Thing that I'd like some clarity on, ASICboost was only suppost to improve the efficiency of a miner, not its hashing speed, so it did the same but used less power. Overall of course this would lead to either being able to push the miner faster for the same power usage (if the hardware could handle it) or running more individual miners but using the same power. (e.g. if it gave a 25% reduction in power, you could run 5 miners for the power you used to run 4 miners)
Is this new version of overt ASICboost different? There are hints that the Dragonmint miners will only run at 1/4 speed on non-asicboost pools. That sort of doesn't line up with how we all thought ASICboost
It's the same form of asicboost but avoiding the switching topology to enable/disable asicboost makes the chips simpler and smaller.
In other words if a pool does not support AB the miner does NOT meet their advertised spec. Again Halong takes the 'our way and love it or bugger off' approach to their product and marketing. How are they any different than Bitmain in that respect? Answer: they are actually worse because BM so far has not crossed the false advertising (by omission) line.
Considering the nature of the AB patent and the Halong corporate attitude, personally I'm happy to say screw them and wait until Canaan joins the AB club.