Topic: tldr: Why isn't KNC able to compete with *55nm bitfury's W/GH? - page 2. (Read 6660 times)

thats a little unfair.  bitfury took pre-orders just like knc did.  bitfury has started shipping now.  and knc is not yet late on its promised shipping dates of end of september so its a little unfair to claim theyre selling squat.  theyre selling pre-orders just like every other asic company including bitfury.  bitfury still has many pre-orders for its october batch, too.   if we get to october and knc hasnt shipped any, then you can crow all you want

I don't get it.  Why you even discussing KNC?

Bitfury sells ASIC chips, KNC sells squat.

Compare them when they actually have a chip to compare.

As it stands now, it is like comparing Bitfury with Dragon ASIC (remember that one?).

I don't get OP's hypocrisy. On one hand he says, on the first post, that he is sick of both camps and their non-existent logic. Then when legitimate arguments form he heavily sides against KNC, repeating the "Equally, each thread is filled with die hard supports who can't see the logic from the fud." that he himself is so apparently against.

This is a problem because the premise of the title of this thread implies that OP is neutral, when as his replies show, he is not. Look for yourself, KNC supporters, bitfury's supporters, or anyone else.

I agree, I got confused and I went to check up their official thread thinking that they really have a working chip!! and in that same official thread people talking about these prototypes as they are in production and just waiting for shipping, I say KNC and all other companies that didn't prove any thing close to a working prototypes are bullish and are in my waiting list ......

Good reply but your action doesn't really reflect what you type. You start a thread about knc chip vs bitfury's and ask why knc is less efficient etc.

People explain to you why that is so and then you just dismiss it off because "knc chips don't exist though". What else are people going to discuss about if you just dismiss it off like that???

You should've just named the thread "tldr: KNC isn't able to compete with *55nm bitfury's w/GH because they don't exist!"

Out of curiosity? It doesn't make sense that 55nm would TROUNCE something that should be 4x more power efficient. I said nevermind because his question is retarded, everyone is talking about KNC vs bitfury, look at the fucking 50000 page thread of KNC people talking about something that also doesn't exist. You can't have it both ways, either it exists and we're discussing it (hence nevermind), or it doesn't exist and its equally shit.

Exactly. Kind of makes you wonder what are the motivations for the OP starting a thread such as this. I'd be interested to hear the answer to plasmoske's question. (or at least a better answer than "nevermind")

well... he sort of does have a point.  You started the discussion comparing their supposed claimed values.  Only to point out one doesn't exist when someone gives the knc chip's advantage.  If we're gonna "stay on topic" all we can do really is hypothetically compare the two which is assumed when you started the thread... just saying.

It seems very unlikely any bitcoin asic provider is doing "full custom" in the sense that they design their own transistors instead of using standard cell libraries, provided either by the fab, or higher level libraries provided by the design house. That to me is the definition of full custom, any other definition is IMO bogus.


Wow, nice numbers, thanks for sharing. That hashfast chip is HUGE. Granted, a bitcoin asic is pretty much a "copy paste" job of a single hashing engine, and I assume they implemented redundancy to cope with single and multiple hash engine defects, but still, such a large chip on such a relatively new process, thats some risk they are taking. I wonder what made them decide on that. For most things, you try to stay under ~100-150mm2 unless you have a very good reason.

Because a one man bitfury team is that much more talented than KNC.

Actually, I have no idea where Ampere and Volt met.  I'm assuming they must have at some point.   

If it doesn't exist then you can't say it's energy efficiency is bad.

What does rolled design mean?  Is it similar to pipelined in CPU architecture?  Not having one part wait for the other but having the parts work in unison like an assembly line?

Full custom has no standard definition.  It is a marketing buzzword these days.  What one companies calls "full custom" another company may not.  A lot depends on the quality of the design and nobody hand places each transistor so custom or not there is some library used, some software is more granular and some is more macro so it is more shades of gray then a black and white distinction.    

That shouldn't take away from Bitfury their design is very efficient. One thing to consider is that Bitfury uses a rolled design and all other designs to date have been unrolled.  Unrolled design has been the conventional wisdom back to the FPGA days, so Bitfury going with a rolled design (which they did on their FPGA as well) may be part of the "magic".  Bitfury likely would have seen commercial success in the FPGA space if BFL hadn't resorted to using underhanded tactics.  BFL announcing ASICs would be available in a few months back in the summer of 2012 killed further demand for FPGAs.  Still Bitfury FPGA design was very efficient compared to competitors so it shouldn't be much surprise that their ASIC implementation would be as well.

Whatever the reason, they use die space very efficiently.  A different way to look at it is how much die space it takes per GH at nominal clockspeed.  Transistor size is directly proportional to process node so I normalized all results to 55nm (native density * (process node/55)^2 ).  KNC & Cointerra not included because they haven't released die size details.  


Note: This should't be taken as an endorsement but more an academical look at how much silicon each design requires to accomplish the same thing if they were fabricated at the same process size.  Everything else being equal less die space per unit of hashing power is better.  It means less silicon cost and compensating for clock frequency and voltage less power usage.  

* Smaller process node is going to have smaller features.  By calculating the change in die size if fabricated at 55nm it provides a better comparison of die efficiency.  Now this isn't a perfect comparison because clock speeds will vary based on process node and how "hard" the manufacturer decides to push the chip.  To do better though requires knowing the clock speed of each chip and the corresponding performance which I don't have or even know if it is available.

I may be wrong but I was under the impression that the BFL chip was not full custom.  There are a few steps between ASIC hard copy and full custom like standard cells.  I am guessing the BFL chip is in the middle of the range.

One might also ask: Why does BFL's 65nm chip consume ~8x as much power per hash as BitFury's 55nm chip?

Both are supposedly Full Custom designs, I believe.

+10 And my You are to stupid too !! 8P

You talk like they've actually delivered something. I'd love KNC to deliver. We need the competition. But until they actually ship something real, their "under promise over deliver" spiel is just marketing BS to lock in pre-order cash to fund their lifestyles just like everyone else.

Yitterbum, I think you're reading me wrong today mate, i'm totally chilled, and i've always enjoyed your comments. I rate Bitfury, he's performed a stella effort considering he is a sole guy, and of course they would need to go for full custom in future. Fact is it's comparing apples to oranges, both went for different solutions with the tech and time available to them, both innovative, both solving a similar problem with an alternative approach, one low cost, full custom, one high cost, but minimal aggrigated risk, both on a finite timeframe, nether products are expected to last forever, but for their window of opportunity, both sufficient solutions, if both succeed. One has, the other we will know very soon.