My thoughts on Bitcoin mining power supply and its usage

I hope this question isn't too out there or annoying for anyone, but here goes. I’ve got some experience with assembling computer parts and I used to help a friend who mined using Nvidia and Radeon graphics cards, so I’m somewhat familiar with the scene. To get to the point, I've got a couple of questions. 1. So, power supplies for computers are rated like 80 Plus, Platinum, Gold, etc. and I know Platinum units pull less power from the wall. Are Bitcoin ASIC power supplies designed similarly? Can you just swap one for a Platinum rated unit? 2. Is there such a thing as luck when it comes to Bitcoin ASIC power supplies? I’ve done some digging into how people run their ASIC miners, and I noticed that some miners draw about 100 watts more than others, yet their hashing rates are pretty similar. Sorry if my questions feel a bit off or if this topic seems out of place.

For the past several years large miners use bespoke psu's that cannot be swapped for other ones. Reason is because the psu is controlled by the miner control board which adjusts the voltage up/dn for best performance at any given clock speed, they are not a fixed voltage supply. All are platinum+. Power usage depends on the ASIC's used. Chips from Bitmain, Canaan,and others have different J/TH with generally Bitmain having the best efficiency.

yeah the s17 s19 s21 all have custom psu's and bitmain software does not allow for swapping them. however epic controller with custom soft ware does allow some psu swapping. they can be purchased here. https://altairtech.io/product/epic-umc-universal-mining-control-board/ I prefer these controllers over the stock bitmain controllers.

You've already answered the first question above. In theory, the chips should consume the same power, but chip heating is highly dependent on thermal paste, and some ASIC models have very poor thermal paste. If you keep the thermal paste in good condition, the temperature will drop and the fans will also consume less power.

You can't get that type of lottery from asic miners, if your asic says 3500watts, its definitely going to take 3500watts, unless the miner have a way that you can down clock its hashrate that will reduce the power consumption. If you are looking for a way to get away with Bitcoin mining because of power consumption you can start with small home miners, I know one that takes 1500watts I forget the name, there are few others too with lower power consumption, you just need to find them.

This is impossible, so each ASIC manufacturer writes notes on their website. https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020260330165744306Qb3RQT100632 The Hashrate value, Power on wall, and Power efficiency on wall are all typical values, The actual Hashrate value fluctuates by ±3%, and the actual Power on wall and Power efficiency on wall fluctuate by ±5%. Bitcoin Miner S21 XP has a typical power consumption value of 3645W, but it can be both higher and lower in the range of 3463-3827 Watts.

First off understand that ASIC mining wares are more efficient in mining compared to GPUs even if it's a case both are rated same power consumption. The point is GPUs are efficient in handling heavy tasks that require multitasking but ASICS can handle just one at a time effectively and that's exactly what mining requires. I don't think luck is really a thing here because the power difference you’re seeing is mostly due to chip quality variation and stuff like firmware tuning, temperature and PSU efficiency and not necessarily randomness in the PSU itself.

Weird, this is my first time hearing "lottery luck" on an ASIC PSU. You might be talking about Futurebit Apollo running in power-saving mode; it can draw between 100 watts and 125 watts. However, if you can manually underclock or overclock the unit, you can improve its efficiency, but this is dependent on the ASIC unit, as not all have the option to underclock/overclock. You should check the source and tell us exactly what unit model you are referring to. The most common unit nowadays that are used for lottery are BitAxe Gamma and Lucky Miner.

There are now a wide variety of ASICs that can operate in multitasking mode. The Bitmain Antminer X9 is built on server-grade RISC-V processors, including Sophgo SG2044 chips and 64 XuanTie C920v2 cores. Antminer X5 is based on Sophgo SG2042 chips - 64 XuanTie C910 cores.

Hmm good call well still it's statistically better to get any of these other than a GPU instead of you are gonna be mining only. If both are of same power rating the miner will easily top the charts compared to a GPU with same rating not because it's less powerful but because it's not it's strong suit. Out of curiosity do you run a mining farm? I'm asking because you have a pretty nice experience with mining wares and mining itself too.

I've been mining for 11 years. The problem with these ASICs is that there are no firmware versions for other algorithms, so it's impossible to do it yourself. And I have no idea why ASIC manufacturers don't adapt these devices to other algorithms. I've seen colleagues calculate that it's easier to mine on a Chinese board with multiple processors and have more flexibility in choosing a mining algorithm.

Officially OT here... Those are not ASIC's - they are high performance computers using multiple high end CPU/GPU chips with a sizable amount of DRAM which is why they can be programmed to run multiple algo's. You seem to have forgotten that what an Application Specific Integrated Circuit is: It is a chip designed to do one thing and one thing only, for mining that means it has the logic required to process the SHA256 algorithm using logic gates hardwired into the silicon to do that. ASIC's being dedicated SHA-256 data processors vs general purpose processors is why they are so bloody efficient. They look at a data string fed to the inputs and in 1 clock cycle spit out a yes/no reply to it. CPU's & GPU's shift data around according to their program performing several operations to manipulate it and require many clock cycles before spitting out an answer. The firmware in an ASIC-based miner sets up a SOC that only formats the data going to/from the chips and handles a few other functions such as handling network coms, clock frequency and setting Vcore used.

There's no need to be pedantic; many well-known resources and people write "ASIC" out of habit. Bitmain Antminer X9 (1M) is an ASIC miner designed for RandomX algorithm, https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-x9-1m Technically, the correct word to use is "Miner," as it appears on the official website, but in colloquial speech, it's usually referred to as ASIC to avoid confusion.

Thanks for all your replies, now I understand what I am about to get myself into even better, I'm glad I found this forum. I thought antminer X5 are not sha256 compatible? Or am I wrong? I also want to know the cheapest bitcoin miner that I can get, not for profit making purpose but to use as an experiment or experience kind of, something that won't even cost me alot, very affordable. Since I can't find sha256 miners that can run on PC, I guess they are all long dead and abandoned by Devs.

The Antminer X5 only works with the Monero mining algorithm, and there’s no point in adapting this device for Bitcoin mining. The manufacturer has plenty of ASICs designed for Bitcoin mining. If you’re looking for something cheap, you can find old S9 ASICs on sale for 10–20 dollars, or look for the first-generation S19 ASICs, which will cost 100–200 dollars, but you need to bear in mind their energy consumption.