Posts Tagged ‘Zeus’

We Just Got a 27 MHS GAWMiners Falcon Scrypt ASIC Miner

9, Jun 2014

gawminers-falcon-scrypt-asic-miner

Today we got a 27 MHS GAWMiners Falcon Scrypt ASIC Miner based on the 55 nm Zeus Scrypt ASIC chips and we have just finished setting up the device and started testing it. Our initial impressions are quite good so far and once we play a bit more with the device we are going to share all of them with you, so expect a lot more details in the next few days as we continue to test the Scrypt ASIC miner. Aside from the 27 MHS Falcon, GAWMiners also has both a faster model – the 54 MHS War Machine, as well as slower and more affordable models such as the 13 MHS Black Widow and the smallest 1.3 MHS Fury. In fact the Fury is currently probably the most affordable small Scrypt ASIC miner in production, along with the Zeus Blizzard, now that Gridseed has stopped producing their 5-chip GC3355-based miners.

We do need smaller and affordable Scrypt ASIC miners in order for them to be accessible to normal miners that want to mine DOGE for example with no resources to buy a 10K USD Scrypt ASIC miner like the big mining farms can. While the initial price of the 1 MHS+ Scrypt ASICs was not the best at about $200 USD, their latest price is much more reasonable and affordable at $139.95 USD and can get even better if you buy multiple units. This should allow the Scrypt hashing power to remain distributed among many people and not get centralized in the hands of just few big mining farms, otherwise there is a high risk of more and more people going away from Scrypt crypto currencies and moving to other alternatives.

Now back to testing the Falcon. Meanwhile, if you have some questions about the miner we are already prepared to answer them.

– To see what other Zeus-based Scrypt ASIC miners are currently offered by GAWMiners…

Zeus Catching Up With Shipping Units from the BATCH 1 Orders

5, Jun 2014

zeusminer-new-case-design

It seems that our order for a ZeusMiner Blizzard has been finally shipped yesterday (Order #2054 ), so it seems that the company will most likely be able to do what they have promised. That however does not make the Blizzard an interesting buy other than for testing, and that is precisely why we did order the unit, so that we can review it and try the Zeus Scrypt ASIC chips. Meanwhile Zeus has announced they are going to e releasing a ZeusController image for Raspberry Pi with a web-based interface for their miners and apparently they are also working on offering miner hosting options for customers that request it. With the reports we are seeing on higher actual power consumption than what was previously announced as official specs, a hosted option may not be a bad option if the price is right.

zeusminer-batch-2-prices

Zeus also announced new prices for Batch 2 orders that are supposed to start shipping on June 15th, the new Hurricane and Thunder miners will also come with new and improved cases. But there is no word on optimized firmwares yet to help users get the best performance/power usage ratio. Also BATCH 1 customers will get an additional 10% off for one order from the second batch, and if you are already an existing BATCH 1 customer, you automatically qualify for the more free stuff If you place an order for the same amount of higher for BATCH 2. It is up to you do decide if it is worth ordering, for us, well we are waiting for our first miner to see how things are actually working.

– To read the latest update from ZeusMiner regarding the current status of shipping units…

Slow Shipping Times and Lack of Communication from Scrypt ASIC Manufacturers

2, Jun 2014

zeusminer-scrypt-asic

Some of the new Scrypt ASIC manufacturers that are starting to ship or may soon start to ship are apparently suffering from the same problems that some of the Bitcoin ASIC companies had when they started launching their products. We are talking about the two of the most important factors – shipping quickly and on time and be able to communicate on time with the customers, below are some examples ready.

Zeus has started shipping their Scrypt ASIC miners from Batch 1 on May 20th, however they are a bit slow in fulfilling orders… last week on May 28th they were at just order number 1100. Our test order is #2054 and is still being processed, so they are clearly not close to sending it and this was made about two weeks before the Batch 1 ordering has been closed. They have already has announced that they plan on starting to ship Batch 2 orders around 6/15/2014, so by the time our Blizzard miner arrives in our hands it will be pretty much quite outdated and the total payment we have made of a little over $250 USD for the miner and the shipment is already quite high price (and there will be some VAT and custom taxes when the miner arrives). So even though the Batch two price for the ZeusMiner Blizzard is lowered at $179 USD without the shipping cost, it will be pointless to order it now and get it probably sometime in July. The bigger Scrypt ASIC miners from Zeus and their partners that are selling custom solutions based on their chips such as GAW Miners or Hashra are still attractive though, but these partners are partly responsible for the slower shipments to customers that did order directly form Zeus as they had to get some units as well.

Alpha Technology has recently started to request the full payment from customers that have pre-ordered their Scrypt ASIC hardware, however things did not seem very attractive for customers to do their final payment. The sign for that was the announcement from Alpha Technology that they will after all increase the hashrate of their miners, a good move if they can actually deliver the higher hashrate miners for the same price. The problem with Alpha Technology is the total lack of communication with customers, they are just sending invoices, but are not replying to customers over email for days and you apparently cannot reach them by phone. So let us say that you have pre-ordered 5 Scrypt ASIC miners and want to cancel some of them and pay for the other, but want to confirm with Alpha Technology you actually cannot get in touch with them. That does not make you confident enough to pay the rest of the amount for any of the miners you have actually pre-ordered. So if you are busy with a lot of orders from customers, you just hire more people to talk with the customers that are willing to pay for your products and not drive them away by not communicating with them at all.


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