Not that simple: Detailed disassembly of the ZMAX Ethereum mining machine

After a series of tests, this mining machine really brought me a big surprise. The ETH computing power and power consumption were beyond my expectations. It has a much higher cost-effectiveness than the mining machine composed of a simple graphics card. Although the mining ability is strong, the materials used inside must also be reliable! After all, this kind of thing runs at full power all day and night, and the working environment is much more harsh than that of a gaming graphics card. Today we will disassemble this mining machine and see what it looks like inside.

It is very easy to open the mining machine shell. Just use a cross screwdriver to remove all the screws around it, gently lift the edge, and the cover will open. You can see eight mining cards neatly arranged inside, each with an 8-pin independent power supply plug. The processor uses Intel's original radiator. After all, this CPU really doesn't generate much heat.

Intel G3930

All mining cards do not have display output function, so this dual-core processor with built-in core graphics also takes on the task of video output.

Jintek's 4GB laptop memory

Colorful 60GB MSATA SSD

The requirements of ETH mining machines for processor memory and data storage are basically negligible, so other hardware only needs to be able to support the operation of Windows 10 and the mining pool software. The memory used is a single 4GB notebook memory from Jintek. The frequency is not written on the label, but it is estimated to be 2133MHz or 2400MHz.

Mining cards are productivity tools

In fact, the hardware required for the entire mining machine is similar to that of an ordinary computer. The difference lies in the motherboard and the mining card. The mining card is the most important production tool in the mining machine, so we will conduct a detailed analysis of the mining card next.

Mining card with the bracket removed

After the mining card is taken off the bracket, the biggest feature is that it has no cooling fan, because the entire chassis relies on ten powerful fans to provide air ducts for the entire machine to dissipate heat. Through the fins, we can see that there are two heat pipes at the bottom of the aluminum extrusion, which serve as a substitute for the heat spreader.

You can see the flattened heat pipe.

Mine card label

The label on the mining card only records the model and configuration information, and below the barcode is something similar to the SN code. From the above, we can clearly see that the model of this mining card is P104-100, using 4GB of GDDR5X video memory with a bit width of 256bit.

Mining card radiator

As mentioned before, the radiator of the mining card uses two heat pipes on the bottom, and it has been polished and uses a heat pipe direct contact interface. Judging from the color and smell of the silicone grease, it should be produced by Dow Corning in the United States.

The front view of the mining card

Free video output interface

This is the scene after removing the radiator. In fact, the basic layout is not much different from the Geforce graphics card. The most obvious thing is that there is no video output interface at the rear of the graphics card.

Six-phase power supply

The power supply of the mining card uses six scales. For a calculation that does not require high core frequency operation, this power supply scale is sufficient.

Magnesium memory particles

Empty mining card speed control fan power supply interface

Because of the passive heat sink, the original preset speed-adjustable fan power supply interface is vacant. The violent fan can be much more effective than the ordinary fan, but the noise is relatively louder.

From the above disassembly, we can see that the currencies supported by the Zhanqi ZMAX mining machine have very low requirements for other hardware except the mining card. As long as it can support the operation of the system and software, it can be used. Therefore, basically a combination of "it works" is adopted. Mining depends on efficiency. Of course, mine managers will not show off what U or bar their mining machines use. They will only mention the total computing power and cost.

It is worth noting that the mining card is actually based on the graphics card solution, for example, the unsoldered video output interface leaves a vacant space. The quality and cost of the AIO inductor are higher than similar products, which shows that this mining card will also use other higher-end components. After a series of optimizations, the power consumption of the mining card has been greatly reduced, and the computing power for the corresponding currency has also been improved, which is a matter of applause for large mining farms.

Through disassembly and analysis, the hardware used in this mining machine is still very reliable. At least the most important mining card itself can use relatively good components. However, don't think crookedly about the mining card. NVIDIA has blocked DirectX in the mining card. Even if you weld the display interface yourself, it cannot output. The mining machine should be used for mining "quietly".