ASRock Unveils Motherboards Made for Bitcoin Mining

News
By
published

ASRock wants to help you get in on the bitcoin mining trend.

ASRock is jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon with the unveiling of two new motherboards it says are designed for mining the increasingly popular virtual currency. The company is hoping to help customers make some cash with the H81 Pro BTC and H61 Pro BTC, both of which feature a total of six PCIe slots and two extra 4 pin power connectors for extra mining power.

The H81 Pro BTC packs five PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and supports Intel's 4th generation of Core i-series as well as Xeon, Pentium, and Celeron in LGA1150 packages. There's also dual channel DDR 3 1600, dual VGA output (D-Sub, HDMI), Realtek Gigabit LAN, 5.2 CH HD Audio (RealTek ALC662 Audio Codec), two SATA3, two SATA2, two USB 3.0, and six USB 2.0 (four up front, two in the back). There's also support for A-Tuning, XFast LAN, XFast RAM, Easy Driver Installer, FAN-Tastic Tuning, and USB Key.

The H61 is for second and third generation Intel Core i-series, Xeon, Pentium and Celeron in LGA1155 packages. It also has five PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot as well as dual channel DDR2 1600, dual VGA out (D-Sub and HDMI), Realtek Gigabit LAN, 5.1 CH HD Audio (VIA VT1705 Audio Codec), four SATA2, ten USB 2.0 (four up front, six in the back), and supports XFast 555, Dehumidifier, OMG, Fast, and Restart to UEFI.

Of course, the chance that you'll earn a significant amount of money mining bitcoin alone is small, whether you have one of these boards or not. Mining bitcoin is resource-intensive and is designed to make new currency available at a slow and steady rate. Though using GPU power to mine is faster than using CPU power, as more people start mining, it's become less rewarding. As such, your best bet is still to join a bitcoin mining pool (a group of other miners), and share the load as well as the acquired wealth.

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Jane McEntegart
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bombebomb
    Way to little WAY too late, GPU mining is dead. The only way this will be purchased is to stuff those GPU slots with ASIC miner cards. Which I don't think are "out" quite yet.
    Reply
  • americanbrian
    The company that makes them is in a conundrum RE: ASICS... The longer they delay launching them the more bitcoin they can mine themselves. I absolutely believe that they will only ship once the competitive advantage they have with them cools down a bit.
    Reply
  • lp231
    I got me self some bitcoins!
    Here is a picture
    Reply
  • dark_knight33
    Anyone joining the game is way past the curve at this point. 2 years ago you could have paid off your GPU purchase with the proceeds, and perhaps made some profit if your electric rates were low. Now, even with the higher valuations of bitcoins, you won't even get your investment back.
    Reply
  • bombebomb
    Way to little WAY too late, GPU mining is dead. The only way this will be purchased is to stuff those GPU slots with ASIC miner cards. Which I don't think are "out" quite yet.
    Reply
  • decembermouse
    ASIC mining has long eclipsed GPU and CPU mining. Even with one of the more common (and affordable) ASIC miners, the Block Erupter, which runs at ~333Mh/s, you'll likely never make a ROI. It will probably never even pay for itself at this point, since they've tripled in price in the past couple weeks. More expensive miners from KNC and BFL may not ship when you want them to, and don't always have great warranties. If you want to get into mining, wait for the Block Erupter price to go below $20 USD and get one for fun, but don't expect to make any money off of it. Or, run your GPU (AMD cards are better for mining) to help heat your house in the winter. Alternately, just run Folding@Home...

    In terms of this motherboard, it's way too late for it to make a difference in the mining network, and if you get it expecting to mine, you're throwing your money away.
    Reply
  • Katsushiro
    For Bitcoins, GPU mining is dead. However, it is still profitable to mine alt-coins with GPUs. I've been mining the second most popular coin (Litecoin) all summer with 2x HD5850s. As ASICs are not available for Litecoin, there is still room for investing in a mining rig. Would I, though? Nope.
    Reply
  • falcompsx
    one of these days people will realize bitcoins have no real value aside from the time wasted mining them. Once this happens, bitcoins will crash harder and faster than any economy ever created.
    Reply
  • BigMack70
    one of these days people will realize bitcoins have no real value aside from the time wasted mining them. Once this happens, bitcoins will crash harder and faster than any economy ever created.

    That paper in your wallet has "real value"? Oh yeah that's right I forgot, we've never seen a government backed currency crash into the ground.

    Anyways, obviously bitcoin is still experimental. Nobody should be investing money they can't afford to lose. And nobody should be bothering with it with GPUs. The days of cheap/amateur BTC mining are over.
    Reply
  • Vorador2
    The costs of operating the rig would be way higher than the return benefits. Waste of money.
    Reply