There is a market for PCI/PCIe-based ASIC boards - page 2.

Nemo1024

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Quote from: DPoS on June 27, 2013, 01:36:19 PM

you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it Roll Eyes

The big question then if they would be able to cope with the power draw (Amperage?) from 4 relatively power-hungry devices. Those PCIe cards draw power through motherboard. A miner PCI card could have an external power source.

DPoS

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you could get a multi-port USB PCI card and plug USBees into it Roll Eyes

ultrix

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Quote from: tom_o on June 27, 2013, 01:29:10 PM

Quote from: cp1 on June 27, 2013, 01:22:32 PM

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Doesn't even need to be a pi, there are plenty of ARM devboards with multiple USB controllers and far more powerful CPUs!

Doesn't have to be a powerful CPU. The only reason USB requires higher CPU than the scenerio in my previous post is that the host has to constantly request data, the endpoint device cannot initiate transfers on its own. Further cgminer and bfgminer poll fairly agressively.

ultrix

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Quote from: ?? on ??

USB is the way to go (for now) if you want to attach a larger number of boards to a host PC.

With PCIe you'll be limited to 8 or so. With USB you can chain the hubs etc.

What is the limit for USB, like 127 per controller?

No PCIe is not limited to 8. In fact you can connect thousands of devices in a tree hierarchy. I personally don't understand why the BTC mining community prefers USB connected devices. For the same cost one can make a device that communicates autonomously via ethernet, in the spirit of avalon, but without the need for linux/cgminer/etc.

LPC1768 + uIP + stratum + configure via telnet + control for attached devices = everything you get out of a PC at 1.5W and $3-4USD unit cost vs $10-15USD for the cheapest PCIe IC you can bitbang on (still controlled via x86 cpu). I've been considering constructing such a board (and reusable schematics to drop on other boards) with a firmware that basically developers just have to implement the chip specific control code, but don't really have the time as of late.

tom_o

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Quote from: cp1 on June 27, 2013, 01:22:32 PM

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Doesn't even need to be a pi, there are plenty of ARM devboards with multiple USB controllers and far more powerful CPUs!

cp1

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Stop using branwallets

The power overhead on a raspberry pi + usb hub is so much less than a full PC.

Nemo1024

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As fas as I can gather, transfer speed is largely irrelevant for Bitcoin mining. So synchronisation could probably span several flanks, thus lowering the clock internally on the board?

tom_o

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Quote from: Nemo1024 on June 27, 2013, 11:32:10 AM

Quote from: ultrix on June 27, 2013, 07:19:19 AM

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips. This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

Do you mean expensive as in requiring licensing? I thought PCB and controller cost would not be largely different be it USB or PCIe. Then again, I am a software guy, so I don't know what I am talking about.

We'll see how the ASIC market pans out in the future. Many PCIe expansion cards for say audio or ethernet are not that expensive. Maybe some larger company will start producing ASICs at a more reasonable pricing level, spreading the cost over many units, once the dust around this initial ASIC craziness settles down.

Yeah but consider the differences in speed; PCI-E 1x can transfer at 250MB/s whereas USB2 is 48MB/s, also I'd expect the latency/timing margins are much larger for USB caused by the differences between running an interconnect and an external bus.

Nemo1024

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Quote from: ultrix on June 27, 2013, 07:19:19 AM

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips. This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

Do you mean expensive as in requiring licensing? I thought PCB and controller cost would not be largely different be it USB or PCIe. Then again, I am a software guy, so I don't know what I am talking about.

We'll see how the ASIC market pans out in the future. Many PCIe expansion cards for say audio or ethernet are not that expensive. Maybe some larger company will start producing ASICs at a more reasonable pricing level, spreading the cost over many units, once the dust around this initial ASIC craziness settles down.

ultrix

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Quote from: Nemo1024 on June 27, 2013, 02:35:07 AM

Given the number of existing GPU miners, who are on the verge of turning off there rigs or have turned them off or temporarily switched to LTC, would not it be nice if some reputable ASIC board designer created 64-chip PCIe x1 single-slot boards, which could replace GPUs and even fit into those surplus x1 slots without raisers? These boards would need to draw power externally (Molex/PCIe) and not through the motherboard. There could even be a version for PCI interface, thus making it possible to utilise all those motherboards, which are starting to become obsolete.

GPU miners already have rigs to put such ASICs into, with adequate power and cooling already in place (if it could handle GPU, it could handle less power-hungry ASIC), unlike those overpriced USB ASICs, which still need a hefty additional investment in the form of multiple powered USB hubs.

The problem is IC's that even support 1x PCIe 1.0 are expensive compared to say an LPC1768, which has an Ethernet PHY and USB PHY and enough GPIO to communicate with 64 Avalon chips. This would require no PC in the event Ethernet is used.

andrewsg

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You are of course right, I mean, there is a market for anything that can offer a good cost per hash, but I also really like the idea of a PCIe board.

Nemo1024

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Given the number of existing GPU miners, who are on the verge of turning off their rigs or have turned them off or temporarily switched to LTC, would not it be nice if some reputable ASIC board designer created 64-chip PCIe x1 single-slot boards, which could replace GPUs and even fit into those surplus x1 slots without raisers? These boards would need to draw power externally (Molex/PCIe) and not through the motherboard. There could even be a version for PCI interface, thus making it possible to utilise all those motherboards, which are starting to become obsolete.

GPU miners already have rigs to put such ASICs into, with adequate power and cooling already in place (if it could handle GPU, it could handle less power-hungry ASIC), unlike those overpriced USB ASICs, which still need a hefty additional investment in the form of multiple powered USB hubs.

Topic: There is a market for PCI/PCIe-based ASIC boards - page 2. (Read 4778 times)