Gigabyte Announces H110-D3A Motherboard for Mining Rigs: The Mining Cart Rolls on
by Joe Shields on July 18, 2017 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Bitcoin
- Cryptocurrency
- H110
- Minig
GIGABYTE this week has taken the wraps off of a new motherboard built specifically for the again popular cryptocurrency mining crowd: the H110-D3A. Like other boards targeted at mining, there are a plethora of PCIe x1 slots. Having several PCIe x1 slots on mining motherboards make it more cost effective to simply add more video cards into a single system, rather than expanding to additional systems. Despite this being a mining focused board, some more common features found in mainstream consumers boards are here, such as a Realtek ALC887 audio codec, although others are left out as well in an effort to reduce board prices for this cost-conscious and investment-oriented market.
Based on Intel's H110 chipset, the H110-D3A has five PCIe x1 slots from the PCH and a PCIe x16 slot from the CPU, giving a total of six slots for GPU mining. This is compared to a typical consumer motherboard board with three or four PCIe slots, so it is easy to see the value proposition for miners. Due to the socket/chipset combination, processor support is for both 6th and 7th generation Intel CPUs, while memory support is listed at DDR4-2133/2400 and 32GB for the two DIMM slots. It is pretty sparse on extra features, as are most boards aimed at mining, but it still offers a full PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot and four SATA 6 Gbps ports.
The board is built using GIGABYTE's “Ultra Durable” components, which GIGABYTE states are tested for extended operation. Power is fed to the board and CPU via the usual 24-Pin ATX and 8-Pin EPS sockets, which in turn is regulated by a 5-phase VRM setup. Two additional power headers, via 4-Pin Molex plugs, are located above the first PCIe (x16) slot and below the last (x1) slot to handle the additional power required for running several video cards through the multiple PCIe slots.
Connectivity on the rear panel is basic, but all the required elements are there. This consists of two PS/2 ports, one parallel port, one serial port, a VGA port, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB2 ports, a Realtek Gbe LAN RJ-45 port, and Realtek ALC887 based audio.
| GIGABYTE H110-D3A | |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
| Price | $89 |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA1151 |
| Chipset | Intel H110 |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Two DDR4 Supporting 32GB Quad Channel Up to 2133/2400 MHz |
| Network Connectivity | Realtek GbE LAN chip |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC887 |
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| PCIe Slots for Other | 5 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
| Onboard SATA | Four |
| Onboard SATA Express | None |
| Onboard M.2 | 1 x SATA |
| Onboard U.2 | None |
| USB 3.1 | 2 x Rear Panel |
| USB 3.0 | None |
| USB 2.0 | 2 x Rear Panel |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8-pin CPU, 2 x 4-pin Molex |
| IO Panel | 1 x PS/2 Mouse port 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port 1 x parallel port 1 x serial port 1 x D-Sub port 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x RJ-45 port 3 x audio jacks (Line In, Line Out, Mic In) |
| Form Factor/Size | ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 19.0cm |
Pricing is currently $89 at Newegg.com, though the board is not in stock at the time of writing. Compared to the Biostar TB250-BTC (see in the links below). the cost is a few dollars less with a similar number of PCIe slots available for mining duties. The competition seems to be heating up around the sub $100 segment for mining boards as more boards hit the market and board partners attempt to cash in on the mining craze.
Related Reading
Source: GIGABYTE
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
18 Comments
View All Comments
DanNeely - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
Blaming the extra power needed for mining for the extra power connectors doesn't really make sense. 1x slots can only draw 25W (15W at 12v 10W at 3.3V) from the mobo vs 75W (65 and 10W) for x16 slots. This means a 3 16x slot board can draw more total power from PCIe slots than this one (225W vs 200). The disparity in 12V is even larger (195W vs 140W), and with 3.3V virtually unused today the 24pin connector provides a large excess of power there.TheUnhandledException - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
By the spec 1x devices are limited to 25W however 16x cards using expanders aren't following the spec. They are going to pull whatever they pull from a 16x slot and if the MB can't handle it you are going to end up with melted cables at the ATX and/or EPS connector.DanNeely - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
All the 1x to 16x risers I see have power hookups on the x16 end, presumably to prevent frying the mobos.IIRC from last summers AMD GPU powergate fiasco the PCIe power traces on the card tabs were getting burned too not just the mobos, because they weren't designed to carry that much current any more than the mobo was intended to deliver it; and that was only an ~50% excess draw on 12v. A card trying to draw 75W over a 1x slot would be overdrawing the 12v traces that were connected by >4x; far over what the PCB traces could handle without melting.
philehidiot - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
"TheUnhandledException" - Can I please just say I love your username. It's awesome.That is all.
Magichands8 - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
This whole mining craze is really stupid. Once you start hearing about these coins being mined in the news it's already too late to get in on it. I think a lot of stupid people are going to have to lose a lot of money before they figure that out.HomeworldFound - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 - link
That's their money to spend, I mean if you live somewhere where you don't pay the electric bill and people are willing to pay for this stuff for you, it might be a decent additional income.richough3 - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link
What's sad is how brick and mortar stores are jacking up prices on video cards as well. I went into Best Buy yesterday and they had an RX 570 for $319. It used to be you could find things at MSRP in B&M stores when Internet prices got all crazy, but I guess not anymore.speculatrix - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link
Can anyone confirm whether this motherboard should also work with Coffee Lake processors? I was thinking one of these with an i3-8100 and a bunch of DVB-S/S2 satellite cards would make for a great TV headend server.