Quote from: Puppet on October 30, 2013, 08:12:22 AM

Quote from: amer on October 30, 2013, 05:20:56 AM

650PH predictions make no sense because of all these reasons and are based on "well, if it keeps going on forever like it has for just the last two months then this is where we'll be" and not on all the things you are bringing up.

FWIW, I end up with very similar numbers when calculating the "end game", using todays BTC value and estimating costs based on HF's chip efficiency and estimated production costs:

The big unknown is how fast we will get there, it will probably take longer than a year, but I have no doubt we will get there if todays BTC value holds.

I like the approach taken but the scale is simply unrealistic. For the sake of the argument lets assume the chips (silicon & packaging) is possible at $0.20 per GH/s ($20 per TH). Small runs (less than 1,000 wafers) at 28nm are probably more expensive than you so raw silicon is probably close to that and multi-die package with high TDP and high ball count BGA design aren't cheap. I think >$0.30 per GH/s minimum (excluding NRE and other fixed costs) for chips on a reel is probably more realistic. However foundry prices are subject to NDA and often opaque so lets make it simple and assume the cost of a chip is $0.00 per GH/s and look at the rest of the system.

For example lets try to guesstimate the balance of the system (everything but the ASIC) on a Sierra. Here is my guess what is yours?
case: $30 * 1 = $30
watercooling: $80 * 3 = $240
case fans: $10 * 2 = $20
power supplies: $150 * 2 = $300
PCB (both PCB manufacturing and assembly): $30 x 3 = $90
DC regulators (12V to ~0.8V 200A output ea, 2 per board): $30 x 6 = $180 (probably more KNC uses >$300 per 400 GH/s system)
minor components (connectors, capacitors, etc guesstimate 100+ components per board): $50 x 3 = $150
labor (post PCB assembly, testing, packaging): $50
Balance of system (excluding ASICs) = $1,060 or ~$900 per TH/s.

That is nothing for fixed costs, markup/profit, yield issues, customer support, shipping losses, warranty, etc.

Now let say you could cut that roughly in half to $500 per TH/s. Your "end game charts" start at half that. $250 per TH/s might someday be possible but that is a lot of cost to remove from my guesstimate above. In either case $50 per TH/s is just silly. Might as well draw a line which shows the end game of $1 per EH/s. $50 per TH/s is $60 per Sierra. If you think other designs are cheaper to build (excluding chp cost) that would be $25 per KNC Jupiter or $20 per Bitfury-400. Say I gave you 1.2 TH/s (or 0.5 TH/s, or 0.4 TH/s) of free chips show me how the balance of the system can be made for those prices. Seriously I would like to see the break down, even a crude guesstimate which gets you into that range. Pay close attention to DC regulator (VRM) costs and power supplies they are more expensive on a $/GH basis than you might first think.

Even a generous (I would say unrealistic) scenario of:
8 cent per kWh
20% cooling overhead (PUE 1.2),
no real estate overhead,
$500 per TH hardware
1 year break even for miners
-----------------------------
= network equilibrium at ~225 PH/s.

So it is more like "end game" of <225 PH/s (eventually) at current exchange rate even if my hardware cost is double what is possible. It kinda shows how silly projections of >650 PH/s in less than a year really are. Don't feel bad I have seen projections as high as 20 EH/s.