On April 7, 2019, Bitmain released Antminer S17 series bitcoin miners, which are built with the Bitmain’s second-generation 7nm BM1397 chips.

The Antminer S17 series include five submodels: S17 Pro, S17 and T17. It’s the first time for Bitmain to introduce “Pro” to the S series bitcoin miner.

On April 28, 2019, Bitmain officially released bitcoin Antminer T17 with the hashrate of 40TH/s and energy efficiency ratio of 55J/T. It can support bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH) and other cryptocurrencies based on SHA256 algorithm.

EastShore just obtained the Antminer S17-56T bitcoin miners and conducted an independent evaluation as follows.

Exterior Appearance of Antminer S17

The Antminer S17 is packed in industrial carton with manufacturer information, logistics warehousing information, specifications and model as well as barcode printed on the outside. The size is the same as that of Antminer S15: 486*388*265 and the weight is about 11kg.

Open the carton, we can see the miner is protected by the customized EPE foams on the top and bottom to ensure the safety in the process of logistic transportation. The gaps in the corners are for the convenience of taking out the miner.

Remove the EPE foams on the top, we can see the miner is wrapped in an ESD bag.

The Antminer S17 adopts double fans in parallel for air exhaustion in the front and rear. The overall size is 295mm x 298mm x 180mm, which is slightly larger than the Antminer S15. The gross weight is about 9 kg.

The Antminer S17 adopts all-in-one design and the mining farms can choose vertical or horizontal installation based on the rack size. The most obvious change is that the power supply and control board are bigger. As for the detailed changes, please continue to read the following analysis.

Interior Details of Antminer S17

Remove the cover of the control board, we will understand the secrete of enlarged size. The box of control board is enlarged to accomodate the connection cables, power cord and the connecting pieces of hashrate boards.

In this way, the overall appearance will conceal the wires except for the fan cables, so that it looks neater and simpler. The hidden connecting pieces solve the problem of the previous generation of Antminer S15 whose connecting pieces may be exposed to cause the short circuit with the shelves in the mining farm.

Four kinds of cables are connected to the control board: 4 power cords for cooling fans, 3 connecting cables for hashrate board, the power cord for control board and voltage regulating cables. Now, all these cables are respectively unplugged.

Remove the control board, we can find that the control panel of Antminer S17 has been modified to adapt to the development of new type of miners, except for the interfaces in the front.

Next, separate the power supply box, remove the power connection piece with hex key, and press the clip on air outlet side and push to remove the power supply.

The power supply model of Antminer S17 is APW9, which adopts three Nidec 12V-0.64A fans to provide heat dissipation. After testing, the temperature of air outlet is slightly higher than that of the hashrate board. However, the components inside made of high-quality materials will not affect the miner operation.

Remove the control box after arranging the cooling fan cables. There are buffer pads under the power supply connection pieces in the control box.

Antminer S17 adopts four Nidec 12V 1.65A fans for heat dissipation and each fan is equipped with a metal shield.

After the fan is removed, the internal hashrate boards can be seen. The three build-in boards can be taken out by removing the baffle. Each hashrate board carries 48 second generation 7nm BM1397 chips made by the Bitmain, about 144 chips in total (equal to 144 blocks produced by bitcoin per day, an intentional number).

The Antminer S17 is designed with thoughtful considerations. The cooling fan power cable is protected by an isolation layer to avoid the risk of damage and short circuit.

Compared with the previous generation Antminer S15, the model S17 not only conceal the connection positions, but also adds an insulating protective layer under the connecting pieces.

The aluminum chassis adopts all-in-one molding technology with better and thicker material than the previous series.

The physical size of Antminer S17 is close to that of Antminer S15. Since the hashboard is much shorter and there’s still certain space inside after the hashrate board has been placed, why not to make the box smaller based on the consideration on costs? Most probably it may intend to make more air volume from the air inlet to pass through the heat sinks more evenly.

By observing the hashrate board, we can clearly see there are heat sinks on both sides of the hashrate board with different sizes. The smaller heat sink area on the air inlet side, the larger heat sink area on the air outlet side, which plays a very good role in the balanced heat dissipation.

Overview of a dismantled Antminer S17

Setting-up and Configuration of Antminer S17

Tested by EastShore team, 10A socket can make the miner run but temperature changes should be noticed, especially during hot seasons. Two aspects should be noticed before running the miner:

• Antminer S17 needs two power cables, which are not provided by the manufacturer.
• The power consumption of Antminer S17 is higher than 2200W (220V 10A), so the power socket should be greater than 10A.

For the setting of Antminer S17-56T, please refer to our tutorial: Tutorial: Antminer S17/S17 Pro the Newest 7nm Bitcoin Miner

Test of Antminer S17-56T

Antminer S17 has two mining modes: Standard and Low Power. The EastShore team has conducted 24-hour test on the Standard mode under the condition of 25℃ environment temperature and 45dBs noise level.

The standby power consumption is about 290W without network connection and the startup noise is 85dBs.

Test in Standard Mode

Power consumption: After 12 hours of normal operation, the measured power consumption is 2648W and the peak value is 2660W, which conforms to the official values of 2520W ± 7%. Antminer S17 adopts four cooling fans and the rotation speed is maintained at 6000 rpm. The measured operating noise is 86dBs. The measured noise is 77dBs about 2 meters from the miner. According to observation, the noise of power supply is slightly higher than that of the miner.

Temperature: Antminer S17-56T has three hashrate boards in total. On each board there are four PCB temperature sensing modules and four chip temperature sensing modules. The PCB temperature changes within the range of 43-64℃ and the chip temperature changes within the range of 64-84℃.

The air inlet temperature is about 31℃, the side temperature is 33-34℃ and the air outlet temperature is about 41℃.

The air outlet temperature of double cooling fans in power supply is 45.6℃ and the temperature at the air outlet of single cooling fan is 36.5℃.

Because the Bulls 10A power socket is adopted, the socket temperature is also tested. The highest temperature, about 70℃, is located at the connection between the socket and the wall socket. The wire temperature is 30-34℃ and the interface between socket and tester is 46℃ which is a little high. So, it’s not recommended to use the 10A socket for long-term operation for Antminer S17-56T.

Hashrate: The control board shows that the 24-hour hashrate is 60T. Based on the 24-hour test data from btc.com, the 24-hour average hashrate of Antminer S17-56T is 59.6TH/S. Therefore, the unit energy efficiency ratio = 2648W/59.6 ≈ 44.42W / T

Test in Low Power Mode

Click to select “Low Power Mode” on the “Miner Configuration” page of Antminer S17 and save, the miner will run in low power mode at low running frequency. In the low power mode, the temperature and noise values are almost the same and the power consumption is reduced to 2406W, about 240W lower than the Normal Mode.

Test data of Bull 10A socket temperature: the temperature of the plug connecting to wall socket is about 66℃, the cable temperature is 30-40℃ and the temperature at the socket and tester interface is 47℃. So, even in Low Power Mode it’s still not recommended to use the 10A socket for long-term of Antminer S17-56T.

According to the display of running status on Antminer S17-56T “Miner Status” page, the 24-hour average hashrate is 57T. Based on the 24-hour test data from btc.com, the 24-hour average hashrate of Antminer S17-56T 57.3H/S. Thus, the unit energy efficiency ratio = 2406W/57.3 ≈ 42W / T. It can be seen from the operating status that the operating frequency is slightly reduced from 635 to 605 in the Low Power Mode.

Summary

After 24-hour test by the EastShore, in the Normal Mode, the hashrate of Antminer S17-56T has reached the standard and slightly exceeded the official nominal value. The power consumption ranges between 2646-2660W, the average 24-hour pool hashrate is 59.6T and the overall power consumption ratio is 44.42J/T, which is slightly lower than the official value 45J/T.

In Low Power Mode, the average hashrate of Antminer S17-56T after 24 hours of operation in the pool has reached 56T, which exceeds the official value. The overall power consumption has also reached 2,406W, which exceeds the official nominal value in Low Power Mode. The power consumption is stable and the overall power consumption is 42J/T, which is consistent with the official value.

In addition, based on the disassemble of Antminer S17-56T, EastShore has obviously sensed Bitmain’s continuous pursuit for quality and the progress it has made:

• Exposed power connection pieces in Antminer S17 have been covered
• Power cord of cooling fan is equipped with protective sleeve
• Power connection pieces are equipped with insulation layer
• Four cooling fans are equipped with metal shields
• Balanced air intake space reserved in the chassis
• Heat sinks of different sizes on the hashrate board
• Thickened chassis plates
• Two built-in mining modes with convenient one-button switch
• New all-in-one design of AWP9 power is attractive with convenient installation.

With very competitive power ratio and 7nm chip process, the Antminer S17 series are likely to have a long-life cycle and become another classic product of bitcoin miner as the Antminer S9.