Bitmain announced its long-awaited Antminer E9 system this morning. The company claims that the Antminer E9 system has the computational power of a crypto-computing system comparable to 25 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards.
#BITMAIN announces #ANTMINERE9, equipped with a hashrate of 2400M, 1920W power consumption, and power efficiency of 0.8J/M, utilizing the Ethash algorithm for ETH/ETC. E9 is equivalent to 25 RTX 3080 graphics cards. Sales start on July 6, 9:00 AM (ET). https://t.co/Cmx6MJQUuP pic.twitter.com/PU9lvtNEEL
— ANTMINER (@Antminer_main) July 5, 2022
That’s quite an achievement and one that Bitmain is measuring by Ethereum mining performance metrics. In short, its Antminer E9 is capable of 2400 MH/s of Ethereum mining and white consumption of up to 1,920W. Its efficiency is 0.8 J/M.
Since the initial teaser of its Antminer E9, the specs seem to have changed but with no reason given by Bitmain. In April of last year, Bitmain teased that it was planning to launch a special Ethereum mining device that could process 3,300 MH/s using 2,556W and the efficiency at 0.85 J/M. At the time, it claimed it could beat 32 GeForce 3080 graphics cards.
The current product for shipping is believed to provide mining performance comparable to the 25 GeForce RX 3080. But, it appears to be slightly more efficient. Therefore, Bitmain may have altered their Antminer E9 specs for pricing efficiency, efficiency, or some other motive – however, Bitmain did not provide reasons.
Bitmain’s Twitter feed states they believe that the Antminer E9 should be available on the market today. We checked the website a few hours after the advertised hardware sales began however it wasn’t there. It could be available on the Bitmain retail website after a while. However, it’s not shown when the checkbox displays products sold out.
The Antminer E9 has been through a prolonged gestation period since its teaser regarding the Ethereum targeting system in April 2021. At the time, Bitmain said it would launch “very soon,” but the company seemingly encountered problems releasing the ASIC miner. Bitmain didn’t share the pricing for the Antminer E9, either. Cryptocurrencies aren’t such an attractive investment as they were in the pre-war, pre-double-digit inflation, pre-recession spring of 2021.
As well as the crypto crash, which has paused chiefly since mid-June, there is another significant negative to the prospect of investing in a specialized ETH miner today. The oft-delayed ‘Merge’ where ETH mining ends, due to the transition to a Proof of Stake (PoS) model, is firmly penciled in for August this year. Sadly, there have been multiple setbacks, so that it could suffer another delay again.
