Wow those look really tempting now. Pretty close to a 5970 / 6990 but without the power, heat, or noise. But as was said, they're only *just* slightly more efficient for MH/$.
I'm not sure slightly is the right word here......
BFL Single 813Mh/80w = 10Mh/1w
At
BEST, a 5970 can
MAYBE to 5Mh/1w when it is underclocked / undervolted.
So if you consider
DOUBLE the Mh/w to be
slightly, then maybe I'm dumber than I have been thinking.
Ultimately what this means is, a BFL single will be profitable a lot longer when the next significant downward event happens in price or subsidy.
Sorry Giga, I think I was focusing on price moreso than efficiency. Obviously your #s are right and no a 5970 wouldn't be anywhere near close.
I was wondering to myself though if FPGAs can still be used for anything else except mining. I know the market will continue but if it were to crash, I'd believe GPUs to have some resale value vs FPGAs which I don't know what else you could do with.
FPGAs are good for people who have high power costs, not great areas to mine with cooling, and perhaps a lack of space though. 4 of them would edge out the price of one (full w/case) rig + 3 5970s pretty well (let's estimate 3,200 MH VS 2,200 MH) by quite a good margin, though 3 FPGAs and you're kind of close there. I would again just wonder what else they could be used for before turning my entire operation into FPGA blocks.
Actually with the price of 5970's at a little over 400 dollars right now + MB/CPU/Memory + PSU you are looking at an investment of about 1700 bucks (for 3 5970's).
3 of these are 1800 bucks... pretty close comparo if you ask me
I'm not sure if I'm correct or not, but according to
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison, for 5970 to operate
at 800MH/s, each would take 340+ watts, totaling 1320W (for GPUs) + 20 Watts (For the supporting PC) + Inefficiency of the
PSU, that's something around 1400Watt (+/- 10%). Three of BitFORCE consumes 240Watt (less if powered from a high-efficiency
PSU which has 3 outputs @ 12V).
The extra 1000 Watts in the GPU solution, would cost:
144 USD per month in France (19 Cents per kWh)
266 USD per month in Germany (36 Cents per kWh)
66 USD per month in Russia (9 Cets per kWh)
155 USD per month in UK (26 Cents per kWh)
74 USD per month in USA (Average, differs from state to state)
200 USD per month in Sweden (27 Cents per kWh)
Furthermore, GPUs need maintenance, may encounter fan failure, generate noise and heat.
Please let me know if I'm missing anything.
Regards,