Sucks that the "power consumption" they used for a reference, was the "minimum draw"... not relative to the "maximum speed". (But you can blame the MFG for some of that. The rest is on them, for not "testing" the actual output themselves. BTW, you don't need a kill-a-watt to measure wattage. All electricians usually have an open-ring amp-meter. You clamp that onto the power-cord, and measure the voltage on that line, and do some math. Amps * Volts = Watts. Your electrician friend should be fired! Unless you just explicitly asked for a kill-a-watt, and didn't explain what you wanted it for.)
Can't exactly fire my father!
He has an Amprobe, and several other cheaper devices. I did specifically ask for a Kill-A-Watt, and he didn't know what it was after 40 years as a commercial lineman. He was a bit embarrassed by that. I didn't want to use the ring type, because they aren't that accurate at low draw like this (it's commercial equipment: He spent his life wiring commercial installations.). Also, I'm afraid of having expensive equipment that isn't mine, as my son likes to get into things. He's getting better about it, but he's cost me a lot of money in replacements over the last 7 years.
Anyway, yeah, I was a bit disappointed at the power draw myself. Were it me, I would have overstated the draw, as I believe in Scotty's engineering principle. If you want to be seen as a miracle worker, tell 'em it'll take twice as long and cost twice as much as you think it will.
Supposedly, the Coincraft A1 chip is within the range they predicted, whereas Bitfury chips have been kind of twitchy, so I think they'll do better on the 28nm range.
As for cases.. meh. For this little beast, the case it came in is nice looking and it operates just fine. I didn't have to do anything to the hardware. But if the case were an issue, I have plenty of old PC cases laying around. Not quite as cluttered as Puppet's picture anymore... Ten years ago maybe.
I really think they should just go with an off the shelf PC case. Empty space doesn't hurt anything, it's cheap, and it's effective. Then they could make it more aesthetically pleasing, I suppose, without incurring great cost. To me, this simply doesn't matter. I build frankenstein PC's from castoff parts. Sometimes they look terrible, but if they work, who cares? It ain't like we're trying for style points here, it's about the hashing. And as it was shipped, this beastie makes it's specs in all but power consumption.
My only beef, and this could be just because I was sent a unit to evaluate, is the documentation. There wasn't any, except a handwritten note telling me how to log into the machine. I'm not a linux guy, so it took me around two hours to figure everything out. To actually get it working took five minutes, and that was just because I was being careful. With proper docs, this machine is a winner. At this point, unless the thing just goes tits up without warning, it is my intention to buy more miners from AMT as soon as I can afford it. I'm grateful to have been chosen for the free one, but if it were junk I wouldn't throw money at them. It's not. They could improve the casing issue, and should for marketing reasons, but to me it doesn't much matter. What does matter is a functional machine out of the box. I got that. Even at 1.5X power consumption over spec, this machine is making me money. It ain't gonna make me rich, no 80 GH/s machine will, but it's supplementing my job quite nicely, and at a good time too, as I am on leave for a few days while awaiting the birth of my daughter.
They got some serious rough edges on their business practices. I don't see any evidence of deliberate malfeasance here, just people who know more about machines than marketing. If they can successfully resolve that, and I think they will, then AMT will be a serious player. Especially if they can get to shipping from stock or close to it. A week from payment, for instance, would put them ahead of practically everyone. The only competition they would really have is Megabigpower, and they are way overpriced, known to be twitchy, and have had several serious QC issues. That's not a slam, they've been an outstanding company. But I think AMT can beat the hell out of them if they get their front of house in proper order.
I was very neutral towards this company from the beginning. I can't pretend this is still true. I'm not a shill, as I have been quite up front. They sent me free equipment to hopefully boost their image. Not sure how well that worked for them, but it did put me firmly in their camp. Which would not have happened if the equipment was shit. I wish them well, because I want more of their equipment. Well, I also have to admit that I rather like Jim. He's a friendly guy when he's not being hounded.
But the specs for the chips should work-out better than the other chips. Since they actually quoted the watts@speeds of the MFG chip, which is said to run now with less power@speed.)
