BIOSTAR releases the H110M-BTC, the first Intel H110 chipset micro ATX motherboard dedicated for crypto mining systems; a great choice for newbies. Even with a compact design, the engineers at BIOSTAR have managed to squeeze 6 x PCI-E native support (1 x PCI-E x16 3.0, 5 x PCI-E x1 2.0) onto the H110M-BTC, while most motherboards normally provide up to 3-4 PCI-E slots. The H110M-BTC also supports all the essentials in optimizing your mining rig: 7th generation Intel Core processors, 2-DIMM DDR4-2400/ 2133/ 1866 up to 32 GB, HDMI and USB 3.0.

The BIOSTAR H110M-BTC is built from the ground up for mining, be eliminating features that are not enhanced for mining performance. It focuses on providing a high return on investment in making sure there is native support for up to 6 X PCI-E. The 4-pin 12V AUX power connector ensures enough power to keep up to 6 graphics card running stable. And it has 100% solid capacitors making the motherboard extremely durable. The monitor output supports HDMI KVM for easy management of multi-mining setups or D-Sub KVM for more conventional multi-monitor setups. All these power packed features on a micro ATX design, makes this a great choice for compact mining rigs.

AMD's RX Vega is more along the lines of an original computing card that was moved over to the consumer segment for gaming workloads than the other way around. Raja Koduri himself has said something along those lines (extrapolating a little more than what he can actually say), and that much can be gleaned with at least a modicum of confidence through AMD's market positioning and overall computing push. In the argument between gamers and miners, Raja Koduri didn't have all that much to say, but for AMD, a sale is a sale, and it would seem that after some tweaking, RX Vega graphics cards can achieve much increased levels of mining efficiency than their Polaris counterparts, further showing how Vega handles compute workloads much better - and more efficiently - than traditional gaming ones.

The mining craze has generated overwhelming demand for graphics cards in the last few months, which led to increased prices from distributors, retailers, and the secondhand market. Miners usually don't look towards which brand they're buying their graphics cards from for their POW endeavors; they just buy whatever is available at the cheapest price, with some considerations thrown in for the cooling solution that is implemented.

One side effect of running multiple graphics cards in systems/racks that don't possess sufficient ventilation is damage to the graphics cards; some fans also give in to the strain of working 24/7 at maximum (or close to) speeds, and a look through mining forums or threads is enough to show that the amount of RMA'd cards that are used for mining is much greater than what usually results of "normal" usage of said products. Inno3D has apparently been affected by enough RMA requests and the economic effects of these that they have begun distributing their graphics cards with stickers warning users against mining on their GPUs, under threat that they reserve themselves "the right to void the warranty if there is any damage associated with this application." The sticker may be enough to deter some users; however, these are hardly legally binding, and should pose no problems for users in Europe or the United States looking to RMA their graphics card. Adding to this the fact that it would be very hard for any company to prove that damage on their graphics card products originated from a particular workload, it seems as a simple bluff from Inno3D - one that can be easily called by users.

This is the latest report from Jon Peddie Research on the GPUs used in PCs. It is reporting on the results of Q2'17 GPU shipments world-wide. Overall GPU shipments increased 7.2% from last quarter, AMD increased 8% Nvidia increased 10% and Intel, increased 6%. Year-to-year total GPU shipments increased 6.4%, desktop graphics increased 5%, notebooks increased 7%.

Up to now, the GPU and PC market had been showing a return to what has been normal seasonality. That pattern is typically flat to down in Q1, a significant drop in Q2 as OEMs and the channel deplete inventory before the summer months. A restocking with the latest products in Q3 in anticipation of the holiday season, and mild increase to flat change in Q4. All, of that subject to an overall decline in the PC market since the great recession of '07 and the influx of tablets and smartphones. However, this year, Q2 dGPU shipments were completely out of sync, and remarkably high, as shown in the following chart.

The mining craze is real, and companies have been paying increasing attention to this space, since miners are some of the most interesting customers hardware companies have had the pleasure of doing business with (at least when it comes to volume of purchases; let's discount those pesky RMA's, shall we?) ASUS is joining mining posterchild BIOSTAR with a purpose-built motherboard built around the B250 chipset. The B250 Expert Mining should allow miners to connect up to 19 PCIe graphics cards through risers, thus obviating the need for increased investment in additional motherboards, CPUs and memory.

ASUS has implemented a Triple ATX12V (24-Pin) and Molex connectors setup for additional power delivery, alongside PCIe slot state detection, dedicated voltage stabilization capacitors (one for each GPU slot ), as well as using a mining specific BIOS for increased hash rates. Of the 19 expansions slots, 18 are PCIe 3.0 x1, with a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. The slots are separated in three groups each with a dedicated 24-pin assigned to it for power. The top 24-pin covers slots 1-7 (includes the full-length slot), the middle header 8-13, with the last covering 14-19. A color-coded POST UI image shows miners the state of their graphics cards, overlaying coded colors over the PCIe slots, colored green for operational, red for when an error is detected, and grey for an absent GPU.

Disclaimer: take this post with a bucket of salt. However, the information here, if true, could heavily impact AMD's RX Vega cards' stock at launch and in the subsequent days, so, we're sharing this so our readers can decide on whether they want to pull the trigger for a Vega card at launch, as soon as possible, or risk what would seem like the equivalent of a mining Black Friday crowd gobbling up AMD's RX Vega models' stock. Remember that AMD has already justified delays for increased stock so as to limit the impact of miners on the available supply.

The information has been put out by two different sources already. The first source we encountered (and which has been covered by some media outlets solo) has been one post from one of OC UK's staff, Gibbo, who in a forum post, said "Seems the hash rate on VEGA is 70-100 per card, which is insanely good. Trying to devise some kind of plan so gamers can get them at MSRP without the miners wiping all the stock out within 5 minutes of product going live."

Ethereum is a strange little thing. When you open up your Blockfolio to look at how much you're valued right now, it can be as a fine bit of coffee in the morning, perking you up for the entire day, or a wrecking ball to your capitalist, speculative heart. However, even if you don't believe in the technology, there are many people who do believe: at least, in the future value of it. They believe it so much, really, that they're willing to rent entire airplanes to transport mining equipment (read graphics cards). And we're talking Boeing 747 here, not your average private jet (handy infographic on the pictures below, by the way.)

Ethereum's price fluctuations notwithstanding, which saw the currency soar from $10 at the beginning of the year to a historical high of $400 in mid-June, seems to have somehow settled around a $200 support level. At that value, it's still profitable to mine - even with the increased difficulty of the myriad of miners, dedicated or not, who have flooded towards the GPU-based workloads that support the cryptocurrency's POW (Proof of Work) design. And faith - or expectation of future value is so high, that mining conglomerates (the ones with the greatest running costs, but also pretty scalable profits - aren't willing to waste more idle time than they possibly can. Marco Streng, chief executive of Genesis Mining, told Quartz that "Time is critical, very critical. For example, we are renting entire airplanes, Boeing 747s, to ship on time. Anything else, like shipping by sea, loses so much opportunity."

BIOSTAR RACING and PRO series motherboards offer one of the widest selection of AM4 motherboards for Ryzen 3, 5, 7, Bristol Ridge and 7th Generation A-series. Gamers looking to take full advantage of the affordable AMD quad-core CPUs can select from BIOSTAR's RACING X370 series: RACING X370GTN, RACING X370GT7, RACING X370GT5 or RACING X370GT3. While anyone aiming to build a value and performance system can select from BIOSTAR's RACING B350 series: RACING B350GTN, RACING B350GT5, RACING B350GT3 and RACING B350ET2 and PRO B350 and A320 series: TB350-BTC, TA320-BTC, A320MH PRO and A320MD PRO.

GIGABYTE today rolled out the H110-D3A, a low-cost socket LGA1151 motherboard for crypto-currency mining builds, based on Intel H110 Express chipset. Built in the ATX form-factor, this board is characterized by five PCI-Express x1 slots, besides an x16 slot, and "Ultra Durable" components, which GIGABYTE claims, have been tested for prolonged operation. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and two optional 4-pin Molex inputs, conditioning power for the CPU with a simple 5-phase VRM.

The CPU is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory; and the board's lone PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. Storage connectivity includes a 32 Gbps M.2 slot, and four SATA 6 Gbps ports. There's a host of legacy connectivity, including LPT and COM ports, separate PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, and D-Sub display output. Four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), gigabit Ethernet, and 6-channel HD audio make for the rest of it. Expect a sub-$70 pricing.

Mining is highly popular lately (again) thanks to Ethereum and besides suitable GPUs you will also need the proper power supply (PSU) for the job. The PSU has to be highly efficient, in order to keep the electricity cost as low as possible, and reliable as well since it will have to operate 24/7 under highly stressful conditions. For mining purposes, the PSU's noise isn't among the top priorities since most crypto-currency farming facilities operate in dedicated spaces where the operators don't have to stay long; even home miners should install their mining systems in isolated rooms, where noise won't be a problem. As a matter of fact, in PSUs used for mining purposes the fan is expected to operate close to its full speed most of the time, given the high load output, effectively cooling down sensitive components. This way the PSU's reliability is dramatically improved.

Our purpose for this program isn't to torture test each and every PSU that a manufacturer sends for certification since we already do this in our 10-110% load tests (part of the ETA Certification) during which we overload the PSU with the ambient temperature exceeding 45°C, but mostly to examine closely its components in order to find out whether it will survive on the (very) long run. For example, a PSU with a bulk cap which is rated at 85°C will have a significantly shorter lifetime compared to a PSU with a 105°C rated bulk cap under hard operating conditions. The same applies to the filtering capacitors on the secondary side. A PSU that uses low quality filtering capacitors with 1-3,000 hours lifetime under 105°C won't last as long as a PSU that uses 6-10,000 hours caps rated at the same temperature. Another important factor is the cooling fan, since if the fan breaks down then the PSU will most likely follow immediately, especially if it doesn't have Over Temperature Protection.

There seems to be no end in sight for current high-performance, discrete graphics cards' supply constraints. If you've been looking for a specialized graphics processing unit to push eye-candy on your favored 3D experiences to the max, you've probably been having trouble for a while now. It all stems from a crazy, dizzying wave of cryptocurrency mining. And the fact that this mining spree has already taken global mining power consumption to levels close to a 17 million population country, as one of our editors puts it, kind of has a human problem. And it would seem that not even NVIDIA and AMD's partners' attempts to sate current miners' appetite for profit-generating graphics cards has put a dent on demand.

To all you out there wondering why you can't get a GPU for gaming at a reasonable rate, or why we are using record numbers in energy usage to mint so called "toy money," depleting our planets energy in the process, I have a bit of a statement to make as a former miner and "part of the problem" so to speak.

I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be this way. None of it was supposed to go down like this.

That probably requires some justification, yes? I mean mining is an inherently energy expensive operation, right? Well, yes and no, respectively. Yes, it requires justification, and that's precisely because mining is NOT an inherently energy expensive operation, despite public perception. It has become that way due to human greed, and nearly everything bad to come from cryptocurrency has decidedly come from that group: humans. Cryptocurrency is not inherently responsible. The inventors, pioneers, and early miners such as myself never anticipated what was to come, and we did not intend it to be this way. Bitcoin was intended to do good, and in the end, it wasn't cryptocurrency that screwed it all up, it was humans. Human greed, particularly.

So, yes, the headline is accurate. We all know that cryptocurrency mining has now reached an all time high, which has affected availability and pricing of most graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA. Who doesn't want to make a quick buck here and there? So long as it's profitable, right?

Well, that kind of thinking has already brought the global mining power consumption to unprecedented levels (some might also say demented.) The two top cryptocurrencies right now (by market-cap), Bitcoin and Ethereum, are each responsible for 14.54 TWh and 4.69 TWh power consumption figures. As of now, Ethereum consumes almost as much power as the 120th most power-consuming country, Moldova, which has a population of around 3 million. Bitcoin, on the other hand, stands at 81st on the list, in-between Mozambique and Turkmenistan, the latter of which has a population estimated at 5.17 million people. Combined, Ethereum and Bitcoin consume more power than Syria, which had an estimated 2014 population above 17 million.

Ah mining. The revival of an old craze. Who doesn't want to make their room's temperature increase to insane levels over the summer in order to cash in on the mining wagon? Who doesn't want to pull their hardware by the ankles and wrists, stretching it in utilization so as to maintain the PoW (proof of Work) cryptographic security in cryptocurrencies? Apparently, a not insignificant number of users and would-be miners does want that. That has, in turn, placed a whole lot of pressure on the graphics card market from both AMD and NVIDIA, with prices climbing and skyrocketing for graphics cards in the $200-$400 price ranges, as you know. It remains to be seen whether the flow of new miners decreases somewhat now, considering the recent market correction (read: dip) in the cryptocurrency market value (down around 42% from the all-time high of 357€ [~$400] of June 12th.)

After ASUS, it would seem like it's Sapphire's time to try and sway miners from their consumer-oriented, gaming graphics cards, through the launch of five different graphics cards models especially geared for mining. These are currently available for pre-order on Overclockers UK, and there are five different products in total, one based of RX 560 silicon, and four different takes on the RX 470 silicon (no, that's not a typo; it really is the 400 series.)

GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining poses a threat to the consumer graphics industry, yet the revenues it brings to GPU manufacturers are hard to turn away. The more graphics cards are bought up by crypto-currency miners, the fewer there are left for gamers and the actual target-audience of graphics cards. This is particularly bad for AMD, as fewer gamers have Radeon graphics cards as opposed to miners; which means game developers no longer see AMD GPU market-share as an amorphous trigger to allocate developer resources in optimizing their games to AMD architectures.

To combat this, both AMD and NVIDIA are innovating graphics cards designed specifically for crypto-currency mining. These cards are built to a cost, lack display outputs, and have electrical and cooling mechanisms designed for 24/7 operation, even if not living up to the durability standards of real enterprise-segment graphics cards, such as Radeon Pro series or Quadro. NVIDIA's "Pascal" GPU architecture is inherently weaker than AMD's "Polaris" and older Graphics CoreNext architectures at Ethereum mining, owing in part to Pascal's lack of industry-standard asynchronous compute. This didn't deter NVIDIA from innovating a lineup of crypto-mining SKUs based on its existing "Pascal" GPUs. These include the NVIDIA P104 series based on the "GP104" silicon (on which the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are based); and P106 series based on the "GP106" silicon (GTX 1060 series is based on this chip). NVIDIA didn't tap into its larger "GP102" or smaller "GP107" chips, yet.

Hold on to your ETH hats: you will still be able to cash in on the ETH mining craze for a while. However, you should look towards your 3 GB and 4 GB graphics cards with a slight distrust, for reasons that you should know, anyway, since you have surely studied your mining cryptocurrency of choice. Examples are the GTX 1060 3 GB, or one of those shiny new 4 GB RX 480 / RX 580 which are going at ridiculously premium prices right now. And as a side note, don't you love the mechanisms of pricing and demand?

The problem here stems from ETH's own design for its current PoW (Proof of Work) implementation (which is what allows you to mine the currency at all.) In a bid to make ETH mining unwieldy for the specialized silicon that brought Bitcoin difficulty through the roof, ETH implements a large size data set for your GPU to work with as you mine, which is stored in your GPU's memory (through the DAG, which stands for Directed Acyclic Graph). This is one of the essential differences between Bitcoin mining and Ethereum mining, in that Ethereum mining was designed to be memory-intensive, so as to prevent usage of ASICs and other specialized hardware. As a side-note, this also helps (at least theoretically) in ETH's decentralization, which Bitcoin sees more at risk because of the inherent centralization that results from the higher hardware costs associated with its mining.

Pictures of the new Pascal 1060-based Cryptocoin-specific mining GPUs have surfaced on the Chinese tech site expreview.com. They look markedly different than their gaming variety, not only lacking any display outputs (as expected), but also lacking any fan or active cooling at all and merely having a passive aluminum heatsink to cool it. It is likely that it could expect external active cooling or high airflow cases to function properly.The design also seems to sport a custom PCB, and a single PCI-e power connector, suggesting a reasonably low power draw. The site also hints at a 1080 "mining edition" GPU being in the works, but has no photographic evidence on that front.

Expreview appears to have a lot of them already set up in a good quality rack-miner style setup, so feel free to oogle over this article's photographs if you happen to be interested in the Cryptocoin "wave" as of late.