Recommended FPGA Hardware
IMPORTANT: Zetheron Technology does NOT manufacture or sell any FPGA hardware; however, on this page we explain which hardware we recommend you use, and where you can buy it. Please view our profit table and downloads page for more information on the daily profit of each card. As of November 20/2018, if you want to buy a card that is in stock, the CVP-13, BTU9P and MA-X1 are in stock at their various online shops.
- Bittware CVP-13 water cooled ($6000): https://store.mineority.io/sqrl/cvp13/
- TUL BTU9P ($3599): https://shop.fpga.guide/collections/all/products/btu9p-by-tul
- Xilinx BCU1525 ($4000): https://store.mineority.io/sqrl/bcu1525/
- Krunchlabs MA-X1 ($3650): https://www.krunchlabsminers.com/collections/frontpage/products/mining-accelerator-ma-x1?variant=13828511400005
- TalentPros TPS-1525 ($TBA): https://fpga.guide/en/buying-others/
- Cairnsmore5 ($1599): https://www.enterpoint.co.uk/products/cairnsmore-5/
- Bridgelink KU040 ($549)
- TUL water block for VCU1525/BCU1525 and modded DC1613A voltage control cables: https://shop.fpga.guide.
- Dimastech Water block for VCU1525/BCU1525: http://shopusa.dimastech.com/dimastech-xmv-cool-waterblock-for-fpga-board-xilinx-vcu1525
TalentPros TPS-1525 Preliminary Review
We recently received a TalentPros TPS-1525 FPGA mining machine for software development purposes. The unit has many amazing features. It is compatible with all VCU1525/BCU1525 bitstreams, but unlike other cards, the device is enclosed and self standing with an incredible air cooling system that is both incredibly effective and extremely quiet. Running the 15GH/s 0xToken bitstream, the FPGA holds at around 54C, but the amazing thing is the voltage regulators hold a temperature of 52C despite drawing over 200 amps! The fans are incredibly quiet, you could have the unit running next to your TV and you would barely notice it! As quiet as a water-cooled machine without the cost or hassle. The unit also features a GUI interface called m-View that allows automation of mining functions including storing and auto-booting from dozens of bitstreams stored on a micro xD card, as well as bitstream loading and voltage control without ever needing to use Vivado or any other utilities. You can preconfigure different command line mining programs and wallets and switch between them either by the GUI or by remote control with VNC. This is definitely the easiest to use VU9P FPGA device on the market at the moment and the fact that it is compatible with existing VCU1525/BCU1525 bitstreams is great news for software availability. There is also a direct USB interface to the board management controller so future bitstreams can easily implement live voltage control. There is also a second USB-style port that is used to connect a blue USB-style cable to an included PCIe riser card if you desire PCIe connectivity (while Zetheron bitstreams do not need PCIe, other developer’s bitstreams do require it, so it is great that it is readily available as well). Here are some pictures, notice the red dialog box where it shows the extremely low VRM temperature of 52C! Please note the unit has two 8-pin PCIe power connectors but you must provide your own power supply. In the photos I have a 1200W ATX supply sitting on top of the TPS-1525:
Bitstreams are Unique to Each Board
As explained in the Overview section, FPGA software is hard-coded to a single piece of hardware. It is not possible to ‘run’ a single build of FPGA software on different devices. The hardware devices Zetheron has chosen to support have been carefully selected in terms of favorable price-to-performance ratio (ROI, return on investment).
Porting software from one FPGA board to another is a tremendously time consuming task. If you happen to come across a different piece of FPGA hardware (not on the ‘supported’ list), and are hoping that someone will be able to ‘port’ the software to your board, that is unlikely to happen as the effort required is tremendous.
Even hardware platforms with the same FPGA required extensive work to support. At the moment the primary FPGA’s supported by the Zetheron mining platform are the VU9P, VU13P, KU040, KU5P and KU15P. However, just because you see a random FPGA card that has one of those FPGA’s, it won’t be compatible with our software because:
(1) Each FPGA comes in different variants with differing number of pins, and different rated heat/power dissipation.
(2) The pins to which the manufacturer has connected the clocks, reset, and USB-UART pins are different, and the clock sources are of a different frequency.
(3) Each board has different power limits. Since mining requires more power than classical FPGA applications, most existing boards simply cannot provide enough current to the FPGA.
(4) Different boards use different methods to interface with the external environment. The Zetheron software expects a USB-UART interface with either an FTDI (FTXXXX) or Silicon Labs (CP21XX) interface IC. Some boards do not have USB-UART interfaces at all, and only support PCIe or gigabit ethernet interfaces.