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News ASRock announces Bitcoin-mining motherboards

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 18 Nov 2013.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Gareth Halfacree, 18 Nov 2013
    #1
  2. Weekly_Estimate

    Weekly_Estimate Random bird noises.

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    what a load of crap
     
    Weekly_Estimate, 18 Nov 2013
    #2
  3. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    I currency this going very far too be honest.
     
    Modsbywoz, 18 Nov 2013
    #3
  4. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Alone in my office, I actually voiced an audible, involuntary groan. Congratulations!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 18 Nov 2013
    #4
  5. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    Yeah. It wasn't one of my best. :)
     
    Modsbywoz, 18 Nov 2013
    #5
  6. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    GPU mining is dead what is this mobo good for exactly?

    ASIC Miners are where bitcoin is at right this minute.
     
    rollo, 18 Nov 2013
    #6
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yes, that's what the article says. (Although you'll never break even with any current or publicised next-generation ASIC, either, unless you started with one earlier this month. The difficulty is ramping too quickly.)

    Seriously, though: the board could be a tempting device for GPGPU clusters; sure, Bitcoin mining on the GPU is roughly equivalent to standing next to a fan heater ripping up tenners, but there are plenty of other computational tasks a sextet of GPUs would chew through handily. Just a shame ASRock decided to jump on the Bitcoin bandwagon instead of branding it more generally, really.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 18 Nov 2013
    #7
  8. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    I would have thought this wouuld be good for F@H, BIONIC etc?

    As you said, from what I have gathered, even ASICs aren't worth it, let alone gpus. From a quick look the temptation to buy a couple and see where they go is rather high :p (also annoying I sold a couple I had to test the system a while back for £40 each before I lost the rest :( )
     
    GeorgeStorm, 18 Nov 2013
    #8
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Abso-piggin'-lutely. This calculator is handy: pick an ASIC maker, model and number of units from the drop-down box and it'll tell you when or if you'll hit break even, and your overall profit or loss over a year, based on hardware cost, electricity cost, and the ever-increasing hash difficulty. Sure, there are some nice powerful ASICs in the list which will double your money in a month - if you received the units at the start of this month or earlier. Sadly, start sticking in more realistic dates - the new ButterflyLabs 600GH/s ASIC, for example, won't be reaching anyone until February at the earliest - and you'll see a pattern: "No break-even in first year," which is an interesting way of phrasing "no break-even at all, ever."

    Basically, the days of making money from mining Bitcoins are over, ASICs or no ASICs. You want to make money? Instead of buying £15,000 worth of ASIC hardware, buy £15,000 worth of Bitcoins directly - and just hope you can sell 'em before the bubble inevitably bursts, as it surely will.
    I've got an ASICMiner Block Erupter hanging off my Pi: 335MH/s at 2.5W. Paid £20 for it on eBay, and I will *never* see that £20 again. It's a toy, and getting it running was fun - but I'm under no illusion that I'm spending, not earning, money with it. Even the new RedFury and BluFury ASICs - around 2.7GH/s at the same 2.5W - aren't enough to pay themselves off, regardless of the number of people who believe otherwise splashing £145 a chuck on eBay for 'em.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 18 Nov 2013
    #9
  10. ChaosDefinesOrder

    ChaosDefinesOrder Vapourmodder

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    that was a bit(coin) of a stretch...
     
    ChaosDefinesOrder, 18 Nov 2013
    #10
  11. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    Hi ho
     
    Modsbywoz, 18 Nov 2013
    #11
  12. John_T

    John_T Minimodder

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    Yep, one huge great giant pyramid rising out of the sand - built on getting in early and having mugs come in below you and lift you up. Like all pyramids, as soon as the mugs below realise they're being mugs they'll abandon the thing and it'll all come crashing down.

    Getting on early was clearly a good financial decision (if a morally dubious one) but getting on now in the hope you'll know when to jump off in time? No thanks - when this falls, it'll fall fast...
     
    John_T, 18 Nov 2013
    #12
  13. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    I think it would've made more sense for them to have released an AMD board, considering the shorter pipelines at a higher frequency give better results in the bitcoin world (meaning, an AMD CPU would at least be able to contribute to the mining). I'd say they could do socket FM2 but if a user wanted nvidia in the PCIe slots, it would be a pain, at least for Windows users. On the other hand, I don't see why you couldn't just get a generic motherboard with only PCIe slots (1x or 16x) and slap a bunch of cheap overclocked GPUs in each slot. I don't see how this ASrock board has any advantage to mining. Also, in a bitcoin perspective, I'd rather have 4 pairs of USB 2.0 ports for every pair of USB 3.0 ports, for the ASIC miners.


    But anyway, this board really did come too late.
     
    schmidtbag, 18 Nov 2013
    #13
  14. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Seems weird to me that they went with x1 one pcie slots. Surely it would be easier to have x16 slots even if they were only wired as x1 slots. They don't even seem to provide the adapters or riser cables shown in the pic.

    Maybe theres suitable pciex1 hardware I'm not aware of
     
    theshadow2001, 18 Nov 2013
    #14
  15. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    You don't need anything high-end to do bitcoin mining. There are a few PCIe 1x cards out there, but, many 16x GPUs will run fine on a 1x slot. You have to cut a slit in the slot to let a bigger card fit. I have a PCIe 1x riser cable that I cut with a rotary tool and tested a few GPUs on it. You actually get pretty good performance out of just 1 lane. I wrote an article on this several years ago, though I guess it could use some better proofreading.
     
    schmidtbag, 18 Nov 2013
    #15
  16. r3loaded

    r3loaded Minimodder

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    Pointless for Bitcoin, but very useful for Litecoin which has just shot up today! :D
     
    r3loaded, 18 Nov 2013
    #16
  17. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Fun fact: if anybody here actually bought £15,000 in Bitcoins when I advised, then sold it during the half-hour the value of a Bitcoin peaked at $900 last night, they would now have £24,771. Not bad for one day of earnings!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 19 Nov 2013
    #17
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