Bitcoin Miner Antminer S15 Review

Bitcoin Miner Antminer S15 Review

Antminer S15 adopts a new 7nm chip manufacturing process, which has a long mining time, energy-saving, high performance and durability, energy efficiency, and low power consumption. According to the official website parameters, the Antminer S15 has two built-in mining modes: high-performance and energy-saving. The energy/hash ratio is 57J/T in high-performance mode and 50J/T in energy-saving mode.

AntminerS15 parameters

Model	High-performance mode	Energy-saving mode
Rated hash rate	28TH/s ± 5%	15.5TH/s ± 2% – 18TH/s ± 2%
Energy consumption	1596W ±7%	775W ±7% – 900W ±7%
Power Efficiency	57 J/T (at 25°C)	50 J/T (at 25 °C)

Antminer S15 Appearance

Using a new all-in-one miner and side-by-side fan design, the box of the Antminer S15 has changed from the previous cuboid to a nearly cuboid compared to previous generations. Outer box size: 486*388*265, weight: about 8.7kg.

Inside, two custom-made foams firmly encapsulate the miner in the box from the left and right sides to ensure the miner's safety during transportation. There are gaps around the foam for easy access.

Unlike the single-cylinder dual-fan design of the S1-S9 series, the Antminer S15 adopts a single-sided parallel fan design and an integrated miner + power supply design. The size of the whole miner is only 279*175*221, and the weight is only 7.13kg.

Antminer S15 is small and tidy; the air inlet side and the mining machine interface side are on the same side, the fan is canceled on the air outlet side, and a baffle with a honeycomb design is used.

The advantage of the all-in-one miner design is that it reduces the number of data cable connections, making the miner’s appearance more concise, and the use and operation, and maintenance are more convenient. The connection between the Antminer S15 and the power supply adopts a snap-on design, and data cables still connect the control board and the hash board.

The model, hash rate, and ID barcode are marked on the miner's body. The miner supports vertical and horizontal installation, and workers can choose the appropriate installation method according to the size of the mining farm rack.

Antminer S15 internal dismantling

Note: The new miners are affixed with fragile stickers when they leave the factory. Please do not disassemble them by yourself. Miners who disassemble during the warranty period may affect the warranty!

1. Remove the fan and the connecting cable

The Antminer S15 uses two fans with a power consumption of 3.14A to provide heat dissipation for the miner. In addition, the parallel fan design can shorten the heat dissipation path and reduce the wind resistance, further improving the heat dissipation efficiency of the miners. For the sake of appearance, the connecting wires of the fan power supply and the control board are tied with ribbons, so these connecting wires should also be removed when removing the fan. Then the four connecting wires between the control board and the hash board should be removed.

2. Remove the power supply

First, use an electric screwdriver to remove the connecting piece between the power supply and the miner, then press the iron piece under the power outlet and push it forward to remove the power module. Compared with the previous 6pin interfaces of various Antminer series, which need to be plugged in one by one, the design of the all-in-one miner provides greater convenience in operation and maintenance. The S15 is also connected to a voltage regulation cable that controls the power supply voltage regulation on the control board to realize the conversion between standard and low-power mode mining.

Antminer S15 is equipped with Bitmain's first 7nm BM1391 chip, and a single chip integrates 1 billion transistors. In addition to improving performance, the chip package of BM1391 abandons the traditional Overmolding plastic packaging method and adopts the Exposed Die packaging scheme. In this scheme, the back of the wafer is directly in contact with the heat sink, and the heat transfer efficiency of the chip is greatly improved. It can be seen on the hash board that the S15 hash board is only equipped with a heat sink on the backside of the chip.

The most significant advantage of the improved heat transfer efficiency of the hash board is that it reduces the area occupied by a single hash board, more chips can be placed in a unit volume, and the reduction of heat sinks also allows miners to make smaller and convenient. The S15 has 4 built-in hash boards, and each hash board is equipped with 72 BM1391 chips, totaling 288.

Antminer S15 is equipped with a new APW8 power supply with a high conversion rate, reducing the loss in the power conversion process during use and using miners to save energy. The APW8 power supply provides an output of 16.32-20.04V, with excellent quality and high-quality materials, and it is equipped with two 40BH-12E 12V 0.35A fans for power dissipation.

The area of the Antminer S15 control board has been further reduced to 115mm*95mm compared to the size of the previous series.

Antminer S15 28T dismantling complete picture

Antminer S15 and Antminer S9 Hydro water cooling appearance comparison

Just looking at the S15, we can't perceive the shape and size of the miner; here, we have made a simple shape comparison with the water-cooled miner S9 Hydro of the Antminer series.

Antminer S15 and Antminer S9 size comparison

Antminer S15 installation and debugging

The design of the Antminer S15 all-in-one miner reduces the link of plugging and unplugging the power cable of the miner. Instead, just place it on the rack and plug in the power cable and network cable to complete the hardware installation.

For the configuration of Antminer S15, please refer to Antminer S15 Manual.

Antminer S15 data measurement

Antminer S15 has two built-in mining modes: standard and low power consumption, so we tested the two modes for 24 hours. The test environment temperature was about 17 dBA, and the noise value was about 36 dBA.

After the miner is turned on, the fan runs at full speed, the power consumption is about 25W and gradually increases further, and the noise level is up to 81.2 dBA.

Test in high-performance mode

Power consumption: After the miner's chip is fully running and the hash rate of the control page reaches 28T, the miner's power consumption is measured to be between 1610-1620W, which is in line with the officially announced level of 1596W ±7%.

Noise: Due to the low ambient temperature, the fan's rotational speed is stable at about 3120 rpm. The measured noise value in the operating environment is 76.5 dBA, and the measured noise level is 67.7 dBA at a distance of 2 meters from the miner. Therefore, the noise level is controlled correctly.

Temperature: Antminer S15 has four hash boards, and each hash board has four temperature sensing modules. The minimum temperature of the chip is 44 degrees and the highest is 78 degrees. Thanks to the Exposed Die packaging solution, the air outlet temperature is about 42 degrees. The temperature of the power outlet is about 28 degrees.

Because the Antminer S15 adopts an all-in-one design, we also tested the temperature of the contact point between the power supply and the miner hash board. It can be clearly seen that the temperature value of each point is different.

Hash rate: After a 24-hour test by the btc.com mining pool, the 24-hour average hash rate of the Antminer S15 was measured to be 28.56TH/S. Thereby, the unit energy efficiency ratio = 1620W/28.56≈56.72W/T is calculated, consistent with the official data of 57 J/T.

Test in power-saving mode

Power consumption: After checking the option behind "Low Power Mode" on the Antminer S15 mining pool settings page and saving the application, miners can run in low power mode. After the hash rate of the miner's control page reaches 17T, the measured power consumption is up to 836.6W, and the operational data is in line with the official data of 775W ±7% - 900W ±7%.

Noise: Since the hash rate and power consumption have been reduced, the fan speed is stable at about 2400 rpm. The measured operating environment noise value is 77dBA, and the measurement is about 66dBA at a distance of 2 meters from the miner. It can be seen that the noise level is similar to Almost the same in high-performance mode.

Temperature: The minimum temperature of the four hash board chips is 25 degrees, and the highest is 62 degrees. The air outlet temperature is about 30 degrees, which is slightly lower than that of the high-performance mode, and the temperature of the power outlet is about 20 degrees.

The temperature value of the contact point between the power supply and the miner hash board.

Hash rate: After a 24-hour test by the btc.com mining pool, the average 24-hour hash rate was 17.5TH/S. Thus, the unit energy efficiency ratio is calculated = 836.6W/17.5≈47.8W/T, which is lower than the official data of 50 J/T.

Summarize

· There are two built-in mining modes. The measured power consumption ratio per unit of hash rate under energy saving is lower than 50W/T. The lower the power consumption ratio, the lower the shutdown coin price.

· All-in-one design reduces the loss of cable materials, beautiful and convenient.

·Exposed Die packaging scheme improves heat dissipation efficiency, increases the number of chips per unit volume, reduces heat sinks, and reduces the weight of the whole machine.

·Using a new AWP8 power supply, easy to disassemble and assemble.

·Compared with other miners, the whole miner has lower noise and lower temperature.

·The hash rate of the whole miner is stable and fluctuates little.

Antminer series has evolved from S1 to S15, and the hash rate has also evolved from 180G/360W of S1 to 28000G/1600W of S15. This is a digital evolution and accompanied by the ups and downs of the Bitcoin industry; miners are upgrading, Bitcoin is moving forward, and the ten-year journey of holding coins has left many stories in the chain circle, currency, and mining circle.

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