Posts Tagged ‘Scrypt ASIC Miner’

New RPi Overclock Image for A2 Innosilicon Miners by Emdje Now Available

4, Sep 2014

a2-tweaked-verion-emdje

The user who has previously released an RPi OC version for Innosilicon A2 miners that did not work properly due to the fact that the official cgminer provided only accepted a few fixed operating frequencies has updated the image to version 2.0 and now it works. The new version adds support for 1000 MHz and then from 1080 MHz to 1400 MHz in 20 MHz steps and now the cgminer accepts these values due to a modification done to the A2 driver. So if you are an owner of an A2-based miner using 28nm Innosilicon Scrypt ASIC chips you might want to try the image out, we have already checked it and can confirm it works well.

– To download the new overclock Raspberry Pi image for A2 Innosilicon miners by Emdje…

Review of the ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 Scrypt ASIC Miner

13, Aug 2014

zeusminer-blizzard-x6-1

ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 is the smallest of all new lower power usage Scrypt ASIC miners from Zeus, it is the successor of the previous Blizzard units, but unlike the bigger models this one actually has more chips running at lower frequency. The end result is higher hashrate of the new unit as compared to the performance of the older miner that also comes with higher power consumption. The old Blizzard units offered 1.3-1.4 MHS with 6 chips at about 50 Watts of power usage, the new Blizzard X6 uses 24 chips at lower operating voltage and frequency and should provide 4 MHS at 100W. This means almost three times the hashrate with just two times the power usage, so it does not sound like a bad improvement. It is interesting to note that the Blizzard X6 was initially announced at 3.6 MHS and now the official specifications state 4 MHS.

zeusminer-blizzard-x6-2

Unlike with the older Blizzard that included a PSU and USB cable in the package, the new ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 does not include these anymore. We have received our unit with just the miner, no micro-USB cable in the package or a power adapter, not even a 4-pin Molex or 6-pin PCI-E adapter for powering the device with an ATX power supply. This left us a bit disappointed, but was probably done to save costs and make the price of the miner lower. We could’ve gone easily without a PSU, but the USB cable and a connector for a computer PSU is something that must be in the package as not everyone will have these already available like we do.

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The Blizzard X6 cooling design is not perfect, but apparently it works pretty well delivering enough cooling performance with not so loud level of noise. We have measured the power usage of the new miner to be about 106W with the device running at 235 MHz at the wall and the level of noise from the cooling fans was at just about 45 dBA. Looking at the board with the chips we have noticed that the Blizzard X6 also uses 1.1V voltage and the maximum recommended operating frequency is 248 MHz, though you probably would want to use a lower number to get less HW errors.

zeusminer-blizzard-x6-thermal-images

Here are two thermal images showing the operating temperature of the ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 during normal operation. The temperatures of the aluminum cooler used to cool the chips is just about 36 degrees at the hottest place, in fact the highest temperature we’ve measured was at the power connector of the device. Initially we’ve powered the miner from a 4-pin molex connector, but that got the cables too hot, so we’ve changed the power source to use a 6-pin PCI-E power connector as an input. So be extra careful what source of power you are going to use as a single 4-pin molex connector might not be able to handle well the ~100W load, preferably use dual molex connectors or a PCI-E one.

zeusminer-blizzard-x6-cgminer

We have tested running the ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 at different frequencies and the one that seemed to provide the best results with our unit was 235 MHz, though you may have varying success with lower or higher frequencies, so we do recommend to try going up to about 250 MHz. At 235 MHz operating frequency the Blizzard X6 was able to provide about 3.8-3.9 MHS with about 4.5% of HW errors. We already know that the Zeus Scrypt ASIC miners do actually have higher number of HW errors compared to most other ASIC miners, however we do not like to push our hardware too much and get like 10% of HW errors – something that is easily achievable if you try to push the new X6 miners to about 250 MHz.

zeusminer-blizzard-x6-poolside-hashrate

A look at the average poolside reported hashrate from the LTC Rabbit Scrypt mining pool using the new fixed difficulty port with 1024 difficulty for Scrypt ASIC miners and the Blizzard X6 running at 235 MHz operating frequency. We’ve seen that the actual pool hashrate has varied between 3686 and 4164 MHS for a 24 hour period of time, but the average should be about the advertised 4 MHS rate.

The ZeusMiner Blizzard X6 Scrypt ASIC miner is not the best choice for investment, especially now with the current low LTC price, at least not for people interested mostly in the fast ROI. In fact the Blizzard X6 is intended for the people that are mining as a hobby or just for fun, it is also a good way to get some experience with Scrypt ASIC mining, if it is something new for you, without having to invest too much into hardware and only focus on the profit. The Blizzard X6 is also a great choice for the modding community, just like the previous version of Blizzard – doing experiments with overvolting and modifying the cooling solution. It is a fun little and affordable Scrypt miner to play with and experiment with, but not something that will get you quick return of investment or even make you profit. So think carefully what you are getting this miner for and should you really invest some cash into it or not, though the same applies for the larger ZeusMiner Scrypt ASICs as well with the current market situation.

Review of the ZeusMiner Thunder X6 Scrypt ASIC Miner

7, Aug 2014

zeusminer-thuder-x6-1

The ZeusMiner Thunder X6 is probably the most interesting of the new low-power X6 series Scrypt ASIC miners from Zeus, even though with its 18-20 MHS hashrate it is already under 1 Litecoin per day as expected mined coins. The miner is rated at 18-20 MHS hashrate with 450 Watts of power usage using a total of 128 Scrypt ASIC chips and with a case designed to integrate the power supply inside the miner. At the right price this miner is very interesting if you are considering investing in Srypt ASIC miners with the “big boys” still not ready to start delivering.

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Similar to the other X6 miners, here as well Zeus did lower the operating voltage and the frequency of the miner in order to achieve lower power consumption. The previous generation Thunder X3 was rated at 28 MHS with about 920W power usage, so we have about 2/3 of the hashrate with about half the power usage with the new Thunder X6 miner. That combined with the lower price of the new generation miner is what actually makes it an attractive option if you are moving to Scrypt mining with ASIC, though you should still do the math carefully.

zeusminer-thuder-x6-psu

We’ve mentioned that the case of the miner is designed to take inside a power supply, however we do not consider that to be so wise of an idea due to the way modern power supplies are made to be cooled. The normal installation of the PSU will make the power supply take hot air from one of the modules with chips and blow the hot air at the back of the miner where the cooling of the chip modules takes in the air that goes through the massive aluminum radiators. And the middle fan on the case of the miner will not do much of a work, so we do recommend keeping the power supply outside of the miner case.

zeusminer-thunder-x6-power-usage

The operating voltage of the chips inside the ZeusMiner Thunder X6 has been lowered to 1.1V in this version of the miner in order to provide the lower power consumption along with the lower operating frequencies used. Zeus does recommend to not go above 248 MHz as an operating frequency for the new X6 series of miners, though you would probably want to go lower in order to get less HW errors. Zeus does state 450W of power usage for the Thunder X6, however we have measured a power consumption of about 542-546 Watts at 250 MHz or like 100W more and the miner uses two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors. This means you need to be careful in what power supply you are using, we do recommend to go for at least 600W 80 Plus certified PSU and to check the temperature of the power cables going to the miner as if the load is too much they will get too hot and that can cause possible damage to the hardware – something that you will want to avoid happening. A good quality power supply should handle the higher load it gets of about 270W per PCI-E line, but some not so good PSUs might have trouble handling well such a high load on the PCI-E lines, so be extra careful.

zeusminer-thuder-x6-noise

Taking a look at how noisy the cooling of the Thunder X6 is, we have measured about 70 Decibels (dBA) in normal operating mode. This is quite noisy and you would not want to have the miner in a room with people, it is designed to be kept in a dedicated mining room where noise is not a problem and good cooling is what you need to have. The cooling that the powerful 120 mm fans provide is adequate enough even if the ambient temperature is not so low, so you should have no trouble with the cooling of the miner.

zeusminer-thuder-x6-cgminer

We have already talked about the fact that the ZeusMiner Scrypt ASICs are prone to producing more hardware errors that we are typically used to see with most other ASIC miners, however this is not a problem for them operating normally. With the Thunder X6 we are seeing a bit less than 6% of HW errors with the miner running at 250 MHz with the hashrate going to about 20-22 MHs, about 5% with a frequency of 240 MHz and a hashrate of 19-21 MHS and about 4.3% at 230 MHz with 18-20 MHs. So going too low with the frequency will not help that much in reducing the number of HW errors, but will affect the hashrate you are getting, so you need to find the best balance starting from about 250 MHz and going down.

zeusminer-thuder-x6-pool-hashrate

Here is a look at the poolside reported hashrate from the LTC Rabbit Scrypt mining pool using the new fixed difficulty port with 1024 difficulty for Scrypt ASIC miners and the Hurricane X6 running at 250 MHz operating frequency. We have observed some issues with the ZeusMiners running at some pools with vardiff enabled (getting mostly HW errors), so we do recommend sticking to pools with fixed difficulty and 1024-2048 dificulty seems to work very well with the Thunder X6.

Our conclusion after testing the ZeusMiner Thunder X6 Scrypt ASIC is that the miner is working well and performing as expected, delivering the performance that is advertised, though at a slightly higher actual power usage. With the hashrate delivered you are already sure to get less than 1 LTC per day with the current Litecoin network difficulty, but if you secure a good price for the miner it might still be an interesting option for people with not so big budgets for mining hardware. The price per MHS is not as good as with the larger Lightning X6, but is still decent enough to make you think after you do some math about the expected return of investment. It will not get you rich for sure, but the Thunder X6 is currently the option to consider if you are not going to be getting the hardware to mine just for fun or get used to Scrypt ASIC mining with something not so expensive.


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