After months of build-up, KnCMiner announced today that their new line of 20nm Neptune ASICs have arrived at their facility in Sweden. The chips are currently being tested, and units are expected to begin shipping later this week.
The Neptune boasts five 1440-core chips, and KnCMiner claims that it can deliver more than 3 TH/s at 2.1 KW. If accurate in real-world use, this 0.7 watt per GH/s represents a 30% reduction in power cost versus the current KnCMiner heavy hitter, the Jupiter.
The company also claims that the Neptune system will increase in performance as future software updates maximize the new chips’ potential.
The Neptune puts KnCMiner in a small club of next-generation mining hardware makers, although many other developers are expected to have equally powerful hardware on the market in coming months. Early adopting miners can expect to pay $5995 for the third batch of the Neptune hardware, slated to ship early in Q4. The first two batches of Neptune rigs are already sold out via pre-order.