ASUS B250 MINING EXPERT bios 403 (2017/12/15) released?

[Bigdrago]

I bought 11 ASUS B250 Mining Expert MBs, 10 are being used in 8 GPU Nvidia rigs. Setup was the simplest/fastest I've had with a MB, just changed two settings and update bios if not already 403. They all run like tanks and are ultra stable for weeks at a time. Cost was as low as $134.99 shipped from Amazon for batches of 5. I wouldn't sell one for $300, is the best mining MB currently available.

Why buy b250 if u only going to use 8 gpu?

[Bimmber]

Future proofing.... ?

[Alyeska]

I bought 11 ASUS B250 Mining Expert MBs, 10 are being used in 8 GPU Nvidia rigs. Setup was the simplest/fastest I've had with a MB, just changed two settings and update bios if not already 403. They all run like tanks and are ultra stable for weeks at a time. Cost was as low as $134.99 shipped from Amazon for batches of 5. I wouldn't sell one for $300, is the best mining MB currently available.

Why buy b250 if u only going to use 8 gpu?

This Exactly!
 ASUS has always been a very reputable company, and given that I purchased every one of my B250 Mining Expert boards for less that US $149 , and every one of them can presently run up to 13 standard GPU, with a future update to expand beyond that, I am quite happy,

Even if I made the Purchase under the assumption, that it would never be more than a 12 GPU MB, based purely on its stability and quality at that price point, It would be my only mother board purchase for the foreseeable future,
definitely my MB of choice as of 1/3/2018

[Bigdrago]

As today, will it work with 9 radeon 580 and 10 nvidia p106?

How effective is the p106?

[Metroid]

How effective is the p106?

I would worry about the warranty, 3 months is just too low, if the gpu stops working after 3 months then you are screwed.

[Neo-Geo]

Why buy b250 if u only going to use 8 gpu?

As far as I know, it's the only MB that supports multiple PSUs, I like the boot screen slot detection, almost perfect factory bios settings (just 2 changes), was a good price, and was readily available. I'm also running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, I'm not a fan of AMD becuase I like reliability/stability & low temp + fast boots and high hash rates.  I'm sure there are many who would argue/question, "why only use water cooled, why no wooden cases, why 16GB DDR4, why 256 GB Samsung SSDs, why Titanium rated EVGA T2 1600s, why Kabby Lake i5 7400T CPUs, why 240V 30A circuits". Sure, you can cut corners all day long, but I chose not to. Was there a better motherboard for mining back in September 2017 for < $134.99 delivered that I overlooked?

(change dot com to .com and remove the spaces):
tinyurl dot com/y73yexjr
tinyurl dot com/y7j8qd8m

[Bimmber]

Neo,

Why Kabby Lake i5 7400T? Celeron is enough.

[Neo-Geo]

35W TDP and $115 average cost per i5-7400T OEM pack. I'm not aware of any downsides to 4 core and low TDP, besides, the upgrade from 2 core was negligible/inconsequential, and I'd rather abstain from swapping out MBs and CPUs for as long as possible, so future proofing and just swapping out GPUs is preferable. My electrician also questioned why I insisted on solid 8 gauge copper wire for the 240V 30A circuits when 10 gauge copper clad would have sufficed. Again, there are zero downsides to thicker wire using better materials and I prefer lower resistance and not burning the house down. Sure, you can cut corners all day long, but I chose not to.

[wtfonly16]

nobody has p104 they dont exist.

[eleceng1979]

Neo,

Why Kabby Lake i5 7400T? Celeron is enough.

When using Asrock H110 BTC+ with 7 x 1070 + 6 x 570 my G3930 Celeron runs at 70-80% CPU when using some miners.  With the combination of this AMD miner + that NVIDIA miner it uses high CPU.  I profit switch with Awesome miner on Win 10 so any combination of miners is possible.  I have ran linux and have seen similar results, just a little bit lower and returned to windows for ease of use.  When administering the machine remotely or performing and maintenance work it is simply unusable and hashrates suffer.  Remember that the CPU has to handle bus interrupts for data flow... more cards = more interrupts.  When my setup is working hard the process interrupts account for 40-50% CPU.

Those of you who are not mining on 13+ GPU's rigs shouldn't lecture us who do with your Celeron is OK bullshit.  IMHO a I3 series and 8GB memory are a bare min for these types of setups.

The OP has taken necessary steps to prevent a CPU bottleneck and personally don't care if he shoved a I7 in it...  It is his prerogative and money.  Most miners overlook the details like CPU and power requirements and wonder why their shit melts down.  There is more to mining than ROI and cheap parts.

My next build will be a 19GPU.  You cannot exceed 13GPUs of any driver type due to driver limitations.  When building a 19GPU rig it needs to be 13 and 6 of each manufacture, period.  Anyone investing in a 19 GPU rig not knowing this or believing a promise of ASUS who doesn't write GPU drivers, expecting 19 of one type of GPU to work should be slapped.

[Bimmber]

Thanks for that, good to know!

[wtfonly16]

its g4400 pentium.... thats the baremin

1-5% vnc full load with 13gpus doing eth. you dont know shit about configuring your machine properly. g4400 pentium is enough

[OhMyHolyToken]

This card will support 12x RX570 and 7x 1060?

Thanks

[Vann]

Neo,

Why Kabby Lake i5 7400T? Celeron is enough.

When using Asrock H110 BTC+ with 7 x 1070 + 6 x 570 my G3930 Celeron runs at 70-80% CPU when using some miners.  With the combination of this AMD miner + that NVIDIA miner it uses high CPU.  I profit switch with Awesome miner on Win 10 so any combination of miners is possible.  I have ran linux and have seen similar results, just a little bit lower and returned to windows for ease of use.  When administering the machine remotely or performing and maintenance work it is simply unusable and hashrates suffer.  Remember that the CPU has to handle bus interrupts for data flow... more cards = more interrupts.  When my setup is working hard the process interrupts account for 40-50% CPU.

Those of you who are not mining on 13+ GPU's rigs shouldn't lecture us who do with your Celeron is OK bullshit.  IMHO a I3 series and 8GB memory are a bare min for these types of setups.

The OP has taken necessary steps to prevent a CPU bottleneck and personally don't care if he shoved a I7 in it...  It is his prerogative and money.  Most miners overlook the details like CPU and power requirements and wonder why their shit melts down.  There is more to mining than ROI and cheap parts.

Well said. I agree the minimum for a 13 card motherboard should be an i3 with 8GB of DDR4. On my ASRock H110 Pro BTC+ Windows 10 v1709 build 13 card RX 580 build with an i3 6100 and 8GB RAM, about ~35% CPU and 4GB RAM is in use when dual mining. Boot times, updates and driver installation also go MUCH faster with a better processor. It's amazing people have no problem droping $4K+ on overpriced GPU's for a build, but are too cheap to spend an extra $120 to buy an adequate CPU and RAM for a 13 GPU build that will make their life easier. LOL.

[Metroid]

In theory a celeron g3930 1151 should be enough for 13 gpu's, a system with 6 gpu's with a celeron uses 12% maximum, placing 7 more gpu's in theory should double that figure to around 30%. If your cpu is using more than that then check your ram and virtual memory cause high cpu usage means your ssd or usb boot drive is not that good cause is making your cpu to work harder than suppose to. See that is the problem, if you are not a performance freak like me then you will end up getting a i3 for your mining system hehe. In few days I will work on my friends house to test a 13 gpu system and i will report back and that will be with a celeron 8gb ram and a 128gb samsung 850 evo ssd.

@Vann, while using lots of virtual memory which comes from the win 10 install drive, you need a good drive , that way will not force your cpu to work hard.

The best thing would be 400mb virtual memory and only ram but ram is very expensive, so best thing is to get a good ssd and fill up with virtual memory.

[starrbuck]

Yeah, that Celeron is enough is bullcrap.  I went with a Kaby Lake G4600 Pentium in my rig.  It's dual core with hyperthreading so it should have enough power as I grow the rig.

[Metroid]

Yeah, that Celeron is enough is bullcrap.  I went with a Kaby Lake G4600 Pentium in my rig.  It's dual core with hyperthreading so it should have enough power as I grow the rig.

In the end you will be exchanging something for something else. I prefer a better ssd than a better processor, but you can also go with a better cpu than a better ssd. Not bottlenecking my cpu is key for me. Also a better ssd will make my cpu to work less and use less electricity. I guess is a choice in the end.

[GaryH]

Love to pic up the B250, but looks like they are sold out everywhere I've looked.  

As far as CPUs for rigs, I'm guessing you haven't mined MNX with Optiminer miner https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2390070.0

Even with my i5-7400T it's buried at 100%...  the poor celeron I swapped out would lock up in under an hour on MNX.  Give MNX a whirl and see what your CPUs show for utilization...  I have a 5 x 1070 rig.

ETA: if anyone knows of a source for a new B250 for around $150 please let me know.  Several resellers on Amazon but they want + $350 for one.

[Metroid]

Yeah, some miners use a lot of cpu power and you dont have a choice in the matter, for example, I remember claymore equihash when it came out, used to use a lot of cpu, for a while has been that you can choose how much cpu to use.

[Vann]

Already using a Samsung 850 EVO Pro 256 GB SSD with 64GB virtual memory and disk usage is very low.