I think the next logical step for bitmain is to work hand in had with the developers of cgminer so that we can be able to switch off individual chips (that may be malfunctioning) via the webUI. Seeing the chip count per board (which can be up to 256) has gone up to 30, just shy of the S1 count by 2, despite a reasonable leap in the tech, I think the time is ripe for this kind of developement. At the moment, cgminer (or more likely their obfuscated, closed source PIC fimware) decides when to stop sending work to a chip, but I do not think it is as efficient as can be.

Also, now that bitmain have the new chip and have implemented the string design, I call upon bitmain to:
1. Provide an S3 S1 upgrade kit to the S5
2. Start offering for sale the components of the (soon to be EOL'd S3), i.e the hashing and controller boards.

Happy XMas everyone - bitmain included!

For the S3's there's no enough incentive to upgrade, but if the mounting is the same I'm sure there's a large number of S1s still out there that are getting close to scrap right now even with underclocking. Shipping on 20 chain boards should be considerably cheaper than 10 S5's, and there's got to be some decent savings in materials even with the volumes they get those heatsinks, fans and frames at.

You sell yours if you want. And believe it or not, I actually know what the price of an S5 is, and I am sure you do not do any pricing for bitmain products, so you wouldn't know whether it'd be more expensive.
All in all, thanks for nothing .... better still (and I am tiring of saying this in this thread), if you've got nothing to say, do not say it.

Were you even one of us that actually got an S1 upgrade kit (before they discontinued it in fairly short time, and are quite unlikely to offer again)? It did not include the enclosure panels OR the second fan, and was only BTC0.12 cheaper than an S3 complete package. Therefore, even if your S3 was only worth $50, it would still quite likely be a better net cost on the S5 purchase than an upgrade kit, going on precedence.

Everything he said was relevant and somewhat accurate, not sure why the retaliation...

2 x ANTMINER S5 BATCH 2  with shipping in my country is  975 USD

2 x SP20 + free shipping is still 1000 USD
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/903286.0

But I have to agree with the following commentary:"The best way to make money on SP20 was by waiting."


I bought my first SP20 fof 1350 USD (with shipping)+20%VAT  on September 26, 2014 Shipped  Nov 02
I bought my second SP20 fof 875 USD (with shipping)+20%VAT  on November 11  2014 Shipped Nov 27
I bought some SP20 fof 617 USD (with shipping)+20%VAT  on December 17, 2014 Shipped Dec 21  they are still in Israel, They probably come to me 29.12.2014
Today I get to buy SP20 for 500 USD (with shipping)+20%VAT they are received on 2 January?

Almost every time the price will drop even before, when I get my miners.
I do not like to buy things, the value of which will fall so fast. So I'd better wait.

Bitmain is offering for sale 250 unit BULK LOTS of S3's...no word on exactly how many of these 100+Ths LOTS are available.

The fucking joke is on all of us who buy hardware at ludicrous rates that has already become gravy from the vendor.  It has become crystal clear that by the time Bitmain boxes these miners to ship (which they are also profiting from!) they may as well be throwing them away but why do that when there is an entire community of people with raging hardons to overpay for them!

S5's should cost AT MOST $150USD SHIPPED! This at least would give the buyers a *chance* to turn a reasonable profit.  They just simply are not going to hand over machines that are literally printing money when the fools (us) will wait, hat in hand.

Ultimately I believe this could be the fatal blow that kills BTC but Companies like Bitmain will have long cashed out and be driving Ferrari's by then.

Whether its 'testing', private deployment or in preparation of cloudmining, clearly bitmain is doing something.
https://blockchain.info/pools
IIRC, antpool used to be in the 5% neighborhood. Now they are up to 15% of the network, 3x KnC and bigger than ghash.io (read: bitfury).

The network also appears to be up by >50PH compared to last week, although its anyone's guess how much of that is paycoin miners returning to bitcoin.

the s5 is 1.4btc shipped..
i dont think they will have any problems making that back.. the main question is, what will be the value of btc then..

when i got my s3s btc was 500$ now its 330$.. even tho i made almost twice as much btc on my s3s, the value wasnt exactly worth it.