Halong Delivers Again: DragonMint B52 Blake2b Siacoin ASIC Miner Review

Halong Delivers Again: DragonMint B52 Blake2b Siacoin ASIC Miner Review

April 16, 2018 by Scott

We promised you reviews of all the hottest mining gear in 2018, and Bitsonline keeps its promises! Today we’re trying out the DragonMing B52 Blake2b Siacoin ASIC miner. Halong Mining recently announced several miners in very short succession, and has shipped nearly all of them in short succession. Siacoin is pretty much the only currently viable Blake2b algorithm coin that can be mined right now. The specs for the DragonMint B52 were very aggressive (to say the least) when announced, and many were wondering not only if it would ship, but if it could hit those goals. Well, we’re happy to say it has done both. Let’s check it out.

Also Read: IrisGuard Wins ‘Innovator of the Year’ by Combining Biometrics, Ethereum

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DragonMint B52 Blake2b Specifications

• 3.83 TH/s (4.25 TH/s during testing)
• 1380 watts (1387 watts during testing 220v)
• Dual Fan
• Ethernet

Miner was provided by MyRig to review.

That’s Some Powerful Siacoin Mining

The B52 arrived safely packed with no issues, along with a My Rig 1680 watt PSU. The B52 has the standard dual fan, tube design using 9x PCIe power connections on the hashing boards, and one for the controller board.

One ethernet connection finishes the physical setup process. The MyRig 1680 watt PSU only works with 220v power, so if you are using 110v outlets take note. We asked if there were alternatives to that issue, especially for U.S. based customers — and there are.

The B52 uses nearly 1400 watts, so you want at least a 1600 watt PSU that will give you some overhead if you are using one PSU. An EVGA Supernova 1600 watt gold rated or higher PSU will run nearly 1600 watts on 110v — if your wiring can handle it. Now this is something to take care with. Most newer home wiring can handle the loads, but we don’t recommend it without having a professional check it out first to be safe.

The other option is using two PSUs. The way you do this is simple: make sure again your outlets’ wiring can handle the load, or connect each PSU to different outlets on separate breakers.

Now, with a miner that needs 1400 watts minimum, you’d need at least one 1100 watt PSU and one 650 watt PSU. The breakdown goes like this: each board uses roughly peak 450 watts; the 1100 watt PSU you connect two boards to; while the 650 watt PSU you connect the 3rd board and the controllers to.

Never connect more than one PSU to one hashing board. This way the power is properly regulated on the board, and can solve the power issue for home and hobby miners. We hope this helps some of the people who sent us emails asking about this issue.

Siacoin Hashrate Centralization

Siacoin is a smaller coin with a growing hashrate, so there’s a limited number of mining pools to choose from. We used Luxor mining to help keep the hash rate decentralized as much as possible.

If you are mining at Siamining, we suggest you move your miners to a smaller pool to help decentralize the hashrate, as Siamining is well over 51 percent of the total — which is not safe for any network.

The DragonMint B52 has a simple-to-use interface, as we detailed in our DragonMint T1 review. The username and password is admin/dragonadmin. Make sure to change the password for the sake of security first thing, once you are in. After you enter your pool info, the B52 comes up to speed quickly and you will see your miner stats show up usually within a few minutes on Luxor’s pool.

Very Happy With the Performance

The DragonMint B52 is very stable like most ASIC miners on the market, but what did stand out was the performance. It was announced at 3.83 TH/s drawing 1380 watts — in our tests it is running at 4.25 TH/s while drawing 1387 watts on 220v. These are very good results indeed.

Halong has made quite a splash with their ASICs in the last couple of months. There are several manufacturers making several different algorithm ASICs (as we have stated before) creating a very healthy mining industry. Unfortunately it has also brought back much of the controversy we went through years ago, when the first ASICs for Bitcoin and then Litecoin hit the market — with some calling for forks to block them (like Monero did) and others embracing them to allow for bigger, stronger networks.

The DragonMint B52 Blake2b ASIC miner is another solid addition into the market.

Keep your eyes on our mining section! We are by no means done yet, there are plenty more coming.

What are your thoughts on the Halong DragonMint B52 Blake2b ASIC miner? Let us know in the comments sections and on social media. 

Images via Scott