Yes, you read that right. Asus launched a B250 mining motherboard equipped with 19 PCIe slots.
First of all, before we get into this motherboard’s mining-specific features, let’s cover the basics. The Asus B250 Mining Expert supports 6th and 7th Generation Intel Core socket 1151 processors, up to 32GB of DDR4 2,400MHz, Intel HD Graphics support, four SATA 6Gbps headers, Intel's gigabit LAN, USB 3.1, and 8-channel HD audio for those of you that enjoy listening to music while you are mining. All fairly standard stuff.
This motherboard’s mining capabilities is where things get really interesting. Though we have seen mining-specific motherboards in the past support as many as eight PCIe slots, this blockchain beast offers more than double that amount with a total of 19 PCIe slots. This allows miners to utilize up to eight Radeon and eight GeForce graphics cards simultaneously.
In order to supply enough power to all those GPUs, Asus equipped the B250 Mining Expert motherboard with three separate 24-pin power supply connectors. Each connector is assigned to a block of PCIe slots, making it easier to upgrade as you add graphics cards to your mining rig.
Built-in PCIe slot state detection allow you to see the status of every slot in real time. This takes the guess work out of troubleshooting your mining rig. Asus has also added a boatload of decoupling capacitors (19 total) to ensure your GPUs get the power they need for reliable operation. Also, B250 Mining Expert has a special "Mining Mode" that's enabled by default. According to the company, this mode sets the PCI Express speed to PCIe 1.0 and disables the Compatibility Support Module so you get the best stability and compatibility from the moment you boot your system.
The B250 Mining Expert is available now with an MSRP of $150.
Asus | B250 Mining Expert |
---|---|
Form Factor | ATX |
Socket | Intel Socket 1151 |
Chipset | Intel B250 |
Memory | DDR4 2,400MHz |
Memory Slots | 2 |
Max Memory | 32GB |
PCIe | 1 x1618 x1 |
SATA III | 4 x SATA 6Gbps |
LAN | Intel Gbe |
I/O | 1x HDMI1x RJ454 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports3 x Audio jacks support 8-channel audio output1 x USB 2.0 / 1.1 onboard connector1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 onboard connector |
Price | $150 |