Russian start-up makes room crypto heaters for $ 4500 apiece

Startup Comino has released "the world's first liquid-cooled GPU trusses," which simultaneously work as heaters in a room. This is a very useful quality, if you have not yet turned on the heating in your apartment or, for example, your workplace is on an unheated balcony, like the famous Boomburum office (one of the most popular articles in the history of Habr). For the harsh Russian winters such a heater would come in handy if it were not for the incredibly high price. The device offered to buy for $ 4500.



The cryptoheater works quite quietly (30 dBA) and gives 210 megahesh / s during mining Etherium. It has 8 graphics cards for mining Asus Mining P106.



According to the calculations of the developers, based on the current rate of Etherium, the device mines cryptocurrency at $ 10 per day, that is, 18,000 rubles. per month when paying for electricity about 4,500 rubles. per month at current rates.



Asus Mining P106 mining video cards run on an Nvidia GP106 GPU and represent a certain variation on the GeForce GTX 1060 gaming graphics card, which is based on the same processor. The differences are that on the map for mining there are no HDMI and DisplayPort connectors for the monitor, although the cutouts for these connectors are preserved.



As in the usual GeForce GTX 1060, the processor in the Asus Mining P106 graphics card is equipped with 1280 CUDA cores operating at a frequency of 1506 MHz, and in boost mode - up to 1708 MHz. It also has 6 GB of GDDR5 memory with a frequency of 8 GHz and a bus width of 192 bits.



In the original version of Asus Mining P106, ball-bearing fans with anti-dust protection and extended service life are used. But Russian startups have assembled a custom water cooling system.















Entrepreneurs say that due to water cooling, it was possible to raise the hashrate by 10%, compared with air-cooled cards, up to 210 Mchesh / s.



The dimensions of the box are 39.7 × 63.2 × 15.2 cm: this is about five times smaller than that of the same truss on air cooling.



The CEO of Comino, Evgeny Vlasov, said in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper that the heating heater “runs on unique software” and “is built in Germany.”



It is also known that the venture fund Exantech, created by the investment company Exante, invested $ 10 million in the Comino startup.



At the moment, the company has produced only 10 devices and itself mines cryptocurrency on them. Another 600 devices the company intends to make for sale.



Obviously, it is more profitable to install mining farms in the regions of Russia where there is an excess of electricity generating capacity and the lowest electricity tariffs . For example, in Moscow the tariff is 5.38 rub / kWh (with VAT), and in homes with electric stoves - 4.04 rub / kWh (with VAT). When differentiating by time of day, the most profitable mining naturally falls at night - 1.79 rubles / kWh (with VAT) in houses with gas stoves and 1.26 rubles / kWh (with VAT) in houses with electric stoves. But in the regions close to nuclear power plants and hydropower plants, tariffs are much lower. For example, in Krasnoyarsk, not far from the largest Krasnoyarsk hydropower plant at 6000 MW in one of the industrial regions of Russia, the cost of electricity for the population is 2.37 rubles / kWh (including VAT) - more than twice cheaper than Moscow. In homes with electric stoves, the rate is 1.66 rubles / kWh (with VAT), and at night - 1.00 rubles / kWh (with VAT).



The Russian authorities are considering the possibility of introducing preferential electricity tariffs for mining farms . To begin with, they plan to launch a pilot project in one of the Russian regions.



One such device is enough to heat a room of 25-30 m², Yevgeny Vlasov assured . He expects that the residents of cottages of 100 m² will buy four to five heaters. Thus, they will be able to save on installation in the boiler house and the heating system, and instead generate $ 40-50 per day per mining during the cold season.



But independent experts warn that in our time, mining can no longer be considered as a source of income, since miners have become very much and they earn less. So over time, the Comino mining farm will become just an expensive heater.



The investment manager of the venture fund Runa Capital Konstantin Vinogradov believes that the installation of Comino can also be viewed as an “art object” because of its high cost.