The first time from Jan 23 2013, we will enjoy a RED difficulty change or get trapped by ASICs manufacturers!?
Up to now: network hashrate: 114,206,200 GH/s vs 120,391,236 GH/s (last change).

Anyone know what procedure is for overclocking?  I note from other threads about s2 that the overclocking is done by editing the config file while ssh in the miner. Will it be the same?

Just to know if this S3 ROI or not, made simple maths:

lets imagine i buy 50 S3.

50 S3 = 23900 GH/s without overclock
25 pairs x 1,48 BTC = 37 BTC = 23888.57 $

And for power costs, i calculate around 34 $ S3 without overclock month(costs 0.18 $kwh). So 34 x 50 = 1700 $ month all together.

Right now, if you have 23.900 GH/s you earn month --> 14083.18 $

So imagine:

14.083$(earnings) - 1.700$(power) = 12.383 $ month.

We have difficulty increases, yeah, but right now, i see next difficulty will be 15998489889.0 -4.9% [est.], is that correct??. Difficulty decrease?. Anyways, i think S3 ROI, but of course im just a noob here and its just my simple maths 

I dont have to buy PSU also, as i have 2 corsair CX750M from my S1´s

If the difficulty doesn't rise, yes you will ROI, but that won't happen!

If you honestly think you'll make any money with this thing, it's simply delusional. Good luck with your investment as you quite clearly haven't done the proper calculations and sat down to think about everything properly.

In fact the only way I saw you could make money with this thing. Mine for 3 months and then sell it on eBay or somewhere else that will attract the silly, immature, inexperienced miners that think they are getting into a gold rush for a good price. Some might consider that a little sneaky or dirty as your selling to someone inexperienced, but if you want to make money this is your only way. On top of that you also have to be based in the US (Or anywhere else that won't get charged VAT, tax and other such delivery custom charges), have a cheap nd working PSU already in your possession and pay very minimal fee's for electricity (or get it for free, which most of you lie about getting anyway to make others jealous).

I posted my calculations in the other thread about the ROI for the S3. It simply doesn't exist and still looks that way in my opinion. I had a lot of money to invest in these, but at 0.7 BTC upwards, it's laughable. Only way to make profit was at a selling price lower than 0.6 BTC.

I enjoyed reading this reply, for once someone with similar realistic views I completely agree with everything you have said. What I should have also mentioned within my post is that I too enjoy mining for fun rather than ROI, obviously if ROI is there then it's an added bonus. But I enjoy mining purely for the interest in the community, the progression of the bitcoin and for the fun of it. With all of my calculations being said, I still plan on buying a couple of these and like I said previously, mining for 2-3 months and then selling them on. I'll probably make a very slim profit but it will have been a fun hobby to take up some of my evening time.

All of that aside, I just hate seeing posts like "OMG, just ordered 4 of these, can't wait to be making so much money!" The typical, I've just heard about this 'bitcoin mining' craze and I'm gonna triple my investment! bla bla bla.

As lots have mentioned though, BITMAIN have already mined the shit out of the best difficulty with the S3's and probably (I obviously don't have the figures to back this up) have made a lot of money over their original investment in hardware for the S3 before they even put them up for sale. Then add on top the amount they make from selling them, even at the current price, they will fly right off the shelf's because of these big businesses bulk purchasing or the silly unrealistic people like previously mentioned who haven't done their homework and just lost interest in research as soon as they saw the money they 'could' be making. All of that taken into consideration, why would they lower the price of the S3? The only possible reason for that could be if they were interested in securing the future of these silly over-eager miners to become return customers. Otherwise once they realize they have lost money they won't likely be returning haha. That, or the market takes a turn.

Another thing that is also interesting at the moment is the difficulty swooping down. Assuming the total hash rate has just dipped, I'd guess a couple big players have simply dropped off the market for now (could be too encourage sales into the market now, which would be a very clever marketing tactic). This is all complete speculation though as I haven't properly checked the hash distribution charts, nor have I been keeping track of their progression in the past couple days. Been too busy with my job, a real secure income! haha

Sorry for the long post, I do enjoy these conversations though. Although I'm relatively new to mining, I find the whole structure of it fascinating!

Maybe the down trend is Bitmain taking units offline from their S3 farm in order to package them up and ship.

Yeah that's who I was considering being one of the 'big players' but still with the rate hardware production is going I wouldn't be so swayed against a levelling out difficulty.


Yeah that's true. I forgot to factor in the BTC price rise in my posts. It's a very legitimate argument, so hard to predict when the bitcoin has actually hit it's maximum, which it very likely hasn't. It's always a gamble 

I think the argument goes like this:

1) Buy BTC for $$
2) Purchase miner with BTC
OR
2) Hold BTC you just bought

When you purchase the miner, you are hoping that it will return more than the BTC it cost to purchase it, otherwise you would have better been served by just buying and holding.  Regardless of what the price of BTC does, if your miner does not make back the BTC it cost you to purchase it (plus any other additional costs like electricity, power supplies and cooling) then you've lost on your gamble.

One thing you do get by purchasing a miner with your BTC is the ability to then later sell that same miner, whereas if you just bought and held BTC, you've got exactly what you started with.

Yep, some lucky dogs (jupiters owners) were able to mine for 2-3 mo, then sold Jups for 2-3 times their price in $$.
This feat would never repeat itself, though.
Just buying BTC is incredibly boring-what are you going to do-twiddle your thumbs as you observe your stash online and post on bitcoinalk regarding upcoming $1mil price?