x3

In the meantime I'll prob end up see what kindof performance I can get porting some algos using C/C++ to aws f1 instances (same chip as VCU1525 board, V9P)

It looks like there is a free training/tutorial on developing C/C++ using aws f1: https://www.xilinx.com/about/events/virtual-developer-lab.html

that would be nice to see. as an alternate source code

No. The FPGA is used to generate nonces and a few other management-related tasks. There is still a regular ARM CPU on Bitmain & Innosilicon gear which runs the Linux userland, the web interface, cgminer etc.

Yep, nothing (currently) intense is happening on those 7000s. Most just simple system mana game to.

But... expect massively bigger FPGAs in Bitmain tech soon...

Using c/c++ to program an FPGA high performance app is a bit like writing a high performance app in Visual Basic “. Or maybe Python. But it can help learn.

I'm interested in your "M.2 accelerator" especially given your affordable price range. Might be a good way to get feet wet with FPGAs. I sent you a PM regarding this and i understand you won't be posting figures or other details but the community may also benefit from the following general questions:

1. Is this plug-and-play hardware that already includes software which can easily be configured?
2. What about software updates, can we be assured that you will provide maintain these and not leave us with paperweights?
3. Does it come with warranty?

So you are saying these can be used along side GPU to accelerate. What algo’s can this work along with?  Like Ethash?  X16R?

How many can be used with 1 rig?  Do you run 1 fgpa to 1 gpu?  Or 1 gpu to a rig?

How much would that plug & play FPGA cost ? Excluding shipping and VAT custom duties.

Listed a couple posts back (USD at least) I’ve got three versions but seems most interest is in the highest speed.

thats a board with a 50k Logical cells FPGA?

The DE0-Nano-SoC is a great board to get into learning this stuff. I have this and a few of the Max10 50kLE boards that I occasionally use for initial RTL hardware evaluation because their just so easy to work with. Vivado and Xilinx’s tools are steeper learning curve, but definitely doable.

With that said, the Cyclone V 5CSEMA4U23C6N on that board is about 1/5th the logic of what I’m proposing and while it has high-speed DMA to the ARM cores, it doesn’t have any high speed IO such as PCIe to other peripherals. That makes it tough to use outside of single small algorithms (I.e. Keccak).  The $199 version of the M.2 has ~100 Logic Elements and the $329 version has more than 200, capable of running at higher speed. The top package also has 1GB DDR3. Peak power consumption is around 15W from on-board M.2


Here’s an update summary for those catching up on this thread:

1. A few of us have been working on algorithms on FPGAs, and they’re profitable. Whitefire990 intents to release his with miner/dev fee and others of us have decided to share with the community in various forms as well.

2. On the high end the VCU1525, based on the VU9P is a very good candidate for this. It is currently a Xilinx development board on promotion for $3995, but only very small batches are being produced and the price is set to go up. Some algorithms require connecting multiple with high speed links to achieve the best performance.

3. Senseless (and possibly self, if I can be helpful) have been organizing essentially a group buy - but with FPGAs it’s less of a group buy and more of a group build. That is expected to ramp up the VCU1525 style (some power/cooling improvements)  availblility in a similar price envelope to Xilinx dev version. Working on production in US and Europe so it can be available everywhere.

4. I’ve also decided to reveal one of the smaller FPGA options in the $200-350 price envelope that I had developed for internal use and deploy, to provide an entry level option. It has a slightly different set of capabilities from the big VCU1525, but for many things it does scale.

For both hardware offerings from the community (and possibly others) orders are expected to start in June.

These boards are not so much for Ethash (though they can be used to assist/accelerate GPUs in it) , or Equihash. They excel , can improve total system performance on, or are at an advantage on Keccak (and most SHA3 candidate) , Phi variants, NIST5, Timetravel10, Lyra/LyraRev2, etc.

Someone else can chime in if I missed anything.