Re: Official Open Source FPGA Bitcoin Miner (Smaller Devices Now Supported!)
Is that most efficient? As in: would a larger board not be better? Yes, it may cost more (even per mhash), but there is a not insignificant overhead to "host" the boards. Tiven the standard MSI / Sempron approach I think 5 or maybe 6 boards only could go on a motherboard. Having a higher density, especially given the low power consumption, would not be negative.
Then there is the whole driver issue at hand (sadly)
Lokos like I would have to move to Linux.
Then there is the whole driver issue at hand (sadly)
Lokos like I would have to move to Linux.Why have servers at all? For a couple of dollars more, you could equip those boards with an ethernet port and a small ARM processor running linux, with a ready-to-go firmware preinstalled, which would be configured through a web interface. Or possibly a backplane with the ARM processor and ethernet, which has a couple of slots for crypto slave boards containing the ASICs.
Not sure that makes sense, though. This would mean a LOT (!) more isntances to manage, a lot more ethernet port to block. I would go backplane.
if we can use something like http://www.chassis-plans.com/single-board-computer/S6806-backplane.htm it gives us 20 PciE boards. Now, I would love to make as much use as possible out of this space