ASUS B250 Mining Expert BTC, Intel B250 Motherboard - Socket 1151

Outstanding features of this motherboard, however, are the 18 PCIe 3.0 x1 slots for graphics cards and the total of three ATX12V connectors for three power supplies to provide them with enough power.

The ASUS B250 Mining Expert at a glance

    1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (16) for high-end GPUs / 18x PCIe 3.0 x1
    3x 24-pin ATX12V connectors for powering multi-GPU setups
    DDR4 memory up to 2,400 MHz
    4x SATA6G
    6x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0

Ideal for Miners: The ASUS B250 Mining Expert

The ASUS B250 Mining Expert is a full-featured B250 motherboard, especially suited for high-speed quad core processors in the Core i7, Core i5 or Core i3 series. It has two DIMM slots for DDR4 memory which can be operated in dual-channel mode. In addition to a PCI Express 3.0 slot with full x16 connectivity, eighteen (!) PCIe 3.0 x1 slots are available for other expansion cards. Each slot is equipped with its own capacitor, which ensures a stable voltage.

Another special feature is the three 24-pin ATX12V connectors that allow power to be supplied via riser card cables to PCIe 3.0 x1 slots connected GPUs. In addition, there are three Molex ports. This makes it particularly easy to implement multi-GPU systems. The board manages data carriers such as SSDs and hard disks via four SATA 6G ports. A special BIOS provides information on the operation of the graphics cards.

On the back of the motherboard, further devices and components can be connected via the I / O shield to the ASUS B250 Mining Expert via USB 3.1 Gen1 or USB 3.0 and 2.0, Gigabit LAN, PS / 2 or three audio sockets for sound. The internal port repertoire includes, among other things, a header for USB 3.0 and a header for USB 2.0 for two ports each. The board also provides a COM port.

Note: The drivers of AMD and Nivdia currently limit the simultaneous use of the graphics cards of the manufacturer under Windows on 8 GPUs. Combined, a maximum of 16 graphics cards can be operated simultaneously. New driver versions may correct this limitation. Furthermore, when using multiple graphics cards, the respective power consumption should be considered. A 24-pin ATX12V connector powers six PCIe 3.0 x1 slots each. Riser cables are not included with the package.

Technical details:

    Format: ATX
    Color: Black
    Chipset: Intel B250
    Socket: 1151 (for Intel CPUs of the 6th core generation Skylake) *
    * (for 7th-generation Intel CPUs Kaby Lake) – a BIOS update might be necessary
    RAM: 2 x DDR4 (regular DDR4-2,400)
    Dual-Channel
    Slots (physical):
    1 x PCIe 3.0 x16
    18 x PCIe 3.0 x1
    Internal connections:
    4 x SATA 6G
    2 x USB 3.0 (a header)
    2 x USB 2.0 (a header)
    1 x system panel
    2 x fan (4-pin)
    1 x S / PDIF
    1 x COM port
    External connections:
    2 x PS / 2 keyboard / mouse
    4 x USB 3.0
    2 x USB 2.0
    1 x Gigabit LAN (Intel I219V)
    1 x HDMI
    3 x Audio (Realtek ALC887)
    Power supply:
    2 x 24 pin EATX 12V
    1 x 8-pin ATX 12V
    3 x 4-pin molex