Considering the lack of hash to watt improvement vs bitcoin asics, you'll likely be sorely dissapointed.
Yeah if you crunch the numbers this "ASIC" is likely just 6 modified RX 580's lol. 12nm GPU's are on the way too, and if they mine 50% better than their previous generations it will make this "ASIC" nothing special.
Definitely interesting. Rumors had this priced in the $2500-$3000 range a couple of weeks ago, so 180 Mh/s for $800 is a pretty major game changer. If the difficulty spike and dropping coin prices weren't enough to kill Eth mining, this will be.
That's not some big game changer Bitmain had planned all long, they lowered the price because no one would buy it if it was priced any higher.
I really can't emphasize this enough: Bitmain only sells bad deals. They do not believe in the concept of win-win, and if you buy from them you have lost.
Their entire business model is the following:
1) Design ASIC around the most profitable mining coin at the moment.
2) Mine with them for months until production fully ramps up to make a quick buck with unfairly powerful machines.
3) Once they are dirt cheap to make, put them on sale for a price that makes it
barely possible for the buyer to profit.
4) Start looking into its replacement while the suckers mine with your old used product.
Now take a closer look at this "ASIC" they have for sale:
1) 160MH/s @ 800w isn't any more efficient than what you can do with a 14/16nm mining rig right now. Heck I could probably do better with 6 x 28nm Fury Nano's!
2) That $800 price tag does
not include shipping or a PSU. That brings the total price likely to ~$1000! [For reference I paid $1200 for a 150 MH/s rig that has been mining for
a year!]
3) Any profitability calcs you do now are meaningless. This thing
ships in July, delays are expected with ASIC's, and it will probably take a couple weeks to arrive after shipping. So this won't get to you until around the end of August. By then who knows how high the network difficulty will be, and more importantly:
4)
12nm GPU's will be on sale before this arrives! Consider the fact that a rig made up of 3 x V100's does 240MH/s at 750w! This "ASIC" is grossly less efficient than what I can build right now, and "Turing" will likely make this ASIC stupid before it even comes out.
In summary, I would buy this ASIC in a heartbeat if it was on sale on Amazon for $800 RIGHT NOW. But it isn't, and most informed people will know that their existing rigs have another 4 months of mining before this even gets into customer's hands, and you may even be able to get superior "Turing Rigs" before this comes out.