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(Review/Guide) Antminer S15 27.0 Th/s, 1600 W Bitcoin (SHA-256) ASIC miner

Picture copyright (c) Bitmain.

1) General information, other items needed
2) Unpacking
3) Overview
4) Installation
5) Configuration
6) Testing
7) Power consumption measurement
8] Conclusion
9) How to order

Last updated in: February 2, 2019.

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1) General information, other items needed (top)
Antminer S15 is a Bitcoin (SHA-256) ASIC miner using 7nm ASIC chip technology, manufactured by Bitmain Technologies (headquarters in Beijing, China).
It is a standalone miner with a built-in controller board and a built-in power supply unit.
The advertised nominal hashrate for this particular batch model (27.0 Th/s model) is 27.0 Th/s with a nominal power consumption of 1596 Watts.

It weights 7 kg and outer dimensions are 240mm * 178mm * 296mm.

Bitmain: www.bitmain.com

Technical specifications:

Quote

Antminer S15 (27.0 Th/s model)

Hash rate (high performance mode): 27.0 Th/s
Hash rate (energy saving mode): 16.0 Th/s
Power consumption (high performance mode): 1596 W (+-7%)
Power consumption (energy saving mode): 850 W (+-7%)
Power efficiency (high performance mode): 0.057 J/GH (25 °C ambient temp)
Power efficiency (energy saving mode): 0.050 J/GH (25 °C ambient temp)
Mains supply input voltage (AC): 200 - 240 V_AC
Mains supply frequency range: 47 - 63 Hz
Built-in power supply output voltage (DC, fed to the hash boards): 16 - 20 V_DC
ASIC chip type: BM1391 (7nm SHA-256 ASIC chip)
Number of ASIC chips per hash board: 72 ASIC chips
Number of hash boards: 4 hash boards
Total number of ASIC chips per miner: 288 ASIC chips
Cooling: 2x 120mm x 38mm 12 V_DC 6000 RPM fans in a parallel push configuration.
Weight: 7 kg
Dimensions: 240mm * 178mm * 296mm

Other items needed:
- C13 power cord suitable to your country's electrical socket
- Ethernet cable to go to your router/switch
- Computer to set initial pool and configuration settings.

2) Unpacking (top)
This S15 is a 27.0 Th/s model sold in the Jan. 11 - 20, 2019 sales batch.
It was shipped in Jan. 16 by using Fedex as the courier service,
and delivery time was quite fast as it has always been for me with Fedex.
The miner was delivered to my home in Finland in January 22.

The packing was done really carefully.
There was an ESD bag protecting the miner from static electricity,
and on top of that there were two custom shaped foams protecting it from impacts and shaking.

A short instructions paper for the miner setup was included inside the cardboard box,
but there is also a full setup guide available at the Bitmain website.

Packaging material. Click for a high resolution image. Pictures taken by HagssFIN.

3) Overview (top)
Here is a set of images showing the Antminer S15 miner and the built-in APW8 power supply unit.

Click to show a high resolution image.

The miner looked to be in a good condition and I didn't notice any quality issues while doing the visual inspection
and carefully rotating the miner around to make sure that there are no loose heat sinks inside the miner.

4) Installation (top)
The installation is a very quick process with the S15, because it has a built-in power supply unit.

You need to connect an Ethernet cable to your miner
and the other end of the cable to the router/switch device.

And then you need a good quality C13 power cord which fits into your electrical power socket.
Please make sure that it is rated to be able to handle the over 1.6 kW continuous power load.

The S15 network settings are set to the DHCP mode as a default
and this means that the miner will acquire an IP address automatically from the router's DHCP IP address pool.
You can figure out the IP address fairly easy e.g. by accessing your router web configuration page.

Also, Bitmain has an IP report program called "IP Reporter" available for download at their website.
This program makes it possible for you to use the miner IP report function
and that way figure out the miner IP address.

When the initial setup is ready, power on the miner and start by finding the miner IP address,
After you know the miner IP address, you are ready for the next step, Configuration.

5) Configuration (top)
First you need open a web browser and go the miner IP address.
The miner will ask you for the user credentials.
Default username: root
Default password: root

After that it is time to setup the mining pool settings.
Click and go to the 'Miner Configuration'.

You can put the pool stratum address, username and password for three different pools in a priority order: Pool 1 > Pool 2 > Pool 3.

With Antminer S15 it is also possible to choose the 'Low power mode'.
Please see the 'Energy saving mode' technical specs for more details about the hash rate and power consumption.
The default operating mode is the 'High performance mode'.

After you are ready with the pool settings, press 'Save&Apply'.
This saves and applies the settings and also reboots the mining process.

You can also check the official user guide for both install and configuration instructions.
The official Antminer S15 user guide can be found here:
https://service.bitmain.com/support

Here is a set of screenshot images showing the Antminer S15 web configuration page features.
The web page design is pretty much the same as with previous gen. Antminers.

Antminer S15 web configuration page. Click to show a high resolution image.

6) Testing (top)
When the miner settings were set and ready to go, it was time to test the miner and see how it starts running.

Just like it was with the S9, the S15 hash board frequency settings are also set automatically during the startup process.
A new thing with the S15 is that the control board also controls the power supply unit.
Depending on your settings the output voltage fed to the hash board can be from 16 to 20 V_DC.
The goal with this setup is to get the maximum performance possible.

The miner was first operated in the default 'high performance mode', and the hash rate was
in the 27.38 Th/s area, so there was no disappointment with the hash rate performance.

Miner status page, high performance mode. Click for a high res. image.

The low power mode/energy saving mode also provided to be working very stable,
and it performed well with a 16.62 Th/s hash rate.

Miner status page, low power mode/energy saving mode. Click for a high res. image.

The power consumption was also measured during both of these two tests.

7) Power consumption measurement (top)
The power measurement was done with Perel E305EM6-G energy meter.
Technical specs data sheet (.pdf document): https://www.perel.eu/downloads/22/e305em6e305em6ggbnlfresdptpl.pdf

Perel E305EM6-G. Click for a high res. image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.

First, here is the result with the default 'high performance mode'.

Power measurement, high performance mode. Click for a high res. image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.

A stable result for the power consumption (at wall) was 1586 W,
when the hash rate was averaging in the 27.38 Th/s area.

This gives us a following power efficiency (at wall): 1586 27380 = 0.05793 J per Gh/s.

And now here is the result with the 'low power mode'.

Power measurement, low power mode/energy saving mode. Click for a high res. image. Picture taken by HagssFIN.

A stable result for the power consumption (at wall) was 842 W,
when the hash rate was averaging in the 16.62 Th/s area.

This gives us a following power efficiency (at wall): 842 16620 = 0.05066 J per Gh/s.

With these results in both performance modes, we can notice,
that the advertised numbers are quite close to the actual numbers in the field.

8] Conclusion (top)
The S15 is another big jump in the power efficiency for Bitmain.
It is close to the S9 in the power consumption, with a double hash rate performance.

After some thinking I was quite curious to test the S15,
and so I bought one for test even though it seemed that it is not suitable
for home mining use. Not even in the low power mode.

And my guess was totally correct.. The biggest issue is the power supply,
which produces a high pitch noise with its cooling fans.

But it suits the industrial scale use very well because of the efficient and loud cooling,
and as we know, most of the mining today is industrial scale mining.
So it is what the miners are made for today.

If you got any questions or ideas, feel free to drop them in this thread.

9) How to order (top)
You can place an order by visiting their online webshop at their website.
Beware any possible scamming attempts at other websites.

This is their official website:
Bitmain: www.bitmain.com