Cryptocurrency Mining Hardware Spotlight: BTU9P by TUL

Published in

FPGA Mining

3 min readDec 12, 2018

Hey fam! Excited to finally publish this in depth analysis article of the BTU9P FPGA mining board made by our friends at TUL in Taiwan.

Introduction

Shortly after the shocking success of the BCU1525, we saw an influx of new FPGA boards into our industry. Among the first is the BTU9P by TUL.

This board is an upgraded version of the original VCU1525 used by whitefire990, but unlike the VCU1525 it has an upgraded power inductor and one of TUL's famous water blocks built-in.

This means the BTU9P can handle the power and current of some of the most power hungry bitstreams, while staying cool and stable in terms of chip and component temperature.

Mining and Profitability

Currently the BTU9P holds the award as one of few FPGA boards with the shortest ROI time.

This board is able to run any of the bitstreams that the BCU1525 can run, but sold at a much lower price point than the BCU1525. Same profitability, cheaper price tag, better ROI 💰

However the BTU9P does not have the Allmine.co efuse key, meaning it cannot run lyra2z. But that's not a huge deal, since lyra2z isn't very profitable 😂

Pros

💰 $550 Cheaper than the $4000USD BCU1525 with Water Block
🔜 Ships immediately (well, 24 hours)
👌 Compatible with all BCU / VCU Bitstreams
🦍 Large Powerful VU9P Chip can fit complex algorithms
🔋 Upgraded Power Inductor
❄️ Excellent Water Cooling

Cons

💧 Requires water cooling since water block is built in
⚡️ More sensitive to Vcc levels than BCU, must tweak with DC1613A
❌ TUL does not develop bitstreams, so no software updates

FPGA.guide has pre-built BTU9P bundled with an All-in-1 Water Cooling Kit available. Everything you need to start a silent, water cooled, FPGA mining operation.

Company Background

TUL Corporation is established from 1997 in Taipei, Taiwan. TUL has dedicated its brand and services in offering the ultimate total-solution of technologies, making them one of world's fastest growing marketing and services companies in the IT industry. Using PowerColor as a represent of the leading supplier for graphics cards, powered by AMD's graphics processors, successfully becomes the top 3 brand of graphics cards. Except graphics cards, TUL is devoted to be the major provider to embedded graphics cards, SoC mainboards and systems, FPGA products, thunderbolt adopters and customized products and services. Currently, TUL is trying to enter the cryptocurrency mining market with their BTU9P FPGA Board.

TUL’s Products

* Graphics Cards
* Embedded Graphics Cards
* SoC based Mainboards and Systems (x86 & RISC)
* FPGA Products
* Thunderbolt Adopters
* Customized Products and Services

Originally published at https://news.fpga.guide on December 12, 2018.