I haven't really followed the supposed shipping of Test units to Jeff and the Bitcoin foundation in the last week so i am still in speculation mode. I've wanted to get a jump on the ASIC market but sadly adopted Bitcoins too late and cannot afford to lose money on a pre-order for a ASIC unit. But with the way most of the companies say they will be shipping (from what ive seen) is in small batches of 200-300 at a time(one day in the future...maybe), so i feel like if I dont pre-order, by the time I get an ASIC i may barely break even and make enough $ for cigarettes and MAYBE my private VPN bill every month. BFL's site etc looks the most promising info and design wise but seems to have the most negative feedback on their release push backs, Avalon seems iffy as they haven't provided much if any information regarding this boards and I'm too tired this morning to even recall the others I've looked into, BFL was looking the best on my budget.

Can anyone give me a breakdown on who may ACTUALLY be legit with some proof and not just a bunch of FUD? (fear, uncertainty, doubt)

Also, does anyone have a rough idea of how much FPGA boards may have gone down in price since ASIC tech has "supposedly" come closer to being a reality? And if so does anyone have suggestions on a reasonable and economically good choice for a FPGA board? If so that suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

My VPN only takes BTC so i would at least like to have some sort of mining to simply pay those 5 btc a month without having to order a bunch of rely on my old ATI's and setting up a a large-er piece of garbage mining rig that eats more power than it makes btc.

Anywho, Thanks in Advance