Introducing the Antminer S19 Pro
February 2020: Bitmain announced the S19 Pro, their newest flagship miner. At the time of launch it had the best Bitcoin mining specs ever: an impressive hashrate of 110TH/s + 3%, and a power consumption of 3250W + 5%. This put the efficiency was a record 29.5±%5 J/TH. Bitmain also announced the Antminer S19 (95Th) at the same time.
Despite the fact that Bitcoin was $9000 at the time and the halving was right around the corner, the S19 Pro sold incredibly well and was almost never available on the Bitmain website. Units sold for around $3000. On March 1, 2020, 110Th would get you roughly 0.001235 BTC a day, which at prices then was around $10. This meant the implied ROI was 300-days, which was fantastic.
3 years later, demand for this model has surged. Bitcoin’s price surge from the end of 2020 to this date has brought the price of the S19 Pro to $2-3K at the time of writing).
Specifications
The miner measures 370 × 195.5 × 290mm, and weighs 13.2kg. It can be placed horizontally or vertically according to the space within the mining shelves.
The miner dissipates heat with front and rear fans. The maximum fan speed is 6150 RPM. Generated heat is passed to a fan cooled heat sink.
The temperature of the air inlet side of the S19 Pro was 55.1°C (131°F), and the relative humidity was measured to be 70%. On the other hand, the air outlet side was 70.8°C (159°F) and the relative humidity was 32%. The ambient air temperature (taken at 5m away from any mining rack) was taken to be 28°C (82°F). The hashrate displayed on the mining interface was 111.8TH/s, giving the S19 Pro a real efficiency of 29.69W/TH.
Impact of temperature on Hashrate
The operating temperature listed by Bitmain is 5-40°C (41 – 104°F). This means the miner’s intake air should be within this range. In addition, Bitmain also lists a PCB (printed circuit board) max temperature of 80°C (beyond this temperature, the circuit board will lose integrity and may be significantly damaged).
We saw a report saying that 45% of miners in farms are damaged due to excessively high temperatures. This is a ridiculous figure! Most facilities invest more in air temperature monitoring. Temperature regulation is not only important to make equipment last, but also has a measurable impact on Hashrate.
While it’s always been the case that temperature impacts efficiency and miners must be careful to prevent their machines from overheating, previous models like the Antminer S9 and X17-generation did not have such significantly different efficiency (J/TH) levels based on temperature fluctuations within the “safe” operating range. In other words, temperature has always impacted efficiency to some extent, but the effect is greater for the X19’s than previous generations.
The fan speed of the S19 Pro can be manually controlled from the interface. From what we’ve seen, reduction of the ventilation volume to 170CFM (Cubic feet per minute, measuring the flow rate of air starts to yield a lower hashrate.)
S19 Pro Profitability and ROI
Please keep in mind: any profitability and ROI analysis should not be taken seriously. It is highly dependent on market conditions which can change at the flip of a switch. It is much better to track live data.
2021 was an incredible bull market. At the time of this writing, miners were getting 0.00057170 BTC, or 57170 satoshis per day. This translated to $33.52 dollars a day at a current BTC price of ($58,641, October 27, 2021) – factoring in power cost at 5 cents per kWh, this brings profitability down to $29.42/day.
Any machine that can ROI in a little more than a year is a dream for a crypto miner. But experienced miners know this is a pipe dream.
What miners should be thinking about is:
- How do I get these miners as cheaply as possible? Take a look at current listings here.
- How fast will these machines become obsolete?
Nobody can answer the first question, as it relates to the short-term price of Bitcoin.
The second question is more interesting. To evaluate it, we’ll take a look at the S19 Pro predecessor, the S17.
The S17 Pro was released in December 2019. It mines BTC with a hashrate of 53TH/s. By now this is a 4 year old miner. At a time where the S19 Pro (110TH/s) is going for $14,000, the S17 Pro (53TH/s) is selling for $4900. From a pure Dollar per Hashrate analysis, the S17 has depreciated 27%. This is not bad for a device that has been mining Bitcoin for the past 4 years. While Bitmain has not announced any devices at the moment, we can expect the S19 to follow a similar trajectory.
Conclusion
We tested the Hashrate of the S19 Pro 111.8th/s, the power consumption is 3320W.
Despite uncertainty about future profitability, the S19 Pro remains the most popular miner. They are still one of the highest Hashrate Bitcoin miners on the market, and will remain a mining farm staple for a while.
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