# [Sponsored Review] BITMAIN Antminer S7



## cam51037

*BITMAIN Antminer S7 ASIC Review*

BITMAIN is an ASIC chip development and manufacturing company based out of Shenzhen, China. The company started business in early 2013, and the first ASIC they released was the Antminer S1. This was a very popular ASIC because of it's size, pricepoint, as well as the fact that it was a great home miner: it had low power consumption and was fairly quiet. Since then BITMAIN has increased their operations and now sells PSU's, as well as cloud mining contracts. Since the release of the S1, Bitmain has also released a variety of USB miners, the Antminer S2, S3, S3+, S4, S4+, S5, S5+, and of course, the S7.

*Before I begin this review I want to say that this miner was provided to me free of cost from BITMAIN for reviewing.*

Description of the Antminer S7 from the Bitmain website:

Quote:


> *Hashrate:* 4.86TH/s
> *Power Consumption: *1210W at the wall (with 93% efficient PSU)
> *Efficiency:* 0.25J/GH
> *Chip Quantity: *162 BM1385 chips (28nm, 54 chips per hashing board, 3 hashing boards total)
> *Cooling: *2x 12038 fans
> *Network Connection: *Ethernet only
> *Price: *$1823 USD + shipping




*A big thanks goes out to both Jihan Wu as well as Yanhua Qin from BITMAIN for setting us up with this review copy.*

*Shipping and Unpacking the Unit*

Similarly to most other ASIC manufacturers and resellers, BITMAIN's shipping of this review unit was very quick. It made its way from Shenzhen, China to my doorstep in Saskatchewan, Canada in under 48 hours. The shipping speed is impressive, but needed when shipping ASICs, because every day truly counts when trying to make a full ROI with a miner like this. I didn't have to pay shipping for this review copy unit, but after doing a few estimates, it looks like shipping this unit to Canada costs about $50 USD. BITMAIN requires that buyers cover the cost of shipping when purchasing ASICs from them, so if you're thinking of investing into one of these devices it's something to keep in mind.

Although I was very pleased with how quickly the unit was shipped to me, I was disappointed with other factors of the shipping. BITMAIN didn't set up any sort of customs broker, so I was required to do so. I was notified by UPS about this not one, but five times (five different phone calls all within two hours of each other, I can't blame BITMAIN for this though) and the fee for them to broker a parcel through Canadian customs cost me an extra $10 CAD. The other unpleasant surprise I received was when I received the device. I suspected that I would have to pay some sort of customs fees, but in the end I was required to pay $131.48 CAD to accept delivery of the package. This fee covered both the customs fee, as well as the fee UPS charges to broker the parcel. The good news is I've heard that US buyers don't need to pay these fees, they're only required to pay the $10 charge to have UPS broker the package through customs for them. So if you're planning on purchasing an Antminer S7 and you're located in Canada, expect to pay an extra $150 USD to cover all the shipping charges for the miner.



The box I received the Antminer S7 in, before being opened.

After opening up the box, I saw that the unit was safely packed with thick styrofoam protecting both ends of the miner, elevating the middle section of the miner. The entire miner was bubblewrapped as well, so it was shipped very securely. Included with the miner was a short instruction sheet from BITMAIN on powering up the miner, and a few safety tests to do on the miner before powering it up for the first time. However, it was clear to me that BITMAIN didn't put much effort into this instruction sheet. There were lots of mistakes on the double-sided document, such as referring to the device as the Antminer S5+, which is a completely different miner. The document also said that the unit takes 16A of power, which is untrue. On a 120V line, it only takes about 10A. BITMAIN also claimed that most home circuits can only supply 10A of power, when in reality most North American home 120V circuits can actually supply 15A.



The included document. Inaccuracies have been highlighted.



The miner after being unboxed with included instruction document.

After I had unpacked the miner and checked everything out, I decided to plug it into my power supply to see how it would really perform.

*First Impressions and Setting up the Antminer S7*
I found the Antminer S7 very easy to initially set up. You plug in 10 PCI-e 6 pin connectors to the device (3 connections for each of the three hashing boards, and then one connector to power up the controller), plug an ethernet cable into the controller, and power it all up. A very nice feature BITMAIN included in the Antminer S7 is DHCP. In the S1 through S4 models, users would have to manually configure a local network address if their home network wasn't on the 192.168.x.x subnet. Manually configuring the miner with it's own IP address was a real hassle, since it required a PC to be done. Since the release of the S5, BITMAIN has included DHCP capabilities, which makes configuring the miners much easier if users don't use the 192.168.x.x subnet, especially if they're trying to configure multiple miners. It's worth mentioning that the S7 appears to have the same controller as the Antminer S5+. That means that the controller has a total of nine connections for hashing boards, but the Antminer S7 only has three boards. This might mean that users would be able to connect a total of nine S7 hashing boards together on one controller, but I didn't have the resources to test this theory out.

After I had plugged the miner in, I needed to find it's local IP address. Once again, BITMAIN makes this easy by offering MinerLink software called "IPReporter". When IPReporter is run, it lists all of the Antminer devices on a user's local network. The user can then navigate to that IP address with their web browser to access the miner's configuration settings and general information. From there, all that the user needs to do is set up their mining pool credentials, and the miner will do the rest.



The miner's web interface status page. This page gives the user plenty of info on how the device is running.

All in all, setting up the device was very easy, and I was very pleased to see that BITMAIN is using DHCP for their miners. The only feature that would be nice to see would be the ability to connect to the internet wirelessly with this miner. Older BITMAIN models had wireless capabilities, but it appears that this functionality wasn't included in the S7.

*Performance*
After I had configured pool information on the miner, it started hashing away exactly as it should. After giving the miner some time to even out the hashrate, it hashed away at an average speed of ~ 4.68 TH/s. That's a little lower than what BITMAIN advertised for this unit (about 0.18 TH/s lower) but it's still very impressive that BITMAIN was able to fit that much power into a miner this size. Keep in mind that this is the stock hashrate as well, and I'm sure that it could be increased by overclocking the miner. However, it's worth mentioning that after a BITMAIN miner is overclocked, the warranty on the unit is voided. I'm not sure how BITMAIN determines that the device was overclocked, but that's something to keep in mind if you plan on overclocking the Antminer S7.



The miner all set up and hashing.

In my testing, the Antminer S7 took about 1210W from the wall while mining. The miner was being powered by a LEPA 1600W PSU (~91% efficiency while powering the Antminer S7) and I estimate that the miner is actually using about 1101W from the PSU for powering the hashing boards and controller. This makes the S7 a very impressive device in terms of efficiency, in my findings its efficiency is about 258.5 W per TH/s at the wall. This is a huge advancement for BITMAIN considering their previous miner released only about a month ago (the S5+) had an advertised efficiency of about 445W per TH/s.

My review copy miner stayed fairly cool as well. The web interface on the miner reported that hashboard temperatures ranged from 46C to 50C after a solid 9 hours of mining, with an ambient temperature of 22C or so. I also used a Fluke IR thermometer to take temperature readings on the outside case of the device and was very pleased with my findings. The average temperature of the metal casing on the miner seemed to be in the 23 to 26C range, so there is very little heat being radiated out the sides of the metal casing. The controller board and all cable connections were very cool as well, the controller board was at 23C, and all cable connections were in the 22-23C range as well. I was pleased to see that all cable connections were cool, but that's because BITMAIN splits the majority of the power load (the three hashing boards) up amongst 9 6-pin PCI-e connectors. I also tried to take some temperature readings of the inside of the device, and found that the highest internal temperature of the miner was 44C, which was only a couple degrees off from what the web interface was saying at the time.

*Power and Acoustics*
As I mentioned above, the Antminer S7 takes about 1210W from the wall with an efficient PSU. Although the S7 has amazing efficiency compared to any other miner currently available, 1100W is a lot of power for just the two fans on the miner to dissipate. The S7 uses two standard sized 120mm fans that are about 3.5cm thick and blow *a lot* of air. However, although they blow a lot of air, they are also very noisy. I took some noise level measurements with an app on an Android phone (so these numbers may not be exact) and the fans are about 100dB loud right in front of the miner, and 70dB loud one meter from the fans. To give a real life example, the fans are slightly audible about 40 feet away from the miner and through a door. The fans sound a lot like a vacuum cleaner, and they seem to have a sort of high pitched whine to them as well. I definitely wouldn't recommend this for a house miner, but if you have a garage or warehouse to put the miner in then that would be a better fit. I tested the miner in my home, and found that the miner was audible everywhere on the same floor as the miner, and slightly audible on other floors as well.



The power usage of the miner straight from the wall.

The fans on the miner are software controlled and offer some customization as well, which is nice to see. BITMAIN includes 2x 4 pin fans, and the controller has extra fan headers so a total of up to 6 fans can be connected to the miner. As for customization, the user is able to set a static speed for the fans to spin at. So if the user wants the miner to run a little hotter but quieter, that can be manually set inside of the web interface for the S7.

*Reliability*

My review copy of the Antminer S7 was very reliable, and only shut down when I shut it down. In my testing with the unit, the hardware error percentage was very low, in the 0.0083% area at stock frequencies. The S7, like all other BITMAIN miners, automatically starts mining as soon as it's powered up. That's very nice in the case of a power failure, when the power comes back on the miner will automatically start mining again without any user interaction. The only real maintenance I foresee the Antminer S7 needing is a dusting out every few weeks, and possibly the occasional firmware upgrade. Other than that, the S7 is a "plug and forget" type of device in the fact that after you complete the initial pool configuration, basically no other maintenance is needed.

*Conclusion*
Overall, I like the Antminer S7 for the most part. Although the stock fans are very noisy, it's a well designed device, and with BM1385 chips right now I'd definitely argue that it's the best miner currently available, in terms of technology. However, the current list price of the miner is very high. BITMAIN is selling S7's for $1823 USD (7.877 BTC) at the time of this writing. Currently, the Antminer S7 earns about 0.043 BTC per day mining straight bitcoin. This means that if the bitcoin difficulty stays constant (which I don't think it will, it's already showing signs of increasing a few percent per week) it would about 185 days to break even, without paying for power. According to the TradeBlock Mining Calculator, if the average North American purchased an Antminer S7 for $1823 USD and started mining with it in early October, they would only earn about $1325 USD back by September 2016 (that calculation assumes that the bitcoin price won't fluctuate, and that the difficulty will increase by 7% per month, which I suspect is a conservative estimation).

If the price of the S7 drops to the 5-6 BTC range in the near future (next month or two) I think it would be a decent buy if you aren't paying for power, or your power costs are very low. I know that there are $100 off Bitmain S7 coupons floating around right now for cheap prices online ($10 to $20 USD) so if you can get your hands on them, then that would probably make the S7 a better investment.

In conclusion, if BITMAIN lowered the price of the S7 to something a little more fair, for example, 5.5 or 6 BTC, then I'd definitely recommend this device to users who can put up with the noise of the machine, or have a building detached from their home to store the miner in. Right now I think that the S7 is fairly overpriced, probably due to the fact that it's the most efficient miner currently available, and I think that BITMAIN is charging more so for the technology inside the machine rather than the actual hashing power of the device.

*Have any questions for me regarding this unit, or see any inaccuracies in the review? Post them below and I'll try to answer/fix them for you!*


----------



## MattyMatt

Quote:


> Although I was very pleased with how quickly the unit was shipped to me, I was disappointed with other factors of the shipping. BITMAIN didn't set up any sort of customs broker, so I was required to do so. I was notified by UPS about this not one, but five times (five different phone calls all within two hours of each other, I can't blame BITMAIN for this though) and the fee for them to broker a parcel through Canadian customs cost me an extra $10 CAD. The other unpleasant surprise I received was when I received the device. I suspected that I would have to pay some sort of customs fees, but in the end I was required to pay $131.48 CAD to accept delivery of the package. This fee covered both the customs fee, as well as the fee UPS charges to broker the parcel. The good news is I've heard that US buyers don't need to pay these fees, they're only required to pay the $10 charge to have UPS broker the package through customs for them. So if you're planning on purchasing an Antminer S7 and you're located in Canada, expect to pay an extra $150 USD to cover all the shipping charges for the miner.


The old brokerage fee scam! UPS now goes ahead and looks up pricing even of samples and will declare them so that they can charge their scam fees! You're lucky it was so low!

UPS and FedEx are death for shipping. Always use a national carrier or DHL, that's the only way the brokerage fee will be reasonable.

I am wondering if there is really any point in mining bitcoins. By the time you could turn a profit with this, there will already be a new, more powerful unit. It's just an endless cycle.


----------



## Deuce65

Is there really any need to review this (or any other miner for that matter)? What I mean is, you wrote a good review regarding the hardware, but really all anyone needs to know about this device is that it costs 7.877BTC to purchase and can be expected to generate 5.671BTC over the course of the following year (after which it becomes essentially worthless), all the while sucking down 1250 watts continuously.
Isn't that all you really need to know? Pay 7.877 now to get back maybe 5.671 later?

You allude to this towards the end where you say it may be worth getting in a month or two when the price drops, but you forget to mention that the price drops, but the amount it can be expected to mine drops just as much, so it will be as unprofitable then as it is now.


----------



## ENTERPRISE

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Deuce65*
> 
> Is there really any need to review this (or any other miner for that matter)? What I mean is, you wrote a good review regarding the hardware, but really all anyone needs to know about this device is that it costs 7.877BTC to purchase and can be expected to generate 5.671BTC over the course of the following year (after which it becomes essentially worthless), all the while sucking down 1250 watts continuously.
> Isn't that all you really need to know? Pay 7.877 now to get back maybe 5.671 later?
> 
> You allude to this towards the end where you say it may be worth getting in a month or two when the price drops, but you forget to mention that the price drops, but the amount it can be expected to mine drops just as much, so it will be as unprofitable then as it is now.


While some points are more pertinent in reviews, an all round review covering more of the subtle points are just as important, perhaps more important for some









Great review, covers all the points for me, though still not sure if the benefits of such a device is worth the overall cost of electricity used. Will have to look into it more.


----------



## kaistledine

Good review ! Thanks
Shame about the sneaky fees !


----------



## Duality92

If someone uses only electricity as heating, it would be an efficient way to make money. It wouldn't cost you extra for heating since it'll be compensated by these. So the electricity costs wouldn't be more. You could just mine during colder periods though.


----------



## LancerVI

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Duality92*
> 
> If someone uses only electricity as heating, it would be an efficient way to make money. It wouldn't cost you extra for heating since it'll be compensated by these. So the electricity costs wouldn't be more. You could just mine during colder periods though.


Doesn't that defeat the purpose though? I understand that'll heat a room, but what about spring and summer. You need this to run 24/7 365 for any hope of turning a profit right?

I don't know, I'm asking.


----------



## Duality92

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LancerVI*
> 
> Doesn't that defeat the purpose though? I understand that'll heat a room, but what about spring and summer. You need this to run 24/7 365 for any hope of turning a profit right?
> 
> I don't know, I'm asking.


Probably, I don't really know either, I just know the electricity costs can be negated during winter.


----------



## DefCoN

So to sum it up, it is not profitable at all because of the increasing difficulty of mining bitcoins.....it's a waste of money unless you're doing it for hobby reasons, or you're just rich and don't care how long it takes to turn a profit.


----------



## ENTERPRISE

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LancerVI*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Duality92*
> 
> If someone uses only electricity as heating, it would be an efficient way to make money. It wouldn't cost you extra for heating since it'll be compensated by these. So the electricity costs wouldn't be more. You could just mine during colder periods though.
> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't that defeat the purpose though? I understand that'll heat a room, but what about spring and summer. You need this to run 24/7 365 for any hope of turning a profit right?
> 
> I don't know, I'm asking.
Click to expand...

Generally what has always been on my mind as well lol.


----------



## cam51037

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MattyMatt*
> 
> The old brokerage fee scam! UPS now goes ahead and looks up pricing even of samples and will declare them so that they can charge their scam fees! You're lucky it was so low!
> 
> UPS and FedEx are death for shipping. Always use a national carrier or DHL, that's the only way the brokerage fee will be reasonable.
> 
> I am wondering if there is really any point in mining bitcoins. By the time you could turn a profit with this, there will already be a new, more powerful unit. It's just an endless cycle.


I didn't choose UPS for shipping, but they only charged me $10 for brokering the package and I'm fine with them charging that. I know I could have done it myself, but I was pretty busy and for $10 I'd rather they do it. The remaining $121.48 went to the Canadian government, and I don't think there's anyway to get around that fee. I've had miners shipped via DHL before as well, and had to pay taxes on them as well.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Deuce65*
> 
> Is there really any need to review this (or any other miner for that matter)? What I mean is, you wrote a good review regarding the hardware, but really all anyone needs to know about this device is that it costs 7.877BTC to purchase and can be expected to generate 5.671BTC over the course of the following year (after which it becomes essentially worthless), all the while sucking down 1250 watts continuously.
> Isn't that all you really need to know? Pay 7.877 now to get back maybe 5.671 later?
> 
> You allude to this towards the end where you say it may be worth getting in a month or two when the price drops, but you forget to mention that the price drops, but the amount it can be expected to mine drops just as much, so it will be as unprofitable then as it is now.


The review should be useful for anyone interested in purchasing this device. I tried to provide insight in things you might not see instantly from the BITMAIN product page, such as acoustics, reliability, as well as the import fees bit. I'm also trying to answer any questions that users have about the device if they're planning on purchasing it, so they get the information they're interested in.

When I wrote this review, the miner cost ~ 9 BTC shipped. So when I say that purchasing it in a month or so for 5-6 BTC might be a better idea, I think it would be, since this device currently would only earn about 1.3 BTC per month before power costs. So if you purchased it new, after a month you'd still be about 7.7 BTC in the hole. If you purchased it a month from now for 5 or 6 BTC, you'd be ahead of somebody who purchased it brand new for 9 BTC.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kaistledine*
> 
> Good review ! Thanks
> Shame about the sneaky fees !


You're welcome! The fees are a bit of a pain, but like I mentioned in my review, I heard that US buyers don't need to pay those kinds of fees when receiving the miner. I've heard of one person being charged ~ $30 USD for delivery of the miner, which is much better than the $130 CAD I was charged.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LancerVI*
> 
> Doesn't that defeat the purpose though? I understand that'll heat a room, but what about spring and summer. You need this to run 24/7 365 for any hope of turning a profit right?
> 
> I don't know, I'm asking.


If you plan to try and turn a profit with the miner, yes, it would be best to try and run it 24/7.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DefCoN*
> 
> So to sum it up, it is not profitable at all because of the increasing difficulty of mining bitcoins.....it's a waste of money unless you're doing it for hobby reasons, or you're just rich and don't care how long it takes to turn a profit.


Not exactly true. If you have free power I'd guess that you'd have a very good chance of turning a profit with this device. If not, I'd say it'd definitely be harder but still probably doable.


----------



## MattyMatt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cam51037*
> 
> I didn't choose UPS for shipping, but they only charged me $10 for brokering the package and I'm fine with them charging that. I know I could have done it myself, but I was pretty busy and for $10 I'd rather they do it. The remaining $121.48 went to the Canadian government, and I don't think there's anyway to get around that fee. I've had miners shipped via DHL before as well, and had to pay taxes on them as well.
> The review should be useful for anyone interested in purchasing this device. I tried to provide insight in things you might not see instantly from the BITMAIN product page, such as acoustics, reliability, as well as the import fees bit. I'm also trying to answer any questions that users have about the device if they're planning on purchasing it, so they get the information they're interested in.


You received this as a sample. Samples aren't supposed to carry customs. I am really surprised they only charged ten dollars though.
http://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs_clearance.html
You were taxed on a retail price of roughly 1200 CAD.
I think you only paid 10 bucks because they used one of the express shipments options. Usually they use that table.


----------



## ENTERPRISE

Import Tax does not apply to Samples or Gifts  As long as it is marked appropriately then Tax charges should not be applicable !


----------



## MattyMatt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ENTERPRISE*
> 
> Import Tax does not apply to Samples or Gifts
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As long as it is marked appropriately then Tax charges should not be applicable !


In Canada it still applies to gifts. Only samples valued at zero carry no tax.


----------



## cam51037

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MattyMatt*
> 
> In Canada it still applies to gifts. Only samples valued at zero carry no tax.


That's why I was charged for this miner - they claimed it was worth $1823 USD (which was the retail price when the unit was sent out to me).


----------



## snaf2k

it probably takes 3-6 months to receive one after paying for it


----------



## cam51037

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *snaf2k*
> 
> it probably takes 3-6 months to receive one after paying for it


It depends on which batch you order. It might take a month or two max, but a three to six month delay doesn't happen.


----------



## snaf2k

hm last time I ordered from
*Spondoolies-Tech - Israeli company 5TH/s miner for $3750 in November 2014 - now it costs around $1800
*


Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!



*http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/products/sp35-yukon-power-shipping-from-stock











*


*It was the best and fastest single server miner available - newest technology)*.
Took me 3 months to receive it and shipping was crazy. Plus warranty was so messed up- no refunds, no replacements, any problems call DHL since it was covered. But worst part was that by the time I received miner - coin price dropped to $300 from $700 and I was stuck in debt already.

Installing it at home was crazy.
I even ordered $600 sound isolation for H2 servers: http://www.xrackpro.com/XRackPro2-4U-Noise-Reduction-Enclosure-Cabinet-Blk-p/xr-nre2-4u-us-blk.htm


Miner was using power connector 6-20 plugs so I had to rewire my electric boxes and charging from wall around 3500W.
The fans in power supply were so loud with high pitch noise that you need to create special room for it with A/C no less than 50F temp or it sounds like you are vacuuming 24/7.

In the end it took me month and a half to earn some money on my bit wallet and I sold it to guy in Pensylvania for $2500 - which was a steal since he'd save 6 months of wait time and get same warranty options as the company selling them, plus I'd add more.

that this is loud - any PSU over 2,0000w sound like a freaking jet plane. - keep it in sound isolated room with great cooling or move to garage, but also make some sound isolations and maybe water cooling chassises, like make water sealed boxes that fit miners and put those boxes in cold water tanks filled with dry ice (LN2) or just ice in water. This way you can lower fan speeds and make it very silent)

P.S.
The best solution to make it quite was actually getting universal waterblocks for those 15 chips with heatsins (about $600) and make simple D5 loops for $600 - - so for $3,000 you could have it running silent


----------



## Iwamotto Tetsuz

What does this unit do?
Look at ASIC quality in chips like cpu gpu ram?


----------



## anwar416

OMG i was charged 349 CAD by customs. I shipped by DHL and they came back asking me to fill some forms with description of the item and Value. Next day they send me a 349 CAD bill


----------



## MattyMatt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anwar416*
> 
> OMG i was charged 349 CAD by customs. I shipped by DHL and they came back asking me to fill some forms with description of the item and Value. Next day they send me a 349 CAD bill


This why you ship only with companies that pass off to Canada Post.


----------



## anwar416

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MattyMatt*
> 
> This why you ship only with companies that pass off to Canada Post.


I got another one today and was charged 290$ by Fedex. Almost 60$ difference.


----------



## MattyMatt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anwar416*
> 
> I got another one today and was charged 290$ by Fedex. Almost 60$ difference.


Would've probably paid 0 with Canada Post...


----------

