Topic: FPGA Rig Photos - page 9. (Read 43785 times)

It's that time again. Moved some things around a bit.

To answer the previously posted questions:

- it's 6GHash roughly (18 boards). I technically have 17 cards, but the last one is mining seperately, or being used for development and testing of our own bitstream.

- When combined with our GPUs that brings our effective hashrate well over 12GHash/s right now.

- The fans are 80CFM fans. They are enough to keep constant fresh air moving through the case while the individual fans on the cards deal with airflow to the heatsinks. The previous comments are correct, I could go to higher CFM fans on the front and use additional pull fans on the back, and add larger heatsinks to the boards for more efficient cooling. But the noise would be much higher as well (These are in my home right now). I'll be moving them to a proper datacenter in the future. At which time I'll then change out the cooling solution to be higher efficiency (by then it will no longer be a wooden case, but a custom designed steel 3U rackmount case as well, plus it will likely be up to 24+ cards per case)

- Give me 3-4 months... I'll likely have some MUCH more impressive photos

- Also the intent is that case will run closed in the end. But right now the cabling causes too much airflow restriction. I'll be cleaning it up significantly once I have time, and designing ducting to force the air past the cards while seperating airflow from cabling space. This is just the prototype, once the prototype is finished and works well I'll be having custom rackmount cases fabbed up in steel.

Here is my first FPGA Mining Rig. Click the picture for larger view.

Turbulence is (or at least should be) the aim when doing forced cooling like this, since a turbulent boundary layer has much greater speeds close to the surface, and thus is better at drawing heat from the surface into the free-stream flow.

Only if you put bigger heatsinks on them or prevent the air from flowing around the heatsinks.
These heatsinks provide way too much air resistance (partially due to the direction in which they are mounted), causing barely any air to flow through them. Their surface is way too small to cool the chips adequately at the low air speeds (within the heatsink) that you would end up with.

@GlassWalker: Sweet pick my man.

Robert.

I would think that the turbulence caused by perpendicular airflows would have lesser cooling capability than higher-velocity ducted flow that was relatively linear. So, fans in a push-pull and a cover on the case (clear plexi?) ought to give even better cooling.

No, that wouldn't work, the Icarus stock heatsinks are way too small for that and need quite a bit of airflow. Even a huge fan sitting next to them (but blowing from the side is barely sufficient, so at least the second-row boards wouldn't be happy with such a setup.

Sadly you can't easily swap the heatsinks on these boards...

Just out of curiosity, do you still need those small fans on the Icarus heatsinks? Wouldn't it be sufficient or even better to close the "case" on the top and force the air through the heatsinks?  What's the airflow (cfm) of these fans?
 
In case this is suited better for another thread, let me know.

Looks to be 18 Icarus so somewhere around 6Gh/s.     nice!

Well I came.  How many GH/s is that?

That is sweet!  My applause for your effort in layout not to mention the added confidence for having invested in your venture.

Some pics of the Bitcoin Syndicate FPGA Rig (it looks a little different now, I no longer use that motherboard, as it had USB chipset issues, and I have switched from the el-cheapo 4 port USB hubs to some nicer 10 port ones. Don't have updated pics yet though) lol




(these were posted elsewhere too just thought I'd add them to this thread since it's relevant)

two ztex boards, host and power supply pictured

two X6500 and 10 singles have been ordered

power supply will run it all - is already wired to the ztex with 12 volts and usb hub with 5 volts and running on p2pool

In the end, I will have probably waited longer than almost any other purchaser. 

Indeed they do.

Nah, he just pre-ordered before everyone else. Early adopters win!

BFL must really love you to get them to you as quick as they do.

Watching and enjoying.

Nice.