The next GPU for scrypt mining

[shwackd]

Hey everyone, and thank you for having me here. I'm wondering if somebody can give me some insight as to where scrypt mining is headed in terms of hardware. I understand that 7950s are the current winner when it comes to putting a rig together, but I am wondering if there is something right around the corner I'm going to wish I had waited for?

[Stouse49]

AMD is coming out with new cards (or is it just a rebranding of the old cards?):
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/08/amds-r7-and-r9-graphics-cards-mantle/
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/pages/amd-radeon-r9-2013sept25.aspx
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635.html

So far I haven't found any information about how fast these are at mining scrypt.

In the Bitcointalk forums, there are some posts about FPGA's for scrypt:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172164.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=306018.0
http://www.cryptoindustries.com/

[shwackd]

Thank you very much. It seems like FPGAs could change the scrypt mining scene just like asics did to bitcoin.  If that's the case, I don't want to spend all my money on  a super rig with 4 or 5 GPUs if it's just going to be laughable in 2 months. 

[TazMan143]

Hey guys.
 New to this. But been mining another coin for a while. The FPGA's are not a problem as of now. The ones that are out there are very expensive and they don't provide very high hashrates. The best one out there is providing 250KH/s  for about $250.00. You can get Gigabyte or Sapphire 7950's for $200.00 or less. The 7950's provide 680 - 690KH/s. So the FPGA's are not a threat for now. They need to find a way to get the price down. But I don't see that happening for while.

[AZIZ1977]

Hey guys.
 New to this. But been mining another coin for a while. The FPGA's are not a problem as of now. The ones that are out there are very expensive and they don't provide very high hashrates. The best one out there is providing 250KH/s  for about $250.00. You can get Gigabyte or Sapphire 7950's for $200.00 or less. The 7950's provide 680 - 690KH/s. So the FPGA's are not a threat for now. They need to find a way to get the price down. But I don't see that happening for while.

But i think within 1 year we will see the first affordable FPGA's.

[gort]

this shows you what you should expect from current gpu's/cpu's https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

[Ch3rub]

Hey guys.
 New to this. But been mining another coin for a while. The FPGA's are not a problem as of now. The ones that are out there are very expensive and they don't provide very high hashrates. The best one out there is providing 250KH/s  for about $250.00. You can get Gigabyte or Sapphire 7950's for $200.00 or less. The 7950's provide 680 - 690KH/s. So the FPGA's are not a threat for now. They need to find a way to get the price down. But I don't see that happening for while.

But i think within 1 year we will see the first affordable FPGA's.

Crypto Industries looks interesting; however the middle unit (5MH/s) is  4U 19″ rack mount enclosure, this is quite a beast! The company made it clear we should not expect those to be cheaper than GPU rigs. They will be more power efficient for sure, but the investment cost will be higher.

I think we're safe for now tbh, ASIC killed SHA256 mining because of it's hashrate. Looking at FPGAs and the fact the biggest one available is 10MH/s I don't see this to be much of a danger for GPU mining.

Still, would love to get my hands on one of those bigger units 

[jedimasta]

Does anyone know where to find more info on how to setup new FPGA system to mine coins, I work in a company that has electronic engineers/programmers none of whom has had of Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency.

I've briefly discussed the whole thing with some of them (I'm pretty new to it myself) but I'm sure if I had some info on how to make some cash that they would be willing to help in at least exploring the possibility of putting something together.

As far as I know they use Xilinx based systems in house for various projects, so I'm thinking they may be interested in getting involved, I had spoken to them a while ago about it based on bitcoin but I lost interest when I seen that the new asic designs were taking over, maybe now is the time to look into it for other coins GLD etc.

Any links, ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Electro]

when difficulty will start to skyrocket with LTC, you will know that scrypt ASICs have arrived... My bet: mid-dec 2013 (not commercially available, but hashing privately for the builders, like in BTC).

[jedimasta]

New mobo specifically for mining
http://www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?cat=News&ID=1765