Biostar TB85 vs Asrock H81 BTC PRO 2.0 vs Asrock H97 Anniversary

[Encho]

Hey everyone, I'm on the verge of building some additional miners (hopefully) and decided to do some research, hoping to gather from the experience of other builders, this time I have a selection Motherboards I've been checking out and wanted to see what do you guys think, and if there is any other one I should be checking out. I want the best reliability and an affordable price, in that order. This is what I've gathered so far:

Biostar: Have heard their hardware isn't the best from a very experienced builder (he has been inactive for some years now, things might have changed), and from my experience I currently have a client's H61 board that lasted 1 year of very light use and now just won't boot up (seems like a bios issue, no whines or heating or signs of a physical failure of any sort).

Asrock: Have used some of their hardware and the quality seems fine, my current PC has been working since 2012 with a 990FX Extreme 4 and it's now become a miner, no issues at all, power/reset buttons on the board, led code display, love this one. I Made my first miner with a H97 Anniversary and it worked just fine for several months after I sorted some riser compatibility issues, eventually changed the miner over to a MSI Z97 Gaming 5 to add a 7th GPU, and when I got the parts for a new build... The H97 board now seems to be dead (tried 2 of every possible part, PSU, mem, CPU, it's definitely the board), again, no physical signs, the bios was updated during the riser mess and worked fine, no idea what happened there. Regarding the BTC Pro, I've read both good and bad things of the 1st version, and have a couple friends running them with no issues so far.

MSI: I'll just share my info, the Z97 Gaming 5 is a rather expensive pick (mine was $130, if they can be had for $80 I'll surely jump on this one). This board is on another level compared to the rest I've mentioned so far except the Extreme 4, led code display, 7 PCIe slots, just throw Win 10 and you'll have 0 issues, no reg mods, no hassles. I've been running this one for a couple months already with 7 Polaris GPUs (470 and 480 mix) and I haven't had a single problem so far.

Bonus question: Which board would you recommend for 5 PCIe - 5 GPUs?

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[bucketofsocks]

I have a Biostar TB85 with 5 gpus and have had zero problems with it. Only had it 6 months but mines 24/7. Don't own the Asrock board you mention but have had several others without issue.

[m1n1ngP4d4w4n]

flawless mining with the asrock v2.0 on 10 rigs 4 months 24/7

[Za1n]

I own several of both the Biostar TB85 and ASRock H81 Pro 2.0 and been mining 24/7 on them since early last year and have had no issues with them. I would agree the Biostar, and even the ASRock H81 for that matter, seem cheaper in terms of build quality, thin motherboard, etc. but with mining once they are up and running you don't really touch them that often so it probably isn't an issue. I would agree with you that the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 would be a good buy at $80, but at $100+ you are better off sticking with one of the other two boards. For $69 I think the ASRock H81 is probably the sweet spot, and I only consider the Biostar when those are out of stock.

[Encho]

Great responses, it seems like any of them will work just fine for me then, I guess it's like you said, whatever is available at the moment for less $$$.

Thank you all very much for taking some time to share your experiences. If anybody else wants to chime in you're welcome.

[m1n1ngP4d4w4n]

I own several of both the Biostar TB85 and ASRock H81 Pro 2.0 and been mining 24/7 on them since early last year and have had no issues with them. I would agree the Biostar, and even the ASRock H81 for that matter, seem cheaper in terms of build quality, thin motherboard, etc. but with mining once they are up and running you don't really touch them that often so it probably isn't an issue. I would agree with you that the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 would be a good buy at $80, but at $100+ you are better off sticking with one of the other two boards. For $69 I think the ASRock H81 is probably the sweet spot, and I only consider the Biostar when those are out of stock.

I agree with you regarding the asrock, sadly here the normal H81 is out of stock definitly, only the v2.0 is available for like 8-10$ more dollars. Both are working fine

[Abdussamad]

I have a Biostar TB85 with 5 gpus and have had zero problems with it. Only had it 6 months but mines 24/7. Don't own the Asrock board you mention but have had several others without issue.

I see that motherboard has 5 pcie 1x slots and one pcie 16x slot. So a total of 6 slots. Can you use 6 cards on that board?

Also do you need dummy monitor adapters on those cards?

[Set Ready Go]

I got both H81 PRO btc  and H97 anniversary ,  have had no problems with either one.

Just get the cheapest one of the 2 or maybe try get Asrock H81 Pro BTC R2.0  (new version)

The biostar board seems to work fine but i have read people having problem with the battery.

Personally i would get the new pro btc  board ,  gotta have som new features right 

[meeow]

for 5 gpus you can get a low power athlon ii x2 and a gigabyte 970 board, like 60 bucks in total...barely more than a pentium/celeron, plus you can run the whole rig with 5 470s on a 850-1000w p/s, which tend to be good w/$

[Encho]

Well, finally the laws of supply and demand made the choice for me, the TB85 could be had for $70 whereas the BTC PRO was $175 (damn scalpers!). The MSI Gaming 5 is nowhere to be found under $150 so it's out of question (some local offers at around $130 but no warranty whatsoever, and I'm currently on a budget). I was finally forced to give Biostar another chance, let's see how things go this time around.