Bitmain Unveils New 18 Terahash Water-Cooled Bitcoin Miner

On August 23, the China-based firm Bitmain Technologies revealed the company’s latest mining device, the Antminer S9 Hydro. The newly manufactured rig is a water-cooled SHA256 miner that commands a hashrate of around 18 trillion hashes per second (TH/s).

Also read: Innosilicon’s T2-Turbo Bitcoin Miner is Powerful, But GMO’s B3 is Still the Champ

The Antminer S9 Hydro

Over the past few months, numerous companies have been revealing new and more efficient bitcoin miners. Firms like GMO Group, Innosilicon, Halong, Ebang, and Canaan all have revealed new devices, making the cryptocurrency mining industry very competitive. One of the largest mining companies in the world, Bitmain Technologies, has also been releasing miners, but most of them have been for various alternative cryptocurrency algorithms. Now, Bitmain has revealed its latest Antminer S9 Hydro that utilizes an innovative water cooling system that is less noisy and more energy-efficient according to the company.

The S9 Hydro boasts a hashrate of around 18TH/s and claims to have a wall power consumption of around 1,728W (which is less than a typical home tea water heater). Bitmain says the S9 Hydro’s water cool system can provide “heat dissipation” and people can use the S9 Hydro-Hex external water circulation module for heating rooms in their homes or garages. The company thinks that much larger mining farms located all around the world can utilize a bigger outdoor water source. According to Bitmain’s specs, while operating the chip temperature is around 5°C, which can help the device’s overall performance and efficiency. Bigger mining facilities with an outdoor water supply tethered to the new S9 Hydros will save roughly 8-12 percent in electricity costs, Bitmain claims. This is because in contrast to air-cooled mining rigs with fans, the water is allowed to cool the entire system within the miner’s housing.

Longer Operations, Reduced Noise, and Dust Control

The cooling system not only ensures longer mining operations, but the S9 Hydro also shows strength when it comes to noise reduction. Most miners these days are pretty loud and some facilities have been so loud that neighbors complain. According to Bitmain, the new water-cooled Antminers under testing show the new rigs “decrease noise by up to 20dB compared with air-cooled miners.”

Bitmain explains that the S9 Hydro’s features will help bigger facilities as far as maintenance and operation costs are concerned. The company claims that over 95 percent of the S9 Hydro’s power consumption can be moved externally into a water circulation supply which will greatly reduce dust particles entering the machines as well. The S9 Hydro looks much larger than the traditional Antminer and resembles the size of GMO Group’s new B3 design.

The new B3 and its 7nm chips still outperform every device sold on the market today, but Bitmain’s newest release looks as if the concentration was spent on longer operation life and noise reduction. 18 trillion hashes per second (TH/s) is still very fast and competitive among current machines these days, and a water cooling system shows some unique innovation within the mining industry.

What do you think about Bitmain’s newly announced S9 Hydro Antminer? Let us know what you think about this machine in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Bitmain Technologies

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