Just two years the author of this article knew guys mining tons of bitcoins per day with just a couple dozen GPU units in their bedrooms. Fast forward 24 months and these Chinese miners are burning $60k per month in electricity and have racks of state of the art hardware set up in a sh*t hole semi-derelict warehouse. It is, however, operations like this that keep bitcoin alive!
The first thing you notice as you approach the warehouse is the noise. It begins as soon as you step out of the car, at which point it sounds like massive swarm of angry bees droning away somewhere off in the distance. It becomes louder and louder the closer you get to the building, and as you step through the doors it becomes a deafening and steady roar; a combination of tens of thousands of tiny ASIC chips hashing away, and dozens of large industrial fans serving to cool down the “workers”. I recorded a bit of the sound:
http://www.thecoinsman.com/2014/08/bitcoin/inside-chinese-bitcoin-mine/