it works, it's a good place to start.
like andrewsg stated, a FPGA can always become used for something else, it will have it's value (or part of it) back if you sell it at the right place or were there is people looking specially for FPGA's
ASIC's doesnt exists in the real world, or they do, but not as much as it should do, and thet are pretty stupid of themselves, becasue they can only do one thing.....
hmm, I'm wondering what the price on FPGA's will become in the future when ASIC's doesnt have their value left and cant mine enough bitcoins because of difficulty increases?
I have mixed feelings about FPGAs. Ifd like one to play with but as far as $$ goes it doesn't seem practical to pay 800-1000$ for 800 mhash. I understand they are pretty effecient but with the upcoming asic boom ddoesn't seem loike they would even pay for them selves anytime soon with increases in difficulty looming. YET i see people buying them all over. Am I missing something?
Don't want to be seen as encouraging the purchase of FPGA's (people are probably buying them because they are available, as opposed to ASICs, that are virtually unavailable), but you can always resell a FPGA when you are done. There will always be buyers for applications other than sha-256 hashing. Especially if you want to tinker around a little, see how it works, it's a good place to start.
It all depends on where the person lives. For me FPGA's are a profitable option for mining bitcoins because of the extremely high power bills in Australia (about 0.25 AUD per kilowatt). On average half of the coins generated by my GPU miners go back into power costs. Doesn't mean I have taken them down however since coming into winter the heat they generate more then makes up for it. But in the long term FPGA's with their lower power draw means that I can keep more of the coins that I make and while they do have a higher upfront cost they pay themselves off faster. But use the calculators and see what is best for you.
You hit the nail on the head: efficiency =/= profitability. I can undervolt my GPUs to all hell and get some efficiency numbers that come close to FPGAs, but it's more profitable to overclock (well, it's actually moving towards being more profitable to balance the two, but that's besides the point 
).
I've never understood why you would pay $1,100 for a unit that hashes ~20% faster than a $400 GPU. I don't care how little power it uses, it would take years to compensate for the extra $700 in power savings. Even now, you can buy 400Mh/s for $350, or a 700MH/s GPU for the same price.
The only ones that made sense to me were the BFL Singles, and the Cairnsmore1 units. They were the only ones priced at a point that didn't seem ridiculous. Sure there was a premium over GPUs for the same hashrate, but the simplicity of setting them up and the power savings actually made it worth it.
Now, I wouldn't bother. ASICs are what's next, and both FPGAs and GPUs are soon to be left making pennies per day.
But what do I know? It's 3am and I gotta be at work at 9:00. After that, however, I'm on vacation, and I couldn't give 2 shits if I wanted to.
).I've never understood why you would pay $1,100 for a unit that hashes ~20% faster than a $400 GPU. I don't care how little power it uses, it would take years to compensate for the extra $700 in power savings. Even now, you can buy 400Mh/s for $350, or a 700MH/s GPU for the same price.
The only ones that made sense to me were the BFL Singles, and the Cairnsmore1 units. They were the only ones priced at a point that didn't seem ridiculous. Sure there was a premium over GPUs for the same hashrate, but the simplicity of setting them up and the power savings actually made it worth it.
Now, I wouldn't bother. ASICs are what's next, and both FPGAs and GPUs are soon to be left making pennies per day.
But what do I know? It's 3am and I gotta be at work at 9:00. After that, however, I'm on vacation, and I couldn't give 2 shits if I wanted to.
ASICS are getting delayed more and more and lots of people reckon they can get some good profits. My thoughts are if you can get em of ebay cheap why not?
I have mixed feelings about FPGAs. Ifd like one to play with but as far as $$ goes it doesn't seem practical to pay 800-1000$ for 800 mhash. I understand they are pretty effecient but with the upcoming asic boom ddoesn't seem loike they would even pay for them selves anytime soon with increases in difficulty looming. YET i see people buying them all over. Am I missing something?
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