Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on October 30, 2013, 07:09:26 PM

Quote from: Puppet on October 30, 2013, 06:51:00 PM

Snipped post to save space.

Well quoting a poorly regulated, low efficiency (70% ouch that is going to hurt power costs) junk PSU, unknown radiator as a substitute for complete sealed waterloop, and "all fans = $0.60" doesn't help your case. Lets ignore the fact that the site you linked to is notorious for bad prices. Ask for a firm quote and see how the prices magically change.

Still lets use your imaginary parts:
Junk PSU: 4*10 = $40
Imaginary complete sealed watercooling system: 3 * $20 = $60 (w/ pump, radiator, lines, waterblock, shipped ready to install yeah right. you pointed out a radiator is $12. Show me where you can get a pump, reservoir, tubing, connectors, copper waterblock, and assembly for $8 more).
Case: $6 (you don't really believe the listed price on alibaba do you. Ever asked for quote on a specific model? Suddenly the $10 special disapears marked up 300% or more)
Fans: 8*$1 ea (its 8 not 2 2 per radiator plus 2 exhaust)

So just these 4 junk components puts you at $74. A $50 per TH/s target gives you only $60 for an entire system. Your already overbudget with just the non-electronic components. There is still the ASICs, minor pcb components, pcb manufacturing, pcb assembly, major assembly, and testing. This also assumes 100% yield, no fixed costs, overhead, taxes, salaries, etc.

Like I said my guestimate of $1000 per system was just a start. I even said you likely can cut that by 50%. That is a huge difference from saying you can cut it >95%+ to meet some silly 650 PH/s estimate.

Thanks by your own junk part links you just disproved $50 per TH/s nonsense. You know it and I know it you just can't admit how utterly silly your projection is. If you can't source the basic non electronic components (power, case/frame/rack, cooling) for $50 per TH/s it is utterly pointless to show that as a projection. Moore's law isn't going to make a PSU or case or fan drop 50% in price this year.

Something about this feels like you blew too much money on HF, D&T.
First, let's toss a few unjustified preconceptions:

1. The chips making up the bulk of hashrate in a year are unlikely to be HF. I can't predict the tech which will be around in a year's time, but a year ago the hottest thing on the block was FPGA. How many of those FPGA boards do we need for today's hashrate?

2. Stop assuming that mining will always be done in the most awkward form factor -- a 4U case with twin PSs & 3 chips, cooled by three radiators & a bevy of fans.
No.
A commercial mining operation can rely on prefab rack units with modular shelving doubling as mounting plates for multiple chip sub-assemblies, complete with quick-disconnect power and cooling. Water cooling will obviously rely on 1 pump/heat exchanger per rack of ~100 chips. Heat exchanger could be a water-to-air or water-to-water. Out in da back. The cool thing about water is it runs through skinny pipes, nothing special.

3. Why is everything being shipped to US in your example? Why not Ukraine, where power costs ~4 cents per KWh?

4. Why are the PSs multiples of PC power supplies? You do realize that mining at scale, bigger, less well-regulated PSs could be used, without the pointless multiple voltages/individual cooling/protection/consumer code/etc.?

5. What makes you think that you know of every chip being developed currently? Not every company needs to skirt the law & fund their NRE with pre-orders. Most normal companies don't. I wouldn't be surprised by unaccountable lumps of hashpower.

If it ever becomes more profitable to mine than to bilk suckers out of their coin, that's exactly what ASIC makers will do.