I have two of the 741's on order (maybe, no BTC address either), but actually see 3 orders (kept refreshing, so maybe 6 total).
Given my high electric rate, if Bitcoin drops to 3750 my breakeven becomes 1 year.
So I probably need to host these somewhere.
Since I have only done GPU's (these are my first ASIC's), should I mine at home first to understand them?
Also: how much network traffic do these use? The GPU's are minimal
And yes, assuming 0 increase in difficulty, too late at night to figure out what affect a rise in difficulty would have on the breakeven with a declining BTC value.
To be honest I have only had Antminers for the past two years and never purchased one of these newer Avalons. But in general the three most common barriers to using btc asics at home are:
1. Electricity - do you have enough watts and amps to power one, let alone three. And are the circuits where you need them.
2. Noise - Don't know about these, but the noise from an S9 is deafening. Where I live there are no basements and it gets too hot in the garage. So I have no where to put these things where my family would not kill me.
3. Heat - you need to be able to exhaust the heat outside and provide relatively cool air to the intake side of the fan(s). That's not always an easy or cheap environment to create. It depends on your house.
So if you can handle those three things go for it. I mined in my office and still do with gpu rigs. But once the ASICs got to the S5's they were just too power hungry and hot to keep in the office. I moved to a local data center for 18 months. Then the electric rates were too high. This was when btc was stagnant in the $200-$260 range for a long time. So finally I moved them to Washington State. They have been there for 18 months or so now. Good cheap power and it usually does not get too hot.
Anyway - my $0.02.