Biostar Digs In With New AMD AM4 Crypto Mining Motherboard

News
By Steven Lynch
published

Biostar announced a new AMD AM4 socket motherboard dedicated to crypto mining. The company stated the Biostar TB350-BTC is the first professional crypto mining motherboard designed specifically for the AM4 platform.

In addition to standard features found on other mainstream AM4 socket motherboards, such as support for AMD's Ryzen processors, DDR4 support up to 3,200MHz, a single PCI-E x16 3.0 slot that runs at full speed for Ryzen CPUs and 8X for APUs, USB 3.1, and 7.1 Channel HD audio, this motherboard also includes a moisture proof PCB, electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection, low resistance mosfets, and overvoltage protection.

Biostar touted the fact that it's currently the only company offering both Intel- and AMD-based motherboards designed for crypto mining.

The Biostar TB350-BTC press release stated:

With this latest motherboard, Biostar is the first and only brand to offer a complete crypto mining motherboard lineup for any application making it the strongest family of specializing mining motherboards out right now. Not to mention, Biostar TB350-BTC is the first professional crypto mining motherboard for AMD AM4 platform. This is specially designed for AMD Ryzen lovers. They offer a performance and cost effective solution to make crypto mining easier for all.

So, what constitutes a "crypto mining" motherboard? We're glad you asked. It's the added features, such as six total PCIe 3.0 slots (one x16 / five x1) and a pair of 12V four-pin AUX power connectors that enables end users to maximize their mining efforts by allowing the use of up to six graphics cards via 1x to 16x powered riser cables (not included).

Information on pricing and availability was not available at press time.

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Header Cell - Column 0 Biostar TB350-BTC
SocketAM4
ChipsetB350
Form FactorATX
Memory Support2 x DDR4 3,200(OC) / 2,933(OC) / 2,667 / 2,400 / 2,133 / 1,866MHz
Onboard GraphicsBy CPU Model1 x DVI-D Connector, resolution up to 1920 x 1200 @60Hz
AudioRealtek ALC887 8-Channel HD Audio
LANRealtek RTL8111H - 10/100/1000 ControllerSupport Super LAN Surge Protection
Expansion Slots1 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot (x16 for Ryzen CPU only, NPU/APU run at x8 speed)2 x PCI-E x1 3.0 Slot3 x PCI-E x1 2.0 Slot
Storage4 x SATA3 Connector Support SATA RAID: 0,1,10
USB4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Port1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Header2 x USB 2.0 Port2 x USB 2.0 Port (only 5V power, up to 1.5A)2 x USB 2.0 Header
PriceTBA
Steven Lynch
22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • getochkn
    They should have added a cheap onboard GPU to the mix for graphics as no Ryzen are a APU so you don't need to use a card for display and mining.
    Reply
  • arakisb
    ridiculous that it is virtually impossible to get a mini itx for am4 (other than biostar's own mini itx which is not in stock and from a company with a iffy reputation and shitty reviews for their other am4 boards), but these guys are announcing a niche mobo

    thought at least asrock would have released their am4 mini itx, but still no after all this time

    pretty sad that mobo makers are not stepping up given so many of us are keen to build small ryzen systems

    even the atx taichi, which is clearly the best 370, and about the only i would consider if i was building an atx, is never in stock

    how can amd sell ryzens if there are only shitty to fair mobos available and no mini itx to speak of?

    i know i am not buying mine until this changes
    Reply
  • buzznut47
    A couple of things, for GPU mining I would pick the cheapest CPU possible. There's absolutely no need for 4C/8T. Which makes Intel with a dual core more attractive.
    Also why not include some riser cables as part of the package? You could easily sacrifice the IO shield, no need for that. Put the barest minimum sound option. 8 channel HD audio? Completely unnecessary. On board video would be useless as well, most miners run headless units.

    Personally, I would not bring this out for Ryzen platform until some low cost CPU options are available.

    Great idea. Poor implementation, and really bad timing. I understand wanting to jump on the mining bandwagon, but nobody will want to stick a $170 processor in a board meant to maximize profits, when a $70 chip will do.
    Reply
  • chaosmassive
    Yo dawg I heard that you needed PCIe slots
    Reply
  • photonboy
    1) First, this board is really just an AM4 ATX board repurposed for bitcoin mining. Including AUDIO and other unnecessary things is probably cheaper than paying an engineer to redesign and take that feature out, not to mention mass production.

    2) there are CHEAPER CPU's coming so not sure why that's a complaint, nor should the company just ignore Ryzen if there's a demand.

    3) Mini-ITX?
    Making this board doesn't affect mini-ITX being released. The REASON for the delay in mini-ITX is because the motherboard manufacturers are scrambling to support Ryzen. AMD did not give them much time to prepare which is obvious with the UEFI/BIOS support issues.

    Creating mini-ITX would not be the first priority, and of course they are coming. In fact, they'll be more stable at launch since they'll all contain newer UEFI firmware than what the initial ATX and microATX boards had.
    Reply
  • waltsmith
    A lot of coins only support CPU mining at launch, which is when it is traditionally easier to grab a bunch. And the more physical cores the better. Since that's how CPU mining works. A 1700 with no SMT enabled would actually be your best bang for the buck.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    19665303 said:
    A couple of things, for GPU mining I would pick the cheapest CPU possible. There's absolutely no need for 4C/8T. Which makes Intel with a dual core more attractive.
    Also why not include some riser cables as part of the package? You could easily sacrifice the IO shield, no need for that. Put the barest minimum sound option. 8 channel HD audio? Completely unnecessary. On board video would be useless as well, most miners run headless units.

    Personally, I would not bring this out for Ryzen platform until some low cost CPU options are available.

    Great idea. Poor implementation, and really bad timing. I understand wanting to jump on the mining bandwagon, but nobody will want to stick a $170 processor in a board meant to maximize profits, when a $70 chip will do.

    The low cost ryzen 3 cpu's will launch soon enough, this is a motherboard announcement, so it makes sense to get out ahead of the cpu launch.

    Reply
  • SpudmanWP
    If it's all about the PCIe, then wait till AMD releases the Ryzen APU so that you can use the onboard video out. This frees up the x16 slot so that you can hookup some PCIe expansion backplanes which should allow this rig to handle 10+ GPUs (if not 20+).
    Reply
  • AmX85
    Is a Biostar Motherboard? the MOSFET´s heatspreader looks like Gigabyte and the CPU fan like Intel

    LOL
    Reply
  • So not a single other person is worried about FIVE x1 speed PCI-e 3.0 connectors? How the hell is that even going to come REMOTELY HALFWAY to being able to, then, halfway utilize a modern GPU? So, I'm saying how will these connections even provide 25% output of a video card's compute power?
    Reply