It Is All About BTC, LTC, ETH, DOGE, KAS mining as well as other alternative crypto currencies
Bitmain has announced their 3rd generation Bitcoin ASIC miner chip – the BM1384 in conjunction with its 9th product – the Antminer S5 and is getting ready to start shipping the device before the end of the year. The Antminer S5 is the successor of the S3 and the S1 before that, building and improving the design of the previous generation of miners offering higher performance with lower power consumption thanks to the new BM1384 ASIC chips. The Bitmain AntMiner S5 should offer 1155 GHS hashrate with 590 Watt power usage at the wall according to the specifications, though that value may vary based on the power supply that you may pair the miner with (power supply is not included). The first batch of the S5 ASIC miners costs $418 USD and should start shipping on December 27th, the second batch is slightly cheaper at $413 USD per unit and should start shipping on January 4th 2015 or a few days later.
BitMain AntMiner S5 Specifications:
– Hash Rate: 1155 GH/s ±5%
– Power Consumption: 590 W (at the wall)
– Power Efficiency: 0.51 J/GH (at the wall)
– Rated Voltage: 12V
– Dimensions: 298 mm x 137 mm x 155 mm
– Cooling: 1x 12038 fan
– Operating Conditions: 0 °C to 35 °C
– Certified By: FCC / CE
– Network Connection: Ethernet
What seems to be the most notable change in the latest design used by the S5 is the fact that now the miner has the aluminum heatsinks placed directly on top of the ASIC chips, unlike on the previous miners where they were on the back of the PCB and thus were not so effective. This new cooling design is supposed to provide the same cooling efficiency on the new miners that previous generation that had lower hashrate and power usage.
The maker of ASIC Bitcoin miners TechnoBit, using various ASIC chips as a source for their miners, has announced a new interesting product based on Spondoolies Tech’s RockerBox ASIC. The device is designed to be small both in size and in terms of hashrate, but also to be quiet and power efficient. It is targeted at home miners that are mining just as a hobby as it will not be mining a lot of coins at the current Bitcoin network difficulty, but the good price of the miner makes it affordable and easy to acquire to also play out with ASIC miner if you haven’t done so yet. The Dice is delivered with set of Windows/Linux software (cgminer-based) that should allow the use of the device in two different ways – either as an entry level Bitcoin mining device to work with a mining pool or as a personal Bitcoin lottery device with a custom software and do solo mining testing your luck – every 10 minutes, you have a chance of 150/300,000,000 to get 25 BTCs.
TechnoBit DICE Specifications:
– Hash Rate: 150 GH/s at 0.75V and 125 Ghs at 0.69 V
– Power Efficiency: 0.7 Watt/GH/s on wall at 0.75V and 0.6 Watt/GH/s on wall at 0.69V
– Power Usage: 105-108 Watts at 150 GHS
– Voltage: DC 12V input, 9A
– Chip Quantity per unit: 1
– One 80mm quiet fan
– Noise: ~20 DB at 25°C ambient temperature
– Hashrate and VDD core voltage can be adjusted via cgminer command line
– USB connection
– 12V both PCI-E and barrel connectors
– Certificate Compliance: FCC/CE
You can say that the TechnoBit Dice can be a better alternative to BitMain’s U3 ASIC miner. The Dice is more power efficient and provides higher hashrate and you can buy it in the form of a single unit, unlike BitMain who had a minimum order quantity of 20 units while the miner was available for sale on their website. TechnoBit’s Dice will start shipping on December 18th and you can currently pre-order a single unit with a price of 78 EURO with additional 8% discount if you order 10 units, though it is not a very wise idea to go for 10 or more of these for personal use. If you want to have the same power efficiency and higher hashrate you might want to take a look at the bigger Spondoolies Tech ASIC miners that use more than just one RockerBox ASIC chips.
– For more information about the upcoming TechnoBit Dice Bitcoin ASIC miner…
After over a month of silence with no updates Alpha Technology have released a new update on their status on the Viper Scrypt ASIC miners showing some photos of what seems to be the final enclosure of the miner as well as a board with 12 ASIC chips installed on it. Alpha Technology claims a better than expected performance of 1.5 MHS per chip and also says the chips could be overclocked further, the claim of these chips being “the most efficient on the market” however seems like an overstatement. The most important thing missing is information in the new update from Alpha Technology on when are they planning to stat shipping exactly as customers are already tired of things getting postponed for a later date. This Time Alpha Technology says soon, but how soon exactly and how many people are actually let that did not request to get a refund. Even if they do manage to ship any hardware anytime soon or at all we won’t be surprised to see the situation with KNC’s Titan miners repeating. Meanwhile there is already a dedicated website called Fight Alpha Technology Scam that is a forum dedicated to helping with useful information and advice people that want to get their money back from Alpha-T.
– To check out the Fight Alpha Technology Scam website for some useful information…