Monday, September 11th 2017

Colorful Intros a Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Colorful today introduced an non-standard form-factor socket LGA1151 motherboard for crypto-currency mining builds, the C.B250A-BTC PLUS V20. This board is 485 mm in length, and 195 mm in width, and probably won't fit in even HPTX cases for its intended use, but is suited for custom rack-type setups. It only includes the most bare-essential features to set up a mining rig with up to eight graphics cards, with 2-slot spacing between each card. The board lacks a 24-pin power input, so you can share your high-wattage PSU with multiple machines based on this board.

It features two 4-pin ATX power inputs for the CPU, and sixteen PCIe power inputs, of which eight can be populated at any given time to supply power to the PCIe slots, optionally all sixteen can be plugged in. The topmost x16 slot is gen 3.0 x16, and wired to the CPU, the remaining seven are gen 3.0 x1, and wired to the Intel B250 Express PCH. The CPU is wired to just one DDR4 SO-DIMM slot, since system memory isn't that big a bottleneck with GPU mining. The board's connectivity, too, is bare-essential, with just a couple of USB ports, an HDMI display output, and a single 1 GbE network connection. The company didn't reveal pricing.
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31 Comments on Colorful Intros a Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

#26
CheapMeat
I'm not a miner but I think this board is REALLY interesting. I love the simplicity in a way like others mentioned. I was all in for buying it. But it's not actually RACK mountable sadly. It's too long. It is 19.0945" wide and most rack chassis are 17.5" +/- interior space and 19" wide total. :( If it had 7 slots it would have fit fine in the current layout. I tried to email Colorful now in the hopes they can make a second version. Hell, I don't even mind the x1 PCIe slots. If they make the spacing more standard, I would LOVE a board like this with even more slots! I'm dreaming of twelve x1 (or x4) slots lined up in standard spacing. It could be so useful in a rack for lots of I/O cards to do whatever you want with; I seriously ran through Newegg looking at tons of x1 PCIe addon & network cards for fun. I'm totally fine with the other specs included. But of course ThreadRipper/EPYC or Intel X299 chip with more PCIe lanes and other improvements (so at least x4 slots instead of x1) would be great too.

I wish other people could think outside the box on this here, even as a form factor. I hope Colorful sells enough of these and they read this. I'm serious about buying one or two if they make it a tad shorter to fit in a standard 19" rack.
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#27
LukeCuda
the slots are x1 pcie bandwidth. so what is the benefit over risers? much more interesting if it were real x16 like other more expensive motherboards.
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#28
CheapMeat
It wouldn't be relatively cheap then, at least in a way to want miners to actually buy it, not that the price is known. You'd have to incorporate a better CPU and better PCH for more PCIe lanes or a new PLX chip (over $100 on bill of materials). At that point you end up getting into something beyond what it was intended to do, beyond what people in general would pay for a niche and beyond what even you would care to pay for.
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#29
nemesis.ie
Indeed, I don't know how much PLX charges for theirs (I didn't look, you hinted at $100 plus)) but some of the Broadcom ones are pretty pricey in small quantities:

www.broadcom.com/products/pcie-switches-bridges/pcie-switches/

The 24 lane is more than 4x the cost of the 12 below.

www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/PEX8714-AB80BI-G/516-3569-ND/6139489

www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/PEX8796-AB80BI-G/516-3573-ND/6110849

Maybe those are "carrier class" or something.

I wonder who else might make them at a lower price.
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#30
ashkzari
Do you know what case model is suitable for this motherboard and how can buy it?
Posted on Reply
#31
CheapMeat
ashkzariDo you know what case model is suitable for this motherboard and how can buy it?
Sadly I don't think there's any case that can fit it. It's probably meant to just sit on some DIY setup, like a tablet or wood make-shift rack, or something similar that Altcoin miners tend to do.
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