Biostar presents mining motherboard with twelve PCI-e slots

Biostar has announced the TB250-BTC PRO motherboard, which has twelve PCI-e slots to drive as many video cards. The board for Intel processors is intended for mining cryptocoins.

The atx motherboard is equipped with Intel’s B250 chipset and has an lga1151 socket. There is also room for two strips of DDR4 memory. The twelve PCI-e slots are arranged in two rows on the motherboard. There is one full x16 size slot.

To actually use twelve video cards, riser cables must be used. The video cards must then be mounted in a separate rack and not directly on the motherboard. Biostar has not completely stripped the motherboard of other functionality. There are six SATA600 connections and the I/O panel is complete including USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and audio connections.

During the Computex, Biostar showed mining rigs with its BTC motherboards, but before that versions with space for up to eight GPUs were used. The new TB250-BTC PRO board was not on display at the fair. Competitor ASRock showed there a motherboard with thirteen PCI-e slots. Biostar appears to refer to that board in an image on its website, stating that its design is not good because the PCI-e slots are close together. Biostar claims that this could cause a short circuit.

It is not clear whether and when Biostar will market the motherboard in the Benelux. According to TechPowerUp, the board will have a suggested retail price of $130. Converted including VAT, that is about 139 euros.