Bitcoin Mining Equipment. ASIC Bitcoin Miners
|Review of Antminer S5, its details, and characteristics
Please check the review and characteristics of the equipment that is based on the cost of hash, electrical effectiveness. Find the best mine-workers for a productive and effective business.
Bitmain Antminer S5 is the second version of Bitcoin mine-workers that is now available for purchase on the Internet. In this very article, you will be able to find out about the equipment, its characteristics, advantages, and shortcuts, so you can make a decision whether it is a good purchase for you.
Advantages
This is the equipment that will suit a low budget
It has got second-hand units that can be purchased for less than $200
Low power at 590 W
This equipment is excellent for learning, training, and experimenting
Shortcuts
Bitmain Antminer S5 works quite loud because it has only a single fan design
Low hash rate – only 1155 GH/s
Is AntMiner S5 relevant for today’s mining?
This very piece of equipment was released back in 2014. It was one of the fastest and most effective ASIC mine-workers that were available during all this time. Even Spondoolies-Tech SP20 wanted to use it. However, new modern of mine-workers came very quickly and impressed with more interesting and useful functions, therefore, S5 became not as relevant as its founders thought.
However, when it comes to hash rate or power effectiveness, this very model can easily compete with modern ASIC constructions.
Can the model S5 still be used today?
Of course, AntMiner model S5 can be reviewed today and considered for purchase if you prefer to buy a low budget product. However, if you do so, you must not rely on a big profit and transmodeling electricity into bitcoins.
Supply for power
This model will work excellent when the power is around 115 V. It will use maximum 590 W. In this case, the equipment will run without giving you problems with any ATX power supply. It means that you can use the power supply from your old computer or someone else’s unit for mining bitcoins.
Please notice that the effectiveness of power supplies is estimated as gold (10% of all electricity waste), silver (20% of all electricity waste) and bronze (30% of all electricity waste). A really good thing to investigate for you if you are interested in providing bitcoins is the effectiveness of power supplies. Those power supplies that are ineffective and have no influence will waste electricity and create unnecessary noise and heat.
Check the list of power supplies that match AntMiner S5 model.
Here is what we recommend to use with AntMiner S5.
If you have model 650 or 750 W, it is best to get the power supply unit from the Corsair Enthusiast Series Bronze Certified. It will cost you around $100 to get this power supply unit and match the model for the best result. This product has a good reputation around Bitcoin equipment for mining. The Bronze series provide a great value. You will be impressed with its high-quality and reliability.
Notice that you will not need a special 9 V capable power supply unit if you use the model S5.
What is the approximate profit when using AntMiner S5?
To find out what can be your profit you can use a reliable source which is called CoinWarz’ Bitcoin mining calculator. This tool is very useful for counting your possible income when using a certain equipment. When you want to define your profit, you should use your local power rate, a preferable mining pool, and a possible cost to purchase S5 model by the time when you count.
When you use the calculator, it will automatically add the current price BTC-USD. You will have to join the pool to be able to see any bitcoins from one S5. The chance of solo-mining using one or a few S5 values zero. You also should take into consideration that in July 2016 a reward for block became 12,5 instead of 25 for each block.
The current price of bitcoins is very high if you use the S5 model. Therefore, the results are not as positive as we expected. For the cases when the price of bitcoins has to be double to reach a new record around $1400, the income will still be negative. However, if your electricity price is less than 10c per Kwh it will still be bad even for $700. So, if the price of Bitcoin in higher, power is cheap and there is an adjustment for increasing effectiveness, to get an income from using the model S5 is simply impossible.
Effectiveness of power
For every 0,51 W used AntMiner will produce 1 Gigahash. This index can be shown as 0,51 J/GH. The effectiveness of your power supply unit and the ambient temperature will differ from a real waste of power by the AntMiner model S5.
By increasing the frequency for example overclocking, you can update the hash rate of S5. However, this will increase the requirements for power and cooling the mine-worker. There are different methods from the simplest to the extreme to manage the overclocking burdens. The necessary important gains are reached at 400 GH/s.
The cost
You can buy a new or a second-hand AntMiner on Amazon or eBay. The price range is from $200 to $300. Almost all products are sent from the USA. There is a new AntMinet for $400 that can be shipped from China. However, new equipment is not always in storage, therefore, buyers will have to wait for a certain period of time. Also, you have to consider all possible expenses n the delivery and taxes.
Safety
AntMiner has a limited placement because it is constructed open from the top and bottom and the sides are made from a very light plastic. However, a good thing about a light plastic casing is a light weight which is important for a lot of customers.
Noise
Another disadvantage that we told you about in the beginning of our review is the noise.The noise from the model S5 can be compared to an industrial vacuum. Of course, this is a not very clever purchase for the environment where you live because it will simply make people around feel frustrated.
However, there is a solution to it. If you replace the fan at around 75 decibels, you will decrease the noise.
Temperature
To operate the AntMiner model S5, you will have to maintain the temperate that has to be below 80°C / 175°F. You will extend the model’s maintenance if you keep the temperature below 60°C / 140°F. All mine-workers require low temperature because it has a positive effect on their work.
Set-up
To set up your AntMiner S5 model, see the control panel, and its features, the equipment will look for your IP address automatically. To easily set up the parameters of your mining pool. You will have to update your computer’s firmware and provide the access to the network connection. The MinerLink software will allow you to watch the status of your mine-workers.
The conclusion
It is really hard and almost impossible to say that S5 is a good purchase because it will unlikely bring you profit. Ever. It is better to use it if you are learning or feel curious about various experimentation. This is an excellent platform for discovering different features and learning all about the device’s firmware. This equipment is not expensive for testing harmful operation that would unlikely do on more expensive AntMiner models.