New ASRock Motherboards
#1
Hi all,

I seen today that ASRock has released a motherboard specific to mining bitcoins.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H61%20Pro.../index.asp
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H81%20Pro.../index.asp

[Image: 8-Bitcoin-H61%20Pro%20BTC.jpg]


This looks as if it is also a great motherboard for hash cracking (as the days of GPU mining bitcoins are well over), as it allows up to 6 GPUs without the use of a splitter. Would it be worthwhile to pick some of these up?
#2
How much?
#3
Yeah, bitcoin mining with GPU is a history now, because it will be not profitable even with bitcoin price as it is for today (600+USD)
#4
when i first saw this the other day, i thought for sure it was a joke. someone at asrock didn't do their homework.

anyway, if you're cool with desktop boards and milk crate builds, then yeah, should be a good board for hash cracking.
#5
Brick 
I suppose it could be used for some alt-coins that are still minable using GPU. I guess if there were ASIC PCI style cards that were compatible with this, one could just stuff it full of those and still mine BTC and it would probably work better since those generate way less heat and use way less power than their GPU counterparts.

I find it amazing that companies way smaller than Intel are releasing 20nm ASIC designs while Intel is still on 22nm. It is very telling about what's going on in the cryptocurrency world. Probably not a fair comparison though, since Intel has to have a literally perfect chip for it to work at all, while ASIC boards can be heavily flawed and still work for the simple task that they're doing....
#6
The image from the first post seems to suggest that you could do hashcracking with your graphic cards using a 1x to 1x extender into a 1x pci-e slot. I am currently using 1x to 16x extenders and it works like a charm but does 1x to 1x really work too?
#7
(02-23-2014, 06:10 AM)mastercracker Wrote: The image from the first post seems to suggest that you could do hashcracking with your graphic cards using a 1x to 1x extender into a 1x pci-e slot. I am currently using 1x to 16x extenders and it works like a charm but does 1x to 1x really work too?

Yes it works with one wire modification like [Image: pcie-short-schematic.png]
from whitepixel blog
#8
I know about the modification on the motherboard's slot. My question is more at the GPU end of the extender. First, does plugging only the 1x part on the GPU end enough? Secondly, will it fit or you have to cut the end of the extender 1x slot that the card can insert into it?
#9
Why would they still make it with a parallel port? I dont see how that could be use in mining or most of today's tasks?

It looks nice, but keep in mind if your pci-e extender cables are not perfect (and my experience shows they're often not) you will get an erratic system that is hard to troubleshoot.

Also, the picture of the HOT motherboard on the asrock website looks like my MSI just after it caught fire Smile
#10
At the GPU end you have to cut one side of extender to fit GPU. And yes, plugung 1x will be ok. Besides, this wire modification goes better on GPU side socket, because it easier to solder it there. About stability, can't say much, have one system running for two years now without a single glitch, just constant *cat updates and some benchmark + some litecoin mining. Hope to buy two 290x soon.