Archive for the ‘Mining Hardware’ Category

Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 vs GTX Titan X Mining Performance

22, Apr 2015

nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-vs-titan-x

There are probably not much, if any, people out there mining for crypto coins on the latest and fastest Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan X GPUs, but that does not mean that the video cards based on them are not good for mining. The GTX Titan X does come with 12 GB of video memory, something that is not very useful for crypto mining, but it also comes with 50% more CUDA cores as compared to GTX 980. So you might expect to get up to about 50% performance in crease in terms of hashrate, but that performance increase may come up with twice or even more higher price compared to how much a single GTX 980 costs. So it seems that the GTX Titan X is not very price/performance efficient choice and it might be better to go for two GTX 980s instead not only for mining, but also for gaming as well.

nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-vs-titan-x-results

Nevertheless we still ran some benchmarks to see what is the actual hashrate difference between a GTX 980 and a GTX Titan X GPU using the latest ccMiner 1.5.45 SP-MOD. Do note that the Titan X is still a Compute 5.2 GPU, just like the GTX 980, so it does not bring a new evolution in terms of compute capabilities – just more raw power. As you can see from the table with the results we are seeing in between 30% to almost 50% performance increase in the hashrate of the GTX Titan X GPU as compared to what the GTX 980 currently offers. As we have already mentioned the price difference compared to the actual performance you get makes the GTX 980 the better choice for mining, and you can go for two of these instead of a single Titian X.

SFARDS New 28nm BTC and LTC Dual-Algorithm ASIC Specifications Unveiled

14, Apr 2015

sfards-sf3301-dual-asic-chips

SFARDS, the company formed after the merging Gridseed and WiiBox, has just announced that they have completed their new 28nm SF3301 dual-algorithm ASIC chip manufactured using the latest in FD-SOI processing technology and have released specifications about expected power usage and performance. The SF3301 is the claimed to be the world’s first chip to use this manufacturing process and is at the same time the first 28nm dual-algorithm (SHA-256 and Scrypt) chip, capable of mining these two algorithms simultaneously or separately.

According to SFARDS this technology allows for the ASIC chip to operate at lower voltage while maintaining a higher frequency resulting in better balance between power usage and performance. The SF3301 ASIC chip should have a lowest working voltage of only 0.45V with a BTC power efficiency at 0.19 J/GH, and LTC power efficiency at 1.75 J/MH (better than the initially announced numbers). With a reported performance for a single SF3301 chip for BTC with a hashrate of 152 GH/s, and LTC hashrate of 3.17 MH/s things may become interesting again for Scrypt miners, though it also depends on the price per chip. We are talking about a power consumption figures of about 90W per chip (152 GHS) in BTC mode and about 5.5W per chip (3.17 MHS) in LTC mode or supposedly in dual mining mode, for both BTC and LTC, a combined power usage of about 100W per chip. Now scale that to a 10 chip ASIC miner and you should get something like 1.5 THS BTC + 32 MHS LTC mining power with a 1000W power usage or a bit more…

SFARDS is apparently planning to release a number of documents for the SF3301 as open-source by the end of this month. The ASIC’s development board design and its software should also be published, and in May the design specifications for their debut Dual Miner solution is expected to be released. SFARDS will be selling ASIC development boards and sample chips, making the SF3301 accessible to developers who wish to customize and build their own hardware in the near future, though no mention of expected time frame is mentioned yet. No word yet on piring per chip or the miner or the number of chips we are going to see in the first upcoming miner.

– For more information about the new SFARDS ASIC mining hardware manufacturer…

TechnoBit DICE Bitcoin ASIC Cooling Performance

27, Feb 2015

technobit-dice-noise-level-check

We are still playing with our hardware latest toy, the small TechnoBit DICE Bitcoin ASIC miner and today we were checking the cooling performance of the device. When we first saw the announcement the DICE was supposed to be a very silent miner as per the official specifications that stated (and still state) “Noise: ~20 DB at 25 °C ambient temperature”, however the moment we have turned on the unit a few days ago we knew this promise was not kept. If the noise level was just about 20 decibels than the DICE should’ve been so quiet that you would hardly know it is present and working in a quiet room. The reality is quite different though, our sound level meter has detected a noise level of almost 50 dBA and this is really quite noisy and a far cry from the promised noise. So we just had to take apart the device to see what fan it is using and also test to see if the case of the miner could be the culprit that is responsible for the very noisy operation of the DICE Bitcoin ASIC…

technobit-dice-top-bottom

When we have opened the case of the ASIC miner we’ve discovered that the cooling fan used inside is a 92mm Evercool EC9225M12CA, a mid range fan that does 2200 rpm with about 1.8W of power usage. Apparently the fan itself was sufficient to cool the miner with its 39.35 CFM of air flow and interestingly enough the specifications of the fan do say less than 25 dBA in terms of noise generated. The fan itself was directly soldered to the pins of the 6-pin PCI-E power connector on the unit, there is no thermal control or variable rpm, it is working at maximum all of the time. Running the miner without its metal casing has show us that it can be quite silent indeed, so the cause of the noise apparently was the metal case of the miner. More specifically the holes at the fan air intake that apparently are responsible for the significant increase of the noise level, so when TechnoBit has promised us a silent Bitcoin ASIC miner they should have modified the case of the device, so that it can really be silent and not the opposite – make a case that will increase the noise level way over what was promised in terms of specifications.

technobit-dice-side

The cooling of the single RockerBox ASIC chip that is at the heart of the DICE miner is sufficiently provided by two large aluminum heatsinks, one on top interfacing with a solid copper block to the ASIC chip and one at the bottom with direct contact to the whole surface of the PCB. There is enough thermal paste in between the heatsinks to provide good heat transfer and the not so powerful cooling fan has no trouble keeping the temperatures low, so that the about 100W of power used at the stock settings are not a problem. The device can also handle a nice boost in performance with some overclocking that is possible via parameters for the ASIC chip voltage and operating frequency, though you should be careful should you decide to clock the unit higher.

technobit-dice-thermal-image

In the end we take a look at the operating temperatures of the DICE with the help of a thermal imaging camera, the thermal image you see above shows how hot the top and bottom heatsinks get while the device is working normally. We are getting close to 60 degrees at the top heatsink and a bit over 40 at the bottom at the hottest sports, do note however that the operating temperature of the Bitcoin ASIC chip under the heatsink should be higher with something like 10-20 degrees Celsius over the temperature we have measured on the heatsink. So if you decide to overclock the miner you should proceed with caution and monitor the operating temperatures as the power usage increases along with the hashrate when you increase the operating voltage and frequency of the Bitcoin ASIC chip.


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