Topic: Should Bitmain make a Q7? - page 2. (Read 4040 times)

I am willing to bet that most USA home miners would be willing to pay a 15% premium to have a quiet miner. 



You pay 15 percent pay 100 percent while your at it. This is why bitmain jacks the price !

Q7 is a worthwhile idea, but i think that they will go to Antrouter instead for a quiet miner.
It will have S5 chips, and as such it will not be anything special as far as productivity is concerned.
All manufacturers had pretty much abandoned the $400-600 market that home miners favor.
Maybe it is more difficult than we all think to make something that will sell in this price area.
Why not "make something twice as loud for three times as much" pseudo logic seems to be winning.

we need to get inventive with the fans and airflow
think 2 or more fans ducted thru one s7!

got another crazy idea, put the 3 blades to make the mercedes sign, but upside down! from the front, the miner to be seen as an Y with controller somewhere at the top.
and from here to get creative with the fans!
forgot about the 6pins...

I think were in agreement.  They showed this by launching with 3 blades, everyone thought it would be 2.

I think there will be a rise in miners in US with 240 and putting them somewhere other then sharing a room. Before a lot of us heated rooms with miners and it was nice.  I likely will use old gear to heat rooms, I don't know how much new gear will heat up the houses without being to loud.  But I could be off on this.

i think they will leave quiet miners only for hobbyist, they will not invest the time and money for this!

One thing I thought of is they managed to sell 1/3 more chips per S7.  So were likely talking 1/3 bigger profits per unit sold.   So in that view it was definitely a business decision on what S7 looks like, and it's power.

I still don't think they will take time to make a "Q7".  They will likely make a new U model but it will be much less power I would guess.

So our chance of a Q7 is if they sell chips.   Which I hope they do.  But I don't see it happening for a while if they do at all.  But I think it will take a 3rd party to get the 2 blade unit we expected.

You keep SAYING that "only now are new 28nm chips being sold".
This is NOT accurate as stated, as I've already pointed out.

 I think what you mean to say is "only now are NEXT GEN 28nm chips being sold" or some such, which has a TOTALLY DIFFERENT meaning from what you are actualy STATING.


 Personally, I think your entire argument is based on false assumptions. SHA256 ASIC has seen "gaps" in new tech introduction before, the current one is more about the low bitcoin price forcing out some of the marginal performers than about the cost making new tech "not effective".

 The other factor clouding things is that many of the remaining SHA256 ASIC have gone out of retail, making it harder to verify when they had "new tech" in production - KnC and Bitfury in particular seem to have introduced and started production on "new tech" this year, but non-BIG-commercial-miners don't see their product in the wild so they end up under the radar and not registering as having appeared.


 Bitmain has been producing their BM1385 for a while now, we just don't know EXACTLY how long as the initial production went into replacing THEIR OWN miners.



 Windows Vista wasn't an epic fail, though it was at least arguably a fail.
 It says a lot that Vista support was ended by M$ about the same time (same date, or a few months LATER than) they ended XP support.

 Windows 8.x, Windows ME, and ESPECIALLY MS-DOS 4.0 were the EPIC fails of M$ operating systems.

 Says a lot about MS-DOS 4.0 that is led to M$ having it's first WIDE BETA of an OS (MS-DOS 5.0) - and they didn't do that again 'till the current Windows 10 beta which speaks to how epic the Windows 8.x fiasco has been.

Context is important. 

"The normal profit model for Bitcoin ASIC has been dependent on the ability to use older tech to make comparatively cheap chips for their mining value.  This was possible because of both a high BTC exchange rate and the disparity between chips a company can cost effectively make and their relative efficiency to those already in existence.  This disparity is what enabled the violation of Moore's law.  The closing of this gap occurred in 2014.  The relative depression of BTC exchange rate in 2015 is why you are only now seeing new 28 nm chips being sold.  I don't believe Bitmain can double efficiency again with a 28 nm chip ( hats off to them if they can ).  Unless the BTC exchange rate goes up significantly I don't believe it is cost effective to produce a 14 or 16 nm asic."

I was not making a statement about the existence or non existence of any particular 28 nm chip.  The crux of what I was saying is that you are only now seeing New Chips; regardless of their type.  Why has Bitmain decided to Produce their BM1385? maybe in response to competition from Innosilicon; but I guarantee you they wouldn't sell miners with new chips unless they felt they would be losing market share by not doing so.  Do you think Bitmain just finished designing the BM1385?


"they won't bother to make miners to sell if it is not profitable to do so."

Here I should have said "a company will only produce a miner if they believe it will be profitable to do so."
I believe Innosilicon believed making a 14 nm chip would be profitable when they began production.  This does not mean they still believe this is the case; nor does it mean companies don't make epic mistakes.  Windows Vista; epic fail.

While typing out that list I was saying to myself "TheRealSteve is gonna drop in here at any minute with a big fat list".

I knew it was many, but not 25. Daggum.


--------


The BM1384 was quite new when it was released in 2014, but he's talking about 2015. Avalon hasn't done anything this year, Spondoolies hasn't done anything this year, ASICMiner went out of business before they could do anything this year. Right now it looks like BitFury['s private mines], SFARDS (well, sorta - sha performance is mediocre for the price) and Bitmain are the only ones with a new 28nm so far this year, as opposed to how many companies with new chips last year? If coin price was better, demand for miners would be higher (and efficiency requirements a bit more lax) and more folks would be pushing out gear - just like we saw in 2013 and 2014. It's not a complete argument (as in, not all variables and effects are accounted for) but the point is valid. We have seen basically no new chips in any node size this year, compared to the previous two years.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Innosilicon does for a new chip.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/List_of_Bitcoin_mining_ASICs
Discarding HASHRA (questionable at best by now), not counting the recent vaporware / scam announcements, and counting GridSeed/SFARDS as one: 25. That's missing others still for which I couldn't verify enough to warrant listing as of yet.  MBP may have (had) their own chip (claimed anyway), a subsidiary of a larger Chinese company that made some disappeared (along with most of the Chinese offerings - throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it'd stick type ventures), and then there's the ones I don't even know that I don't know them.
(should anybody be reading this and thinking "that list is missing X" - please do contribute; if you can't edit the wiki, shoot me a PM with details)

In terms of reasonably successful worldwide deployment, it's really just a handful.

 Not when it first appears, but it does get there - and is often STILL the state of the art when it DOES achieve mass production for 1-2 years in semiconductor fab.
 I don't count "experimental in the lab only" as "state of the art", BTW.



 The BM1384 (among other examples) wasn't new in late 2014 when it was first released?
 You seem to have a very narrow definition of "new".
 Perhaps you meant "second generation on the 28nm process node" instead?



 It appears a FEW companies disagree with your belief, and you just shot your OWN "belief" statement down with the "profitable" statement given the facts.

 I'll remind you that at least one company claims to have had 16nm chips IN PRODUCTION for a while now (KnC), though I concede they aren't selling to end users.

 On the other hand, another (Innosilicon) has already announced tape-out of 14nm implying "in actual production" soon (December timeframe given Lktec's announced miner etc. etc.) and given Innosilicon's track record I'm CERTAIN they will be making miners shortly after the chips hit mass production.

First:  State of the Art is not mass produced.  Why?  In general for two reasons; first, reliability is a concern with new untested unproven designs.  Second, because it is not cost effective to do so.


You seem to think I said 28 nm chips are new; look again with my assisted emphasis.

"The relative depression of BTC exchange rate in 2015 is why you are only now seeing NEW 28 nm chips being sold."


Again you seem to not notice key words; look again with my assisted emphasis.

"Unless the BTC exchange rate goes up significantly I don't believe it is cost effective to PRODUCE a 14 or 16 nm asic."


Designing a chip requires paying engineers to design it; this is a very limited cost which can be done at any time.  Actually producing that chip is where things get expensive.


I never claimed KnC or Bitfury didn't have next gen chips.  You seem to have missed this.  I was suggesting they have investment concerns beyond mining.  They support XT strongly; why do you think that is?


Your A10 APU uses 28 or 32 nm tech depending on the model.  That should tell you something about the relationship between cost effectiveness and state of the art.


Obviously a company is going to markup their prices; what you seem to miss here is that they won't bother to make miners to sell if it is not profitable to do so.

Who has made their own chips in the past? Bitmain, Avalon (both as Avalon proper and Canaan-Creative), Spondoolies, BitFury, ASICMiner, KNC, Hashfast, Cointerra, Innosilicon, BTCGarden, BFL, 21e6 and I know I'm missing a lot more that are now defunct. There were a lot of vaporware scams, but there were also a lot of folks that did actually produce a chip - between 2013 and 2014 probably three times as many as are still doing it.

I believe the Neptune used a 20nm ASIC? KNC started at 28 when everyone else was doing 55 and then went down from there.

From a practical standpoint, the "state of the art" itself is still behind the state of the art. 14nm is about the best thing going but it's still so immature that even the guys that invented it still have trouble making things work right half the time.

 Agree entirely with the first part - Bitcoin ASIC initial tech was a few generations behind the "state of the art" when the first ASICs started being designed.
 The gap has NOT entirely closed though - ASIC tech is still behind the state of the art, just not as MUCH behind it now.


 Several designs from late-2014/early 2015 were 28 nm, BM1384 being probably the best known "home miner" example.
 I'm pretty sure I remember the KnC Neptune/Titan and I believe the Spondoolies "Rockerbox" based machines like the SP20E and SP35 were 28nm as well.
 Bitfury also announced they were shipping 28nm around that timeframe, but since they went "no end user sales, just BIG corporate sales" it's hard to verify details on them.

 I do think that the drop in BTC price did kill off some of the weaker/less competant manufacture folks. Too bad it didn't kill off KnC. 8-(


 I don't think they'll bother trying, they probably have tapped 28nm out pretty close to it's limit.


 Then explain why KnC has announced it's already deploying 16nm (Solar).
 Explain why both Bitmain and Bitfury have announced they're working on 14/16nm "next gen" designs, and I believe all 3 have announced plans to deploy "full custom" designs on one of those tech nodes (Bitmain definitely has, Bitfure and KnC's claims about their NEXT gen imply it).
 SOMEBODY thinks it's worth working towards the current state-of-the-art, even where they won't deploy it for likely another year or more.



 BTW - my CPU and GPU on my primary machine happen to use the same identical technology. AMD A10 based custom build.

 There weren't as many Bitcoin ASIC makers "back then" as you seem to think - don't forget to ignore the scams.
 I think it's fair to count the folks that actually did the work to deliver, even if they were like BFL or KnC and ended up ripping folks off through VERY VERY late deliveries and/or failing to meet performace spec announcements.

 Bitfury and KnC are more likely to RoI with their own 'cause they don't have "distribution markup", than because the designs are not cost effective. That's the one BIG disadvantage home miners face, we pay a LOT more for the machines than the manufacture does for the parts and labor to build them.

As long as those "add-ins" and such don't glut the works with a berjillion zero-fee microtransactions and hose up the whole system.

I wonder that so many folks are intending to skip 20/22nm and go straight to 14/16. Apparently it's not much more difficult to make 14 than 20 (both have the same kinds of problems compared to 28) but practical performance gains at 14 aren't much better and the chip yields are dismal because processes are still very immature.

So, how 'bout them Q7 eh?

Look at the CPU stats for your CPU.  Look at the GPU stats for your GPU.  Consider what "State of the Art" means.  If a company can make a 14 or 16 nm chip but the production costs are orders of magnitude higher; this is not a desirable option unless it is cost effective. 

When Bitcoin Application Specific Integrated Circuits first began to appear there where many chip manufacturers.  This was due to the huge profit margin to be had.  That is long gone; we are in the plateau.  I do think network difficulty will increase with each new generation of miners; but not like it did in 2013 and 2014.  Probably somewhere around 100 PH per generation; with old miner deactivation trailing that increase.

The normal profit model for Bitcoin ASIC has been dependent on the ability to use older tech to make comparatively cheap chips for their mining value.  This was possible because of both a high BTC exchange rate and the disparity between chips a company can cost effectively make and their relative efficiency to those already in existence.  This disparity is what enabled the violation of Moore's law.  The closing of this gap occurred in 2014.  The relative depression of BTC exchange rate in 2015 is why you are only now seeing new 28 nm chips being sold.  I don't believe Bitmain can double efficiency again with a 28 nm chip ( hats off to them if they can ).  Unless the BTC exchange rate goes up significantly I don't believe it is cost effective to produce a 14 or 16 nm asic. 

KnC and Bitfury may roi with their own because they have been mining with them longer; but maybe not.  I think both of them are more interested in becoming the visa and mastercard of the future via new sidechains and XT add ins.  Mining pools will be not only the payment processors of the future; but "processors" in markets that do not currently exist.

i mean for bitmain
other cases: bitfurry, spondoolies...

The age of industrial mining goes back years. Nothing new there.

 8-(

''home'' mining is dead!

quiet miners are only for hobbyist, industrial mining age is here!

I doubt Bitmain has a "smaller" varient on the S7 in the works.

 A 2 string per board design would run more like 270 watts per board, which is what many of us EXPECTED the S7 to be - 2 strings 2 boards like the S5 but 18 chips per string instead of 15.


 The plan to create and sell an S7+ is obvious, given the S5+ was apparently intended in part as a "prototype" style design using their older gen chips.
 Trivial design to do this time around, the design work appears to have already been done.


 It seems that Innosilicon's A3 will be in the same ballpark as the BM1385 - probably about .2 watts / GH at the chip level .26 at the system level, based on what I've seen out of them and Lketc - none of those figures are definite before working hardware shows up though and I might be misinterpreting the figures I HAVE seen.
 It's hard to understand some of those websites when I don't read Chinese. 


 I am starting to doubt we'll see an S8 design, Bitmain seems to have gotten tired of dealing with "internal power supply" issues, and the S5+ sold out fast enough despite the widespread assumption (since demonstrated to be almost definitely TRUE based on the S7 announced sale availability date) that the S7 was probably already in production for internal Bitmain/Hashnest usage when the S5+ was announced.

 I also suspect there will be a U4 as an attempt to fill the "home miner / quiet miner" niche.
 I'm not betting on it being a pod design, but I'm not betting against it either.
 I would NOT be shocked at something close to the form factor of that 100ish GH Rockerbox model, Bitmain could probably fit a single-string miner into that size board.




 14/16nm full custom should be able to get at least double the efficiency of 28nm full custom.
 Possibly more, though it appears that quantum effects are making the gains noticeably smaller than JUST the size of the gates would indicate (in theory, if nothing else caused issues, half the size of the gate features should equal half the voltage and a quarter the power, but quantum effects haven't allowed that for a few generations).
 THAT is likely to be the last "big gain" for a few years though, as that will bring Cryptocoin mining chips up to the "state of the art".


 I suspect Bitmain will skip anyting other than "full custom" on their announced "working on" next generation chip.
 I also suspect that chip won't show up before the halfing next year, and might not arrive before end of the year timeframe in 2016.