Topic: Should Bitmain make a Q7? (Read 4155 times)

Both S5+ & S7 have two fans, difference is in the board length as the S7 has an extra column of Chips to accomaodate.

Rich

 2 fans on an S7 vs 1 on the S5+ is likely the difference there.

az

I think it will be a upgrade kit.  The controller is set up for 3 units already it looks like.  So would be easy to throw a pack of two miners without controllers and call it a + upgrade or something like that.

I think they will do it down the road though, not at launch.

I think they will sell additions, not exactly an upgrade kit. Basically you would just need to plug a S7+ on a S7's controller board. At the very least, it look like everything is set it place for that.

Just a matter of time before there is an S7+ I'm sure - they already have the infrastructure in place.
 I wonder if they'll offer "S7 -> S7+" upgrade "kits"?

The length of S7 is 301 mm

The length of S5+ is only 275 mm

The lenght of S5+ blade is 180 mm , height 127 mm at lower edge

The length and height of S7 blade are not known.

yeah, these would be versatile..and a much better seller to retail crowd/us.
bitcoin market is truly messed up right now with basically no large scale suppliers except BM.

It was truly a tank.  It seemed like the S3 could take it all back then.  The only problem I ever had was once network went down during flashing.... but was not expensive to fix.

I don't see them doing this though.  I think the new bitmain products are going to be big.   Easy to put in a data center if they want.

bring back the s-3 with s-5 chips

2 boards 2000 gh  500 watts

the s-3 is the greatest miner ever made if used for heating as its primary purpose.

imho quite miners are very important to keep bitcoin decentralized.
as stated in the op: they can be used as heating devices which essentially means: mining is only a by-product. no data-center can beat this.

i really hope many vendors will enter this consumer market.

The sad thing is likely they have R/D working on lower NM chips.  So they will be ready once they decide to release one I have a feeling.

But with being only one right now they can keep 28 nm and make bigger profits.  It was a business decision to keep 28 nm.  I have a feeling they can win at both front's with all the resources they have.

And by the time they switch to 16NM in 2016, the process cost will be much lower and they will be able to jack the price up while still keeping the cost down. Monopoly hurts.

Also remember they kept the 28nm chip.  They have mastered making it at this point.  Others went down in NM.  Bitmain is at a huge advantage keeping same NM.  They no doubt have much cheaper costs sticking with it.

They could have made a hefty profit at I suspect much less.  But greed came into play... they jacked price knowing only one putting one out right now.  I suspect it will go down one day but not till there is someone else producing miners to public.

I am close to 100% sure that they can charge $1000 for S7 and still make a hefty profit.
After all, there are only 2.7 times more chips in there. $350X2.7=$945
the rest is cable and plastic plus $15 for a extra fan=less than $1000 with similar profit margin as S5.

I was surprised with price.  I bought a S5+ just as I was bored and wanted a new miner.   I am happy with it but I do think I overpaid most likely.

On S7 1800 dollars.... looking back I think I got my S4's new for around 1200 dollars.  Dont remember batch.  But seems miners are going up in price.  Unless someone else puts out a miner we are likely to keep seeing high prices. 

And to the topic I don't see them making a Q7.  Noise is not something they worry about I don't think.  It's become a mod if you want quiet.

Besides the power/noise profile of the S7, the price is a real deal breaker for me. Unless and until Bitmain has a reason to reduce the prices (e.g. serious competition), they will get a premium price for the S7. I think any BTC price machination are strictly cover for having Bitmain adjust the price the way they want. We saw this during the early days of the S5, and never made sense to me, It always seemed more related to what Spondoolies was charging.

A quiet S7 would be a great thing.

the problem is now that there is no competition, the S7 is sold at a price of $1823 USD or 7.5 BTC, the real price if BTC goes up is in BTC, and if BTC goes down it is in dollars.

If BTC goes over $300 dollars, the $1823 will go up, most likely over $2000, and if BTC goes down then the $1823 stays, unless if it goes down a lot, the miner price will not proportionally goes down.

The pricing scheme seems to be calculated at an amount you will never ROI.

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator
This calculator takes into consideration difficulty increases.

at a 10% difficulty increase ( 20% is the default) and free electricity you will not ROI in over 530 days, and will end up 1.7 BTC short or ROI.

at a 5% difficulty increase and free electricity, it takes 296 days to break even.

Let compute the fair price of an S7, using difficulty increase of 10%, and 15cents per kilowatt, and a ROI of 3 months:

you will make 1.2 BTC, loss of 6.3 BTC.

lets use difficulty of 5%, and 10cents the killowat, for 6 monts:
3.5 BTC made, 7.5 expended, loss of 4 BTC.

Using this calculations it can be seen that the S7 will never ROI, and it is extremely overpriced, more than double what it should cost.

from a hardware point of view it is nice, but it does not help if it will never ROI, I would personally buy a few if it was priced at a price in which I could ROI, or even break even in 6 month, but the fact is that I will not even break even at 2 years.

Do not believe me? use the calculator yourself and plug in the numbers, even with free electricity you will not ROI.

Most likely price will go down, since few are buying, the item has not sold out in many days, but Bitmain has to seriously stop being greedy and lower the price by at least 60% if we are expected to have the opportunity of at least reaching ROI.

I am hoping that BTC doubles in price, but that will not help, since if BTC doubles in price, Bitmain will double the price of the miner.

The real price drop will be soon, and that is when the block halves, there will be a huge market of used bitcoin mining equipment, that will make all prices new or used hardware  to drop, I am personally waiting for that day, or the day in which I can get hardware that will ROI in about 4 to 6 months at most.

But the AntRouter isint really a worthy miner. Its like a single chip running on 1-2W. Maybe it would run as a plug and play node, which in itself could be of a certain use but that seem pretty much like it. 8-15ghs isint worth fawning over.

A quiet S5/S7 on the other, now that sound nice.

Sure, yeah! We really need miners that can be a lot more silent so that we can use them to heat our rooms this winter!
that would be really great! 

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.

az

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.


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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.

az

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.

There is no Q7, but there will be a S6

Some of us would prefer a smaller design but of course I'm sure that is already in the works.  If Sidehack scores some of these chips we could see one by x-mas hopefully.

I think for better or worse high density gear is where the market is going.   I don't see them backing down from this design at this point, I was surprised they launched with the density they did on S7 but I don't think there is a turning back point.

To mine you really are going to have to gear twords 240 on a lot of gear I think at this point.  The ones who mined in apartment's are sadly going to be left behind.  You really will need to own the property so you can make the electrical changes to run gear.   I would be mad if I did not have options, but I am lucky I do.   

We will see a S7+ (or S8) in not to long I predict with 3 of these being so easy to slap together and also controller looks like it's geared twords it already.

I think with the S5+ monster and the S7 using the same 3 card chassis and controller with provision for 9 Hash boards, combined with the lack of an S6 and we have seen the way forward as being very high density modules, based on a single hash board design for single unit and 3 unit rack type units. Entirely geared towards Farms, with an S7+ and 14.58TH/S is the next logical step.

I also think that the full custom 28nM BM1385 may not be beaten by a semi custom 16nM chip and so the BM1386 will also need to be full custom. They are however now up the learning curve for full custom design and are a good step ahead of the competition, so will probably be in a position to release this at a moment of their choosing.

Bottom line is I think from a Bitmain point of view the days of supporting the Home Miner are over. Our best bet is a sidehack BM1385 design or what I posted in the S7 thread.




Rich

I am impressed you could run a full batch in 2 weeks: 

I am aware everything takes longer than expected.

This is the primary reason I am raising this issue to Bitmain; they should be able to do this by mid November if they want.  I understand they will probably ignore me; but I want them to understand. 

Looking forward there are no huge performance gains; no more violation of Moore's law.  They can be the sole providers of a market if they want.  It is up to them.

I think a q model would be popular.  The s7 upon first glance seems to be targeted towards larger mining operations.  I think if bitmain made a smaller device like the old u3, that is a much smaller form factor with the new chips, I believe this device would be wildly popular.  Especially if you did not need a special psu to run it.

But I get the impression that bitmain will have no trouble moving the new s7 units, so I can understand that they would want to focus on the most profitable option available to them.

I don't think they will be making a Q7.  I think quiet miners anymore are mods when it comes to bitmain.  They just do not make a quiet miner.

I do find it interesting how many PCIe cables on the S7.  Seems like a good way to sell their PSU with many of them.   Seems like a business decision there.

I want to have BM1384 prototypes of 4-chip pod and 30-chip S1 before the end of September. BM1385 prototypes within two weeks of sample chip delivery. A factory order of chips from Bitmain would probably take two months for delivery. In that time I could get a full stock of PCBs and all components. Once chips arrive production would start immediately. Probably run out the full batch inside two weeks.

Estimated material cost for start-to-finish would be about half a million dollars per batch. That's a butt-ton of money and it all hinges on Bitmain and sample chips. It also hinges on having a working design, which right now is merely "in progress". Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

That is outstanding commitment! 

I would be willing to front for a lot.

I am worried that Bitmain will not give you samples; or may delay selling you chips in the time frame to make this effective for this winter.  How many do you think you could produce in a month if Bitmain was in full cooperation?

How many do you want? If we can get money for a full batch of chips, and the batch size is the same as BM1384, that's enough boards to outfit over 1600 S3 right there.

It'd be nice if Bitmain didn't abandon the S1/3 customer base, since they were about the only ones left servicing them and they are definitely able to produce the machines in whatever quantities they want.

As much as I will support sidehack ( I will buy some of all his creations ); He cannot produce in the quantity I am asking. 

How many S3's do you think exist? 

I applaud and support sidehack 100%; he is of merit.  However, I do not believe he has the capacity to address my concern.

In lieu of Bitmain doing this themselves, GekkoScience are planning something in the S1/S3 style as long as they can be supplied with chips.  See the last few pages (as of this writing) of https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/gekkoscience-bm1384-project-development-discussion-995675 and/or https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/request-for-discussion-proposal-for-standard-modular-rack-miner-1158807

Smack on the head there! 2 boards (even with fewer chips) in the same form-factor would be lower priced (though premiumed as per S7) and there would be a fair bit of demand for such, not just in the US, but in most temperate regions (even tropical!) from home miners.

I have an S5+.  It is badass, the S7 will be even more badass.  

However; the S5+ is loud and the S7 will be loud.  

Edit:

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You can software control the S7 fan speed 

Thank you Bitmain!

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This is fine for prosumer miners ( those who have basements and garages, or co-location, or who make custom mining rooms / sheds / buildings ).

But there is another huge market in the USA and many other countries; supplemental heat.  Winter is coming, and the S7 will be just too damn fucking loud.  

A miner that uses 180 watt max per heat sink (150 optimal) in an S1/S3/S5 design ( no need for the S3 metal casing; good job with the S5) would be amazing.  Space heaters are sold in the USA.  A Q7 could most likely compete with the cost of oil or propane heat in New England, USA.  If you made this, I would push it 100% in New England, USA.

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

I think this is worth your attention Bitmain.

Please, please make a Q7.

Fellow miners please petition your support.

-fullzero