Hey everyone,
I got back home today after being down for the first part of the build, and I'm extremely tired after a few long days and an hour of sleep last night so this update will be short.

At this point, boards are rolling off the line and making their way through program and test. The majority of the orders place through the website should be able to ship here shortly, so you should start seeing boards in the wild early next week. Right now they boards are programmed and tested at 875MHz which will correspond to a little better than 650GH/s. Like the other HF based devices there's no provision right now for changing the voltage through cgminer, but we will be putting out a tool in order to allow users to change the voltage (to each die individually, if you really want to tweak) which will allow really pushing the boards, or scaling back clocks and volts in the summer to reduce heat load.

More substance and pictures tomorrow.

Now we need to know which PSU and cooler to purchase.

No, the "750gh/s" ones... although I wouldn't bank on more than 650gh/s

I've done a video on it which should be up on http://youtube.com/cryptocurrency in about 24 hours (go and subscribe :-) - there's already a video of the 512gh/s card (which clocked more like 520+gh/s)

Personally I think it's impractical for anyone but the most hardcore tech-head to be able to remove the amount of heat coming from these chips. I defo believe the peppermining board is a better design and their software will allow folks to get a lot more out of the chips, but IMHO the price is a little steep relatively speaking considering the plausible additional hashrate average joe could achieve.

That said, from the specs I've seen posted by MrTeal and Gateway I get the feeling the w/gh will be better from the habanero, although $250 worth of improvement? I'm not sure....

Go with the h100i rather than the h100 - better pump and apparently cools much better.

For thermal paste I highly recommend going with a 100% metal option, like Coollaboratories Liquid Ultra

Power supply I'd suggest 950w+

"going all out" is relative. Instead of using some closed loop system, why not make your own? I honestly think a 2x120mm radiator (let alone 1x120mm) is far too small for such a huge load such as the hashfast chip (600W or more). The included fans likely don't have very good air pressure either.

I wonder about the cost. The boards are already 1100 alone. Tack on PSU and expensive cooling and things start getting iffy. Its fun... but I do want it to at least pay for itself.

The fans are actually a bigger issue than the radiator, to be honest. Most aren't designed to push a lot of air through a constricted spaced. While I was down there we were able to run one of the production Habaneros up to 925MHz with a non-ideal clamping and no backplate (they hadn't come in yet) using an H80i, but it had a high flow 38mm San Ace fan on it. It performs much better like that than a double radiator like the Swiftech H220, Antec Kuhler H20 or Coolermaster Nepton 280L with stock fans.

You could take a  Corsair H110 and replace the fans with San Ace 140mmx38mm. That's like 120 bucks in fans though. So maybe 250 bucks for that cooling solution.

The H100i uses dual 120mm fans. The San Ace replacements in that size... for about 30 bucks per you can get 224 CFM (compared to 77 CFM on the stock fans).  So 200 all in?

Maybe the single fan solution with the H80i will be more than enough though. Maybe 150 bucks?

I haven't done sufficient testing with different coolers, but my gut and some experience tells me that it is better to go the double radiator route since they don't cost much more than a single wide radiator.
Another note is that it is measurably better to have the fans pulling air through the radiator as opposed to pushing it through, just swapping the direction can drop temps by a couple degrees.

Also, the rated CFM on a fan can be deceptive, even with really good brands. Take a look at these Delta ones.
http://www.delta-americas.com/products/FanUploads/Specification/QFR1212GHE-SP01%28REV01%29.pdf
http://www.delta-america.com/Products/FANUploads/Specification/AFB1212GHE-CF00%28REV00%29.pdf

The first one has a little bit higher pressure and lower CFM ratings than the second one. If you look at the graphs towards the end though, you'll see the second fan has a huge drop in airflow once you get past 0.45 inches of water on the graph, while the first one is nice and linear. Into a radiator, the first fan would probably work much better even though it's 210CFM instead of 241CFM.


I can say I really like the Nepton 280L. I really hate the Antec Kuhler H20 1250.