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For anyone wondering about the PCIe slots on this motherboard, have you tried using a newer processor which supports more PCIe lanes if you have reached a limit? I have found a limit of 14 GTX 1070's with an INTEL I5-7500. Curious if upgrading to a new CPU would help?

I've also noticed how this motherboard will not boot at all (also with a black screen) if there are more than 14 GPUs connected to the PCIe slots.

The suggested numbers from ASUS website has only 3 configurations for the cards to reach the maximum number.Probably it is not updated but it is a good start to have a look there.The processor of that motherboard is an intel and as far as I know it supports up to gen 9 processor for the LGA 1151.The maximum you will go with a single vendor i.e only NVIDIA is 16 graphic cards because of the best processor i9 9900 supports 16 PCIEx lanes max.

Here is the link the official faq from ASUS : https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1034921 (https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1034921)

If your BIOS is out of date it can locked the door to more GPU supports through PCie slots, I've encountered this several times on third gen CPU/motherboard and 4th gen CPU/motherboard

I'm curious how Asus was able to get 19 cards to work if most Intel processors only support up to 16 PCIe lanes? If using a variety of vendors is supposed to work, the initial question still remains, how/why? I'm thinking this is due to the special AMD driver? Maybe if I buy AMD cards this AMD driver may allow more than 14 GPUs to work?

As for using other processors, this motherboard uses an Intel® B250 Chipset.
Supported processors are stated here: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/All-series/B250-MINING-EXPERT/ (https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/All-series/B250-MINING-EXPERT/) using the Intel LGA1151 package.

Another concern about using the recommended variety of NVIDIA GPUs is that they are becoming obsolete relative to the DAG file for Ethereum mining.
My current processor has a maximum of 16 PCIe lanes: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/97123/intel-core-i5-7500-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/97123/intel-core-i5-7500-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html)
Although I can only utilize 14 NVIDIA GPUs. I assume the remaining lanes are being used by the gigabit LAN port and something else, not exactly sure.

Could a PCIe switch help with my issue?
https://ebay.us/gTIdqc  (https://ebay.us/gTIdqc)
https://ebay.us/NUguYU  (https://ebay.us/NUguYU)
Consequently, I understand how using a shared PCIe slot can decrease throughput.

I've checked for a BIOS update, currently running the latest.

The motherboard chipset has pcie lanes as well. The B250 has 12 lanes.

In total, I am stuck with 14 NVIDIA GTX 1070 GPUs. It seems the recommended configuration by Asus is the only way to max this board. I am going to eventually try with AMD drivers and AMD GPUs if this hasn't been tested already. I want to see if there is a way to work around Asus's recommended GPU configuration.