In June 2016, Bitmain released the bitcoin miner Antminer S9 (refer to: Evaluation on Antminer S9 16nm Bitcoin Miner), which adopted the 189 pieces of the latest BM1387 chips independently developed by Bitmain. The overall hash could reach 11.85 TH/s with 1172W power and 100W/T efficiency. The BM1387 is the 5th generation bitcoin miner chip independently developed by Bitmain, which adopts TSMC 16nm FinFET process and fully-customized designs. The maximum hash of a single chip can reach 74GH/S.
No one ever expected that a classic bitcoin miner Antminer S9 had come into being since then.
According to the experience of bitcoin mining in the past, the life of a bitcoin miner will be terminated with the advancement of technology and increasing mining difficulty. The service life of one miner model is up to one year. Since the first ASIC miner was invented in 2013, such a pace of service life has never been changed.
Since the birth of Antminer S9 series in 2016 and the first Antminer S9 reached the hashrate of 11.85T, different submodels with different hashrate of S9 have been continuously updated including the 13T and 13.5T versions.
In May 2018, Bitmain introduced the upgraded versions S9i and S9j with different levels of hash from 13T to 14.5T. The power consumption was further reduced.
In the winter of 2018 when the market suffered from the cold winter, Bitmain also developed the water-cooling bitcoin miner, Antminer S9 Hydro, with the hash of 18T and the power consumption of 1800W.
Within the past three years, Antminer S9 still dominated the bitcoin mining industry. Here we specially conducted the integrated trial experience of Antminer S9K and S9SE, the latest two models of the Antminer S9 series released by Bitmain.
Appearance
Antminer S9K and S9SE were launched in July 2019, when the bitcoin market just experienced a small peak with the market price of US $12,000. Perhaps this miner was just born for the current market condition.
Compared to the last generation Antminer S9, Antminer S9K and S9SE are much smaller and shorter in terms of the external sizes, the physical dimensions are 321.3*129.6*200mm and the weight is 4.56 kg.
The last generation of S9:
Antminer S9K:
Antminer S9SE:
The three submodels of Antminer S9 have the same number of 6PIN ports. There are three 6pin ports on the three hashboards and one connector on the control board. So, each miner needs 10 6pin connectors. And the new generation of miner adopt the material with better high temperature resistance.
6PIN connectors of Antminer S9:
6PIN connectors of Antminer S9K:
6PIN connectors of Antminer S9SE:
Antminer S9K and S9SE have the same cooling fans and control boards.
Antminer S9K adopts the chip codenamed BM1393B-BGM which is independently developed by Bitmain. The chip process is 16nm and three hashboards carry 180 ASIC chips in total.
Antminer S9SE also has three hashboards carrying 180 TSMC 16nm ASIC chips codenamed BM 1393CE-BGM.
Antminer S9SE is the latest generation of Antminer S9 released by Bitmain. What’s different with the previous generations is that a protective cover is designed for the control board and the power interface. The screws in the rear middle can be removed to facilitate the installation of power cord.
The newly-added cover provides protection for the control board and power interface although more installation process is needed. The appearance of power supply after installation is shown as follows.
Performance Test
The actual power consumption of Antminer S9K(S9K-13.5T) is 1170.1W. The 24-hour hashrate at the btc.com pool is smooth and steady. The average hashrate is 13.38T and the actual power consumption ratio is 87.45W/T.
The actual power consumption of Antminer S9SE(Antminer S9SE -16T) is 1343W. The 24-hour hashrate at the btc.com pool is smooth and steady. The average hashrate is 16.23T and the actual power consumption ratio is 82.75W/T, about 4% lower than that of Antminer S9K.
Summary
Three years have passed and the classic generation of Antminer S9 series continues to occupy a place in the bitcoin mining industry with full vitality. Perhaps the performance of Antminer S9 will last till the end of the flood season in 2019, or May in 2020. Who knows? The time will give the answer.