Help choosing the right motherboard.

[Gero3]

Hi,
I am looking to make a mining rig.
Will be running Intel BX80677G3930 7th Gen Celeron Desktop Processors.

Planning on running 5 now, maybe a 6th later GPU.
Looking for Vega 56 or 64 right now.

Which motherboard do u guys recommend?

I am seeing a lot of AS Rock and Biostar in the market.

Please let me know..

Thanks

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[Undefined31415]

There's a number of mining-specific motherboards compatible with kaby lake processors.

Asus B250 Mining Expert
19 slots seems like overkill for your purposes, and note that actually getting 19 cards to run on this board is usually a pain. (That many cards on one system isn't always desirable either, since it puts many eggs in one basket, so to speak.)

ASRock H110 Pro BTC+
13 slots, spaced rather close together, however.

BIOSTAR TB250-BTC PRO
This one seems to have more quality control issues than others, or such reports could be due to simple user error and chance.

GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A


Additionally, you may wish to consider motherboards that aren't marketed for mining purposes. Just make sure you do the necessary research to see if other people have run into limitations with that specific board.

[Gero3]

There's a number of mining-specific motherboards compatible with kaby lake processors.

Asus B250 Mining Expert
19 slots seems like overkill for your purposes, and note that actually getting 19 cards to run on this board is usually a pain. (That many cards on one system isn't always desirable either, since it puts many eggs in one basket, so to speak.)

ASRock H110 Pro BTC+
13 slots, spaced rather close together, however.

BIOSTAR TB250-BTC PRO
This one seems to have more quality control issues than others, or such reports could be due to simple user error and chance.

GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A


Additionally, you may wish to consider motherboards that aren't marketed for mining purposes. Just make sure you do the necessary research to see if other people have run into limitations with that specific board.

Thanks alot.
I was reading somewhere and am probably wrong that we can't run more than 8 cards due to some limitation in some mining software?


In your experience do I need to flash some special BIOS on the above MBs or they just run out of the box?

Thanks

[Undefined31415]

There's a number of mining-specific motherboards compatible with kaby lake processors.

Asus B250 Mining Expert
19 slots seems like overkill for your purposes, and note that actually getting 19 cards to run on this board is usually a pain. (That many cards on one system isn't always desirable either, since it puts many eggs in one basket, so to speak.)

ASRock H110 Pro BTC+
13 slots, spaced rather close together, however.

BIOSTAR TB250-BTC PRO
This one seems to have more quality control issues than others, or such reports could be due to simple user error and chance.

GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A


Additionally, you may wish to consider motherboards that aren't marketed for mining purposes. Just make sure you do the necessary research to see if other people have run into limitations with that specific board.

Thanks alot.
I was reading somewhere and am probably wrong that we can't run more than 8 cards due to some limitation in some mining software?


In your experience do I need to flash some special BIOS on the above MBs or they just run out of the box?

Thanks

At this time, Windows 10 drivers will only allow you to run up to 8 Nvidia GPUs and 8 AMD GPUs. Most Linux distributions work fine with more than 8 GPUs from Nvidia xor AMD, but mixing between the two on one system is difficult to get running on many Linux distributions. The 19-slot ASUS board is supposed to be able to handle more than 13 cards if you have P106-based cards available.

Usually the mining-specific motherboards will work out of the box, but I haven't personally used all of the ones I listed (notably ASUS's 19-slot board). Occasionally, a BIOS update will be desirable, if you're troubleshooting a rig.

[Vann]

The Crimson Relive 17.1x.x drivers on Windows 10 1709 (Fall Creators Update) enable 12+ AMD cards. BBT was able to get 21 cards runing using 13 AMD + 8 P106 mining cards on the Asus B250 mining expert motherboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miUoqnUqk9M&feature=youtu.be&t=6201

AFAIK, mixing AMD + Nvidia on Linux is not possible without special configuration like using a KVM with PCI-E passthough.

[wacko]

At this time, Windows 10 drivers will only allow you to run up to 8 Nvidia GPUs and 8 AMD GPUs.

I don't think that's correct. Win 10 build 1709 is supposed to work with more than 8 gpus. And the 8 gpu limitation in drivers was only relevant to amd cards. It was recently lifted as well and it's now up to 12 amd cards per system. And afaik nvidia hasn't had this sort of limitation in their drivers at all, it was the OS that was limiting nvidia users to up to 8 cards maximum, shouldn't be an issue anymore with 1709.

[karmakeddon]

I'd go for the ASRock H110 Pro. Never had problems with any of my boards that were ASRock. The Biostar ones, I got a couple of lemons off the box and had RMAed 2 of them already due to no post. You can also try the ASUS B250 ones since I have heard they're good boards but for now I'm sticking to my guns.

[jillscarbrough]

For 6 GPUs:

• Gigabyte H110-D3A LGA 1150
• MSI Z170A
• MSI Z270 Gaming M7
• Asus Prime Z270-P

For 7 GPUs:

• Asus Prime Z270-A
• Asus Rog STRIX Z270E Gaming
• MSI Z170A Gaming M5

more 7 GPUs : Asrock H110 Pro BTC+

[wacko]

Planning on running 5 now, maybe a 6th later GPU.
Looking for Vega 56 or 64 right now.

Which motherboard do u guys recommend?

If you're only planning to run up to 6 cards, then there's lots and lots of boards that will work for you. You don't need mining-specific boards, they'll be harder to sell if you'll decide to get rid of your hardware at some point. Asus Z270 boards are a popular choice, Z270-p works with up to 8 gpus just fine.

[Gero3]

Any significant difference between Asus z270 and z170-AR??

The z170AR is on sale right now.
I am going to buy it locally from microcenter so if there's anything wrong I can do a hassle free return.

Pls let me know.

Thanks

[wacko]

Any significant difference between Asus z270 and z170-AR??

The z170AR is on sale right now.

Z170 boards used to be ~ the worst choice for mining rigs, many of them couldn't run more than 4 cards, and sometimes even less that that. For some boards there were bios updates that made it possible to run more GPUs, but not for all of them. So do your own research, I guess. Or just get a z270 board.

[Gero3]

I picked up a Asus Prime H270+CSM on sale at Microcenter.
It has 2x PCIe x16 slots
4x PCIe x1
2x M.2

so should be able to use max 8 cards which is the max I want to use in a rig.
Will be hooking up 3 Vega 64s. That's all I have for now.

Thanks guys