NerdOctaxe | 12 TH/s

The NerdOctaxe is the jump from one ASIC to eight. The board carries eight BM1370 chips, the same generation that works alone in the small Bitaxe boards. Together they deliver around 12 TH/s at roughly 200 W, so about 16 J/TH. Control still runs through AxeOS on the ESP32-S3, and a 1.9-inch TFT shows the key figures on the device.

200 W drawn means 200 W of waste heat, pulled out of the heatsink by a 92 mm PWM fan. Under full load the device is clearly audible, and owners accordingly put it on an open shelf or in a utility room.

Solo mining is a question of volume, and that is exactly what the NerdOctaxe shifts: 12 TH/s means twelve trillion attempts per second, each of them a ticket on the next block. If the hit lands on your worker, the full 3.125 BTC block reward plus every transaction fee in the block goes undivided to your own address. The only plannable part is the stake: about €40.30 of electricity a month, while your hash rate helps secure the Bitcoin network. More on that in our solo mining guide.

• One device instead of eight: one socket, one power supply, one worker in the pool. The same hash rate from single-chip miners would be eight devices to look after individually.
• Efficiency stays in class: about 16 J/TH, the level of current BM1370 boards. Hash rate grows, consumption per terahash does not.
• Familiar firmware: AxeOS with pool, worker, frequency, voltage and fan curve. If you already run a Bitaxe, there is nothing new to learn.
• Readable without a browser: the 1.9-inch TFT shows hash rate, temperature and shares on the device – more practical in a utility room than it sounds.

The NerdOctaxe is not a device you place and forget. All 200 W leave it as heat, and the heatsink needs free air from the front and out the back for that. A closed cabinet or a spot above a radiator means higher ASIC temperatures and a fan working against them.

The fan curve in AxeOS puts that in your hands: for less noise, lower frequency and voltage and accept less hash rate. A cool spot with a draught allows the opposite – higher clocks without the fan running at its limit.

You need a socket, a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network and a browser on the same network. No PC or Raspberry Pi required. The detailed procedure is in the NerdQaxe setup guide, which also applies to the NerdOctaxe.

It suits people who already run a small miner and know what shares, difficulty and fan curves mean – and now want noticeably more hash rate without switching to sealed industrial hardware. Customers name homelab, workshop or basement as the location.

It is less suitable if the miner has to live in a living room or bedroom, if you only want to try home mining out, or if about €40.30 of electricity a month is not part of the plan. In those cases the NerdQaxe++ with around 4.8 TH/s at roughly 80 W is the more sensible choice. If you want more performance and can set up a water loop, look at the NerdOctaxe Hydro.

Miner, power supply, 3D-printed stand and quick start guide are included. Beyond that you need a socket, your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, your pool credentials and your own Bitcoin address.

Also worth having: a place where warm exhaust air bothers nobody, and the occasional look at dust in the heatsink. With eight ASICs, a clean air path does more than any fine tuning.

There is little to improve on the miner itself – what happens around it is more interesting: once the hash rate is in the house, the next step is building the block templates yourself.

• Bitcoin nodes for a setup where mining and your own node work together.
• Mining accessories for mounts, power supplies and additions around the build.

The NerdOctaxe is the right machine when a single board is no longer enough and you still want to stay with open hardware and your own Bitcoin address. Bring a spot with air, a planned electricity bill and tolerance for an audible device.