The Chinese company Baikal has always been famous for its high-quality multi-algorithmic ASIC miners. Baikal is not some kind of consumer goods a la StrongU or Dayun. Devices from this company are purchased for the long term, since the abundance of mining algorithms allows you to switch to one or another cryptocurrency at any time, in the event of a hard fork or network update.
In this review, we will tell you what the Baikal Giant+ A2000 is, what are the best cryptocurrencies to mine, and how much you can earn by purchasing this device. So..
Content
- Technical characteristics of Baikal Giant-B
- Configuring and connecting ASIC Baikal Giant-B
- Where and how to buy Baikal miner Giant-B - price, profitability
- Pros and cons of ASIC Baikal Giant B
ASIC miner Baikal Giant-B: characteristics and connection, price and methods of purchase, profitability, advantages and disadvantages of the device.
We recently reviewed a miner that supports many algorithms - Baikal Giant X10. Today we’ll look at an equally attractive model from the same manufacturer – Baikal Giant-B.
This ASIC is interesting because it allows you to mine some coins that were previously available exclusively for mining with video card farms. Thanks to this, the profitability of the model is quite high. Let's study it in more detail.
Payment method
You can buy any product on the Miner Bros website in several convenient ways:
- Payment by cryptocurrency: Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), USDC.
- Bank transfer via bank.
- Bitcoin (Coinbase).
- Western Union.
Please note that prices for all products on the site are shown in dollars and in Bitcoins.
The price will be quoted via the Bitcoin to US Dollar exchange rate at the current market rate .
The generated orders will only be valid for a certain period of time from the time of booking. Once the order is generated, you must make payment within an hour via BTC (payment with cryptocurrency), and up to 3 days for bank transfer or Western Union. If you do not do this within the specified period of time, your order will be canceled automatically.
Technical characteristics of Baikal Giant-B
The device from the Baikal company differs in that it is designed for mining crypts using several algorithms, like the previous device Giant X10. Moreover, each of them has a different hashrate and power consumption.
The characteristics of Baikal Giant-B for the 5 supported algorithms are as follows:
| Algorithm | Hashrate, GH/s | Energy consumption, Wh | Cryptocurrencies |
| Blake256R14 | 160 | 410 | Decred (DCR) |
| Lbry | 40 | 400 | LBRY (LBC) |
| Blake (2b) | 80 | 300 | Siacoin |
| Blake256R8 | 160 | 260 | Vcash |
| Pascal | 40 | 210 | Pascalcoin (PASC) and PascalLite (PASL) |
As for the operating parameters of the Baikal Giant B miner, they are as follows:
- Operating temperature - from 0 to 40 degrees.
- Dimensions - 310x115x135 mm.
- Weight - 3.8 kg.
The body of the Baikal Giant-B miner is made of aluminum. The cooling system is presented in the form of a fan located at the front. The rear of the device has built-in LED indicators, a connector for an Ethernet cable, and six 6-pin connectors for connecting a power supply.
Configuring and connecting ASIC Baikal Giant-B
To start mining cryptocurrency, the user must perform the following steps:
- connect ASIC Baikal Giant-B to the power supply, inserting the connectors into the connectors until they click;
- connect the Ethernet cable;
- connect the power supply to the network;
- determine the IP of the equipment;
- register on the pool;
- create a worker;
- find out the stratum for algorithms in the FAQ or HELP section;
- open the miner web interface;
- enter stratum for each individual algorithm;
- save settings.
Among the miner settings, it is important to set the device to switch to the most profitable algorithm. It may vary depending on cryptocurrency prices, network complexity and other factors.
Where and how to buy Baikal miner Giant-B - price, profitability
Baikal Giant B can be ordered on the official website or in the online store. In the first case, the user will need to send an application to the email or Skype indicated on the company’s official website. After that, he will be informed of the price of Baikal miner Giant-B, the size of the minimum batch and the delivery time. It is worth noting that purchasing directly from the manufacturer to order may take longer. You can buy an ASIC faster in an online store.
The price of Biakal Giant-B in Russia is from 490 thousand rubles.
We will calculate the profit volume of the model using a special NiceHash calculator. The approximate profitability of Biakal Giant-B without taking into account electricity costs as of March 2 will be 1,495 rubles per day, and per month - 54,866 rubles. To determine the net profit, from the last figure it is necessary to subtract the cost of paying for electricity in accordance with the tariffs of a particular region. It will depend on what algorithm the device uses and will be 151.2–295.2 kW.
Review of an office mini-PC based on the Russian Arm processor Baikal-M
| Technical characteristics of "Edelweiss TF307" with Baikal-M (BE-M1000) | |
| SoC Baikal-M | 8 × Cortex-A57, 1.5 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache; 2 × TrustZone |
| 8 × Mali-T628, 750 MHz; video (de-)encoder | |
| 8 MB of coherent L3 cache on the system bus | |
| Memory subsystem | 2 × DIMM DDR4-2133 ECC up to 64 GB inclusive |
| dual-channel memory mode | |
| Graphical interface | 1 × HDMI (rear) |
| 1 × LVDS (connects to PCB header) | |
| Connectors for expansion cards | 1 × PCI Express 3.0 x8 |
| Drive interfaces | 2 × SATA III |
| 1 × M.2 M-Key (PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA III) | |
| Network interfaces | 2 × 1GbE RJ-45 (rear) |
| Audio subsystem | 1 × HD Audio (connects to PCB header) |
| 3 × 3.5 mm (rear) | |
| USB interface | The total number of USB ports is 7, including: |
| 2 × USB 3.0 (connect to PCB headers) | |
| 3 × USB 2.0 (connect to connectors on the printed circuit board) | |
| 4 × USB 2.0 (all Type-A on rear) | |
| PS/2 interface | 2 × PS/2 (rear) |
| Additional connectors | 1 × display backlight |
| 2 × 4-pin fan connector | |
| group of connectors for the front panel of the case | |
| Nutrition | 24-pin horizontal ATX power connector |
| Form factor | Mini-ITX |
| Dimensions (mm) | 170 × 170 |
| OS support | Linux |
We received the motherboard as part of a finished PC: an InWin BQ660SU3 case with a built-in 150 W power supply, two 4 GB Crucial DDR4-2400 modules (CT4G4DFS824A), 2.5” SATA SSD Kingston A400 (SA400S37/240G) with a capacity of 240 GB, M.2 SATA SSD Netac (NT01N535N-128G-N8X) with a capacity of 120 GB. The SoC was equipped with a small cooler, which, when paired with the PSU fan, is not very pleasant to the ear - apparently due to its small size.
Getting to know your surroundings
As expected, there are few options in UEFI - and almost all of them are related to the bootloader: source selection, drivers, PXE settings + console output options are available. The initial boot of the system occurs very quickly - literally in a few seconds, after which control is transferred to GRUB, and the speed of loading the OS depends on the distribution, but in general this also takes little time. In our case, two operating systems were preinstalled on different drives: Astra Linux Special Edition (SE) 4.7 Novorossiysk (on a Netac SSD) and Debian 11 on a Kingston drive.
Edelweiss TF107
View all images (13)Astra Linux (kernel 5.4.0) was chosen as the main OS for two reasons. Firstly, in this configuration and with the default settings, it seemed subjectively more responsive in operation. Still, Gnome 3.38 in Debian (kernel 5.4.144) is apparently a little heavy. Secondly, this is a rare opportunity to get acquainted with the platform that is used in budgetary institutions. In addition, Astra Linux is currently the only OS for Baikal-M certified by FSTEC for the second level of trust.
Astra Linux SE is a special-purpose OS that is aimed at the corporate and (near-)government sector. There is also a Common Edition that you can freely download and try. Both are based on the Debian distribution, heavily modified in places. In particular, its own lightweight Fly shell is used as the desktop environment, for which there is even an online demo where you can see a partial list of available applications.
The software set is represented by both standard desktop Linux or cross-platform programs, and a number of proprietary utilities and services (mainly with the fly- prefix), some of which are based on open solutions, and the other part are of our own design. More importantly, there is a continuous process of testing and improving the distribution and software for compatibility with software and hardware solutions of other companies (domestic ones first of all).
System Information
View all images (5)It’s a huge job to create, test, certify and document all this (yes, there’s good built-in help on basic settings), and then deal with support and optimization on several fundamentally different hardware platforms at once. So, a hybrid approach based on open source, refining existing solutions and writing your own seems practical and reasonable. And in the case of domestic solutions, it is the software that becomes the key factor in the development of the platform.
Control Panel
View all images (6)The Special version of Astra Linux differs from the Common version by the presence of additional mechanisms for protecting and preserving system integrity and advanced capabilities for managing access rights to data, services and functions. These proprietary mechanisms permeate the system right through - from the kernel, where some of these subsystems operate, to the graphical interface (in the file manager, objects have additional color labels). In addition, the administrator mode (with a red color scheme) and the regular user mode, in which some of the settings are not available, are visually separated.
File properties
View all images (10)Well, in general, there are a lot of little things that the average user doesn’t really need. For example, forcibly placing markers when printing, calculating checksums according to the GOST algorithm, saving and restoring work sessions, functions for working with digital signatures, forced clearing of swap partitions upon shutdown, guaranteed deletion of data from partitions, and so on.
Another feature of the SE assembly is related to the principle of software distribution and updating. We received an option for a workplace that was ready for certification by FSTEC of Russia. In this version, the OS and updates to it are distributed in the form of ISO images, and the delivery includes a limited set of software without development tools or a number of proprietary solutions - for example, for Java, Liberica JDK from Russian developers was selected and installed. However, in the usual delivery version there are no such restrictions. And if in general everything seems to be in order with system software, then with application and desktop software it’s not so simple.
As a matter of fact, it is possible to exist in such a system - the author of this material spent one full working day exclusively in this environment, and the rest of the time the system was used periodically. It cannot be said that it was completely comfortable, but the experience was interesting. Naturally, we are talking about typical office work with simple text documents and tables, a browser, simple image processing in GIMP and listening to music from YouTube in the background. Well, what about watching a couple of episodes of your favorite TV series at the end of the day?
You actually get used to the relatively leisurely - compared to how it happens on the usual Windows on Core i7 - launching applications or opening web pages (a lot depends on the site here). But you have to deal with some annoying little things. The first thing that literally catches your eye is the fonts. In the environment itself they are normal, but, for example, in a browser or editor they are ugly. After fiddling around for half an hour with the selection of the font itself and anti-aliasing, you spit it out and leave it as is.
The included browsers include Chromium 87 (with a separate gost version included) and Firefox 84. Both out of the box support hardware acceleration of video playback (a big deal, I must say), but Firefox overall seemed more convenient, optimized and generally more responsive, although in WebXPRT 3 both browsers have almost the same result: 45 and 44 points.
Firefox optimization, in particular, manifests itself on relatively heavy sites. Maps - both from Google and from Yandex - frankly slow down, and the panoramas in them turn into slide shows, but Firefox, unlike Chromium, at least does not freeze the system from time to time. However, this, it must be admitted, is an exceptional case - there are no other significant complaints specifically about the OS as such.
CryptoPro
View all images (10)Another point is the possible incompleteness of some proprietary solutions that involve a chain of several individual components. For example, “CryptoPro” works great with hardware tokens, but they cannot be used to work with EDI “DiaDoc” in the browser, since the corresponding plugins and utilities do not yet exist. SKB Kontur technical support reported that there would be an Arm version, but did not give exact dates. However, for other sets of tasks everything may already be ready a long time ago.
It’s worth mentioning separately about office applications. LibreOffice 7 is included with the OS. But taking into account the positioning of computers with Russian CPUs on the device market for digital transformation projects (in official terms), it is more advisable to get acquainted with the MyOffice desktop editors, since this is the only Russian office suite for the Baikal-M platform. We were provided with a preliminary version of the product, which, as expected, differs from the current version for Windows, since porting such a large code base to another software and hardware platform is not easy and expensive, but for some areas it is simply necessary.
Overall impressions of both packages are mixed. There are no problems with simple texts and tables - a significant part of this material was written on the tested PC in MyOffice under Astra Linux. With other files, there are all sorts of situations: large tables (from a thousand rows with a dozen columns) can slow down noticeably, everything is not always displayed correctly in documents (in different packages) - and so on. On the other hand, no one promised a 100% repetition of the functionality of Microsoft Office.
But if you do not take into account specific proprietary solutions for narrow tasks, then the platform as a whole is doing well with software. All major Linux distributions already have builds for AArch64 with almost identical x86-64 content (there are exceptions). Moreover, the arrival of serious Arm SoCs in the corporate and server segments only encourages developers to port and optimize open (and not so open) software. The already established ecosystem is more than enough for most tasks, but its development does not stop there.
Benchmarks
This is exactly the case when “synthetics” says little and does not reflect the user experience. Nevertheless, we will still present some results - with the hope of comparison in the future with the performance of newer Baikal Electronics platforms and other domestic developments. The tests were carried out in Debian, since a) this is a fresh build from the processor developers themselves; b) there is access to normal online repositories with the necessary tools for building software. Moreover, everything was done with the “nailed” GDM, so that the GUI did not take up extra clock cycles. In theory.
In practice, this had little effect on the results of complex benchmarks in both operating systems. In the Geekbench 5.4.1 beta, the processor scored 220 and 1529 points in single and multi-threaded tests, respectively. Comparing it with other CPUs cannot be called correct, and even among x86 it is difficult to find eight-core processors with a fixed frequency and without SMT. Nevertheless, we managed to find a couple of models with similar results and, importantly, the same TDP. These are the Intel Core 2 Duo T5550, which is similar in the single-threaded test, and the Intel Core i3-4160T, which is similar in the multi-threaded test. Both are on architectures that were used around the same time that the Cortex-A57 was announced.
| Stream, MB/s | Baikal-M | Baikal-T | ||
| Of. test | 3DNews, wholesale. | Of. test | 3DNews, wholesale. | |
| Copy | 13870 | 12244,5 | 3119,2 | 3255,6 |
| Scale | 13798 | 12222,7 | 3109,9 | 3290,2 |
| Add | 13207,3 | 11597,9 | 2466,9 | 2480,9 |
| Triad | 13321,7 | 11646 | 2467,7 | 2503,1 |
It would be interesting to compare the BE-M1000 with the Opteron A1100, since they are similar in many ways, but as expected, there were no results for the AMD processor in the Geekbench database. As well as in the Passmark benchmark database, in which Baikal-M received 1021 and 639 points in Debian in the CPU and RAM tests, respectively. And almost the same in Astra Linux. The only test that the system failed was HPL. In it, the SoC exceeded the specified temperature limit of +65 °C. Nevertheless, they managed to squeeze out 33 Gflops, which is slightly less than the 38 Gflops obtained by the developers themselves using a proprietary compiler and optimized libraries from Arm.
| CoreMark | |||||||
| Model | Architecture | Frequency, MHz | Cores | CoreMark | CoreMark/MHz | CoreMark/core | CoreMark/MHz/core |
| AMD FX-8350 | x86-64 | 4000 | 8 | 113502 | 28,38 | 14187,75 | 3,55 |
| NXP LS2088A | ARM Cortex-A72 | 1800 | 8 | 64983 | 36,10 | 8122,88 | 4,51 |
| Baikal-T (offical test) | MIPS P5600 | 1200 | 2 | 12364 | 10,30 | 6182,00 | 5,15 |
| Baikal-T (3DNews, wholesale) | MIPS P5600 | 1200 | 2 | 13039 | 10,87 | 6519,50 | 5,43 |
| Baikal-M (3DNews, wholesale) | ARM Cortex-A57 | 1500 | 8 | 65672 | 43,78 | 8209,00 | 5,47 |
| Baikal-M (offical test) | ARM Cortex-A57 | 1500 | 8 | 66195 | 44,13 | 8274,38 | 5,52 |
| Intel Core i5-3380M | x86-64 | 2900 | 4 | 67088 | 23,13 | 16772,00 | 5,78 |
| Intel i5-9600K | x86-64 | 3700 | 6 | 192369 | 51,99 | 32061,50 | 8,67 |
If you look at “pure” performance, the picture is more interesting. Several results were selected from the CoreMark database, in which the number of cores coincided with the number of running benchmark threads + data from the old Baikal-T test was added. Absolute values are not so important, but the CoreMark/MHz/core indicator is interesting. For comparison, the results of a more or less recent Intel Core are also given. True, these indicators should be treated with caution - there is simply no wider sample.
Conclusion
Let's divide the conclusions into two parts: about the chip and about the PC. Everything is simple with the chip - it works and is already being produced, and recently the first 5 thousand SoCs out of 130 thousand ordered from TSMC arrived in Russia. You can lament as much as you like that the architecture is not ours, the technical process is not the latest, it took a long time to make and is not cheap (22.5 thousand rubles excluding VAT). But Baikal-M is now the only chip of this class developed in Russia. The creators brought it to fruition, despite all the difficulties, and an ecosystem of manufacturers and partners is forming around it.
Edelweiss, whose board we looked at, is the first, but not the only developer of solutions based on Baikal-M. Aquarius, Gaodi Rus, Project Lagrange, Elpitech, 3logic, iRU were added to it. In total, 25 different devices are currently in development, and in 2022 it is planned to release 300 thousand Baikal-M chips. For comparison: this year the volume of all products will be 140 thousand products. Baikal-T has not been abandoned, but the transition to Arm opens up much greater prospects.
There is also a desktop option
The use case we studied, that is, as an entry-level office PC, is also far from the only one. More important, in our opinion, is import substitution in the field of industrial solutions, especially in terms of critical infrastructure. If we talk specifically about the experience of working with the desktop build of Astra Linux, then the verdict is this: yes, it’s not very comfortable, but you can work. Some of the problems noticed, it seems to us, are relatively easy to fix, while others are unlikely to be corrected.
Pros and cons of ASIC Baikal Giant B
Today, the Baikal Giant-B ASIC is one of the most profitable and interesting miners, allowing you to mine creep using different algorithms.
We will highlight the advantages and disadvantages that are important to consider when deciding to purchase equipment:
| pros | Minuses |
| work stability | high price |
| high income | |
| possibility of mining on 5 algorithms | loud noise |
| comparatively low power consumption |
If we take into account specifically the Blake (2b) algorithm for mining Siacoin, then investing in the purchase of Baikal Giant-B is of course useless, since with this algorithm its performance is approximately 10 times less than Antminer A3. However, if we consider other algorithms, the device has good characteristics.
A video review of Baikal Giant-B is presented below. However, keep in mind that the profitability of the device is constantly changing, so the profitability data from the video may not correspond to the current market situation.
Source: technoobzor.com
Delivery from Miner Bros
You can order products from this store by almost any courier delivery: DHL, UPS, ARAMEX, TNT and many others. As a standard, parcels are sent through the global courier company DHL.
Please note that delivery of any ASIC is free . That is, the ASIC price that you see on the website is already final; you will not need to add the cost of delivery or any other costs to it.
After payment for the order, it is processed and packaged within 48 hours, but no longer. It is then transferred to the courier service. On average, orders arrive within 5-7 business days. In case of delay by customs or law, delivery may take up to 12-14 days.
