So instead of 8 chips, the single will use 16 chips, it is a nice move that leaves a lot of room for chips. I remember that they said the test for running at 500Mhz is problematic but chips can run stable at 300Mhz, e.g. 4.8GH per chip
So if BKKcoins actually builds a functional Klondike, a 16 chip board that could clock to 300 Mhz per chip on a 10 cm x10 cm square at 32W as a DIY project in a few months what the hell has BFL been doing these past 10 months?
Each Klondike board has a 6 pin PCI Express power connector allowing efficient powering of many boards from a decent ATX PSU. A 16 chip board should be capable of 4512 MH/s and consume about 32W power. A low cost Corsair CX-600 PSU should easily power 16 boards using readily available power splitters. This provides for 72 GH/s off one low cost ATX PSU.
And costing roughly
https://github.com/bkkcoins/klondike/blob/master/docs/Parts%20List.pdf what only $26.48 per manufactured board with runs of 25+ board minimum and $8 for an Avalon chip and then and in heatsinks with fans, the psu and time and sweat you could put have the following.
16 Avalon Chips............................ $128.00
1 Board......................................... $ 23.68
Corsair CX-600 PSU.......................... $70.00
1 Extruded Al Heat sink and fan......... $16.00
Blood Sweat Tears......................... $100.00
USB cable........................................ $2.00
32+ Watts.
4.8 GH/s
No extra shipping charges
Easily scales to 72 GH/s
For 340 USD?
Hmmm.
I see a tough road ahead for any BFL products if the Avalons DIY'ers get this working. This might prove the end of BFL considering this will be open source.
Won't scale to 72GH/s for 340 USD... more like 10.000 USD, which is in line with what Avalon is charging.
BFL might be trying to get economies of scale as they (possibly) realized they shot themselves in the foot with pricing. Then again, their ASIC is on a smaller process so each unit might be cheaper than the Avalon ones (so many variables...).