Antminer S9 Hydro Review

Antminer S9 Hydro Review

The Antminer S9 Hydro evaluated this time is the first time that the concept of water cooling on PC has been integrated into miners. Whether it is a PC or a miner, when performing large-scale computing, the heat of the computing core is very high. The addition of water cooling dramatically improves the cooling efficiency of the miner. Now let's enter the evaluation of the Antminer S9 Hydro. 

Antminer S9 Hydro appearance:

In terms of appearance, the Antminer S9 Hydro follows the overall design style of the Antminer S9. The square and simple appearance gives a solid and reliable temperament and is more conducive to large-scale layout and management.

Antminer S9 Hydro uses high-end aluminum alloy material as the body material. At the same time, in terms of design, for the daily usage scenarios of the miner, the entire design style of the Antminer S9 Hydro tends to be simplified and industrialized. All components are modularly designed, which is extraordinarily convenient for users to install and use. Reduce post-maintenance costs.

On the back of the fuselage, we can see the water-cooling module of the Antminer S9 Hydro. 6 transparent water pipes are directly connected to each water-cooling plate, allowing the water cooling liquid to circulate efficiently on each water-cooling plate.

The top of the fuselage is the main control board that integrates the Antminer S9 Hydro. The front of the control board is from left to right and is equipped with an SD card slot, IP Report button, standard RJ-45 network port, reset button, and miner status light. This design allows miners to set up miners quickly, and at the same time to know the working status of miners for the first time.

In terms of interfaces, the control board needs a 12V 6PIN interface for the power supply, and it also provides 7 4pin fan interfaces; and the main functions of these interfaces are to supply power to the external water drain.

According to the official introduction, the Antminer S9 Hydro integrates two sets of hash rate operation components, and each set consists of 2 hash boards and 3 water cooling boards. At the same time, the distributed design also makes the cooling effect of miners more obvious, and allows each hash board to run stably for a long time.

As a water-cooled miner, the Antminer S9 Hydro also has a dedicated water drain kit. The hot water discharged by the miners is evenly sprayed onto the large-area cooling scales through a special water pump, and the 6 high-specification adjustable speed cooling fans can also quickly discharge the heat of the water-cooling liquid.

The Antminer S9 Hydro external water drain has 6 fans and a water pump with 7 4pin power ports, and these ports can be centrally powered through the control board, which is further convenient for users. Among them, the fan interface also supports the speed adjustment function, and the corresponding wind speed can be adjusted according to the actual temperature of the miner.

Antminer specially provides a power module with model APW5 for S9 Hydro in terms of power configuration. According to the nameplate of the power supply, the power module has a power of up to 12V 216A and a total of 2592W (200~240V environment). Therefore, the design power of the Antminer S9 Hydro is 1800W (±5%), which is enough to drive the Antminer S9 Hydro.

Antminer S9 Hydro installation:

To facilitate the user's early installation and use and later maintenance, the Antminer S9 Hydro adopts a simple installation design. For specific installation steps, please refer to the following graphic installation tutorials:

Step 1: We first connect the water pump and fan interface of the external water cooling module to the miner control board;

Step 2: Put the water pipe clamps on the water pipes (two for each water pipe);

Step 3: Connect the external cold row and the miner;

Step 4: Connect the water outlet of the water pump to the water inlet of the miner;

Step 5: Clamp the connection with a hose clamp to avoid water leakage and damage to the miner;

Step 6: Connect the miner's water outlet to the lowest water inlet of the cold row;

Step 7: Continue to connect the water outlet of the second layer of cold discharge with the water inlet of the water pump, and finally connect the remaining two interfaces;

Step 8: We need to connect a total of 13 6pin interfaces, including the control board, and then connect the power supply to the miner.

Step 9: After all connections are completed, we can twist open the water inlet above the water pump, then pour the water coolant into the water pump, and plug in the miner's power supply;

Step 10: Observe the liquid level of the water pump, and stop pouring the liquid only after passing the water inlet above the water pump.

Step 11: Finally, plug in the Internet cable, and installing the water-cooled miner is complete!

From the perspective of the installation process, all modules of the Antminer S9 Hydro have been simplified and designed to facilitate the use of users further. In this installation process, the most important thing we need to pay attention to is the installation of the water pipe clamp. Compared with ordinary miners, the most feared thing for water-cooled miners is that the water-cooled module leaks and causes the miner to be damaged. The function of the water-cooled clamp is to avoid this situation from occurring effectively.

Antminer S9 Hydro mining pool connection:

In terms of software, Antminer S9 Hydro can manage miners in three ways: web, PC, and mobile. This time, we will give you a detailed introduction through the operation of the webpage.

Step 1: Connect the miner

We need to manage the miners through the management terminal centrally. First, we need to ensure that the miner and the management PC are in the same local area network. Then, after the miner is powered on, we can download a file on the official website of the Antminer to find the actual IP address of the miner.

Antminer IP Reporter:

After obtaining the miner's IP address, we can directly enter the IP address in the browser (Chrome/Firefox browser is recommended) and then enter the miner's account and password in the pop-up box (default: root) to enter the miner management interface.

Step 2: Enter the mining pool and activate the miners

After entering the miner management interface, the next step is to enter mining pools and miners' configuration and management interface.

First, we select "Miner Configuration" to enter the mining pool and miner configuration page. You can see several parameters on the page that we need to fill in. They are URL (miner pool address), Worker (miner name), and Password (Pool key), in which the address of the mining pool and the name of the miner must be filled in, and the key of the miner must be filled in according to the actual situation of the mining pool.

This time, we will use Bitmain's Antpool to demonstrate. First, we need to register an account on AntPool and log in. After entering the login interface, we can see the URL (mining pool address) of AntPool at the bottom of the page. As shown below:

After setting the mining pool URL, we can create a new miner on the "Miner Management" interface of the page. Here you can create the miner's name according to the actual needs. After the creation is completed, we can see the related miners' information.

After creating a new miner, we fill in the miner's name into the Worker option on the miner management side and finally click Save. After a while, the miner will directly enter the normal working state.

After setting the relevant parameters, the miners will automatically enter the mining state and officially mine. In addition, Antminer also provides us with two management methods of PC and mobile devices to monitor the information of miners, and the operation method is also very convenient.

Antminer S9 Hydro actual hash rate test:

To understand the continuous hash rate of this product, it was run and monitored for a day.

Judging from the actual hash rate data, the average daily hash rate of Antminer S9 Hydro can reach 17.87TH/s, and this data is consistent with the official nominal 18TH/s (±5%). In addition, from the hash rate curve, we can also see that the continuous hash rate of the Antminer S9 Hydro can be maintained between 17TH/s~20TH/s during long-term work. Therefore, the magnitude of this fluctuation can be tiny.

Perhaps many small partners will wonder how strong the 18TH/s hash rate is. Here is a brief introduction to popular science. According to the latest news, NVIDIA's latest GTX 1080TI graphics card can only achieve a hash rate of 1.5~1.8GH/s in SHA256 operation after particular optimization. According to the conversion rules (1TH/s=1000GH/s, 1GH/s=1000MH/s), the hash rate level of the Antminer S9 Hydro is roughly equivalent to the actual hash rate of 500 GTX 1080TI graphics cards.

Antminer S9 Hydro power consumption / noise and heat:

After reading the performance, I believe that everyone is also interested in the power consumption/noise and heat generation of the Antminer S9 Hydro. Therefore, we have also conducted related tests for these three parts.

Power consumption test:

In terms of power consumption, the power consumption data officially given by Antminer is 1728W (±10%). In the actual test, the actual power consumption of Antminer S9 Hydro in the stable state was selected this time. It can be seen that under stable operation, the actual power consumption of Antminer S9 Hydro is 1858.9W, which is also consistent with the official power consumption data.

Noise test:

In terms of noise testing, we take the noise of the indoor air conditioner as a comparison object and conduct noise monitoring within 1 meter from the miner/air conditioner. The specific test results are as follows:

Antminer S9 Hydro noise.

Compare the noise of the air conditioner.

It can be seen that thanks to the blessing of the water-cooling module, the six cooling fans of the Antminer S9 Hydro water-cooled miner are all running at a slow speed, which can further reduce the noise generation. Therefore, according to the monitoring, the actual noise of the Antminer S9 Hydro is the same as the noise produced by ordinary air conditioners. At the same time, it is considered that environmental noise will also impact the test results. Compared with other traditional miners that randomly generate noise of more than 70dBA, the noise control of Antminer S9 Hydro is indeed worthy of recognition.

Fever test:

Finally, let's take a look at the heating performance of this product in the mining state whether the blessing of this water-cooling module can suppress the heat generated by the miners well. First, let's take a look at the temperature monitoring of the management side.

Temperature detection (left: 1 hour; right: 24 hours)

In the state of using pure water as the cooling water liquid, it can be seen that the temperature of the Antminer S9 Hydro is still in a reasonably stable state after 24 hours of continuous operation. From the detailed temperature point of view, under full load, the maximum temperature monitored by all cores is only about 65°C~70°C, and the temperature of the PCB can be controlled at about 55°C.

Temperature detection (heat sink)

Temperature detection (power supply area/hash board)

In the external temperature monitoring, we can also see that whether it is the miner itself or the heat sink of the water-cooling module, the actual temperature is only a little higher than the room temperature (27°C). It can be said that in terms of temperature control, the Antminer S9 Hydro It is indeed worthy of affirmation.

Antminer S9 Hydro summary:

In general, Antminer S9 Hydro, under the blessing of a robust hash rate, allows the entire miner to exert its corresponding performance through the external water drain, and users well control its actual energy consumption, heat generation, and noise. It can be said that no matter it is a large-scale cluster mining farm, a small-scale workshop, or even a home user, they can get a good experience. At the same time, the simple and easy-to-understand pre-installation and post-maintenance of Antminer can further improve the user experience.

The content and pictures of this article are from the Internet, compiled and edited by ZEUS MINING.