Which boards still unnofically support Skylake bclock overclocking?

[Madpacket]

I'm looking at putting together a new Ethereum mining computer and having a quick look at my options at NewEgg.ca as that's where I normally shop from.

I noticed some ATX 1151 boards have as many as five PCIe slots for not terrible prices. This is a good thing from a miners perspective. Many older recommended mining boards are overpriced or only available second hand. In Particular the Z series AsRock Pro 4 board looks decent enough. Given mining is a temporary endeavor I was hoping to pick up a cheap processor for now but I really want a board that can handle bclock adjustments on non K series CPU's. The goal is to mine for a while (probably less than 6 months) and then drop in a low end core i5 and overclock it to where it belongs. This will allow me to have a decent gaming computer once done with mining.

So anyone know which boards I should be looking at? Do I really have to go Z series or is there cheaper H series boards that will suffice?

 

[Sweepr]

This might interest you:

ASRock is implementing a novel workaround to Intel's recent base-clock overclocking restrictions for its 6th generation Core "Skylake" processors. The company announced the Fatal1ty H170 Gaming K4 HYPER and Fatal1ty B150 Gaming K4 HYPER motherboards, which are based on a common PCB, but differ with chipset - H170 Express and B150 Express. The two use an external clock-generator chip to give cadence to the CPU, circumventing the on-die clock-generator Intel has been using for the past several generations of Core processor chipsets.

With this contraption, you can increase base clock frequency on non-K Core processors in fine increments of 0.0625 MHz, as well as tweak memory clock. Its star attraction aside, the two "HYPER" series motherboards offer mid-range feature-sets, that are nearly identical to those of the Fatal1ty H170 Gaming K4 and the Fatal1ty B150 Gaming K4 boards.

www.techpowerup.com/220703/asrock-u...to-circumvent-intel-non-k-bclk-oc-limits.html

 

[DigDog]

i5 plus enough GPUs to mine plus electricity bills - and you want to save $30 on a mobo?

 

[StrangerGuy]

This might interest you:



www.techpowerup.com/220703/asrock-u...to-circumvent-intel-non-k-bclk-oc-limits.html

I'm sure that won't be buggy and/or a potential microcode away from Intel to shut it down.

 

[Sweepr]

I'm sure that won't be buggy and/or a potential microcode away from Intel to shut it down.

Nobody is forcing you to do BCLK overclocking on 'non-K' Skylake. Either spend the extra bucks on a Z170 motherboard + 'K' CPU or do it at your own risk.

The fact that ASRock is still supporting this (after the microcode) is positive news in my book.

 

[myocardia]

i5 plus enough GPUs to mine plus electricity bills - and you want to save $30 on a mobo?

He lives in Canada, that's why he mentioned newegg.ca. Canada generates ~2/3 of their electric from hydro. Their prices are as low as 5½-6 cents/kW, if converted to US "dollars", depending on location.

The goal is to mine for a while (probably less than 6 months) and then drop in a low end core i5 and overclock it to where it belongs.

Why in the world would you want to buy two processors for one motherboard? If you want to end up with one of the cheaper i5s, then start out with one of the cheaper i5s. Why would you pay roughly as much for a Celeron plus the slowest i5, which has the lowest multiplier as well, as it would have cost you to just buy a 6600k to begin with?

Although, if I were you, I'd start out with a minimum of the i5 6500, since as low as Intel clocks the 6400, that's obviously where they throw all of their junk CPUs that weren't good enough to be 'normal' i5s. BTW, are you 100% sure that farming with multiple GPUs isn't going to max out a 2 thread CPU very, very quickly, like it does in gaming with multiple GPUs?

 

[Madpacket]

He lives in Canada, that's why he mentioned newegg.ca. Canada generates ~2/3 of their electric from hydro. Their prices are as low as 5½-6 cents/kW, if converted to US "dollars", depending on location.



Why in the world would you want to buy two processors for one motherboard? If you want to end up with one of the cheaper i5s, then start out with one of the cheaper i5s. Why would you pay roughly as much for a Celeron plus the slowest i5, which has the lowest multiplier as well, as it would have cost you to just buy a 6600k to begin with?

Although, if I were you, I'd start out with a minimum of the i5 6500, since as low as Intel clocks the 6400, that's obviously where they throw all of their junk CPUs that weren't good enough to be 'normal' i5s. BTW, are you 100% sure that farming with multiple GPUs isn't going to max out a 2 thread CPU very, very quickly, like it does in gaming with multiple GPUs?

Thanks for the response. After thinking about this a bit more I've really no need for a mid range Skylake system so the more I look at it the more I'm leaning towards grabbing a Core i3-6100. I just want to be able to easily resell the box after done mining so pairing it with a board capable of bclock overclocking is attractive. I have much better PC's already and am only interested in the mobo due to the number of PCIe slots. Mining is nothing like gaming. A Sempron 140 is fast enough to drive 4 cards simultaneously.

 

[Madpacket]

This might interest you:



www.techpowerup.com/220703/asrock-u...to-circumvent-intel-non-k-bclk-oc-limits.html

Thanks for the info. A quick look shows no "Hyper" versions of these boards exist yet for sale.

That being said the ASRock Z170 Pro4S LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard is pretty cheap and has 5x PCIe slots. The reviewers point out the bclock overclockability so maybe I'll just grab this board and a i3-6100 and call it a day.

 

[myocardia]

Thanks for the response. After thinking about this a bit more I've really no need for a mid range Skylake system so the more I look at it the more I'm leaning towards grabbing a Core i3-6100. I just want to be able to easily resell the box after done mining so pairing it with a board capable of bclock overclocking is attractive. I have much better PC's already and am only interested in the mobo due to the number of PCIe slots. Mining is nothing like gaming. A Sempron 140 is fast enough to drive 4 cards simultaneously.

Yeah, the i3-6100 is an excellent choice, since it isn't too expensive, and has a high multiplier. It will also resell for a decent amount, because most of the poor less fortunate gamers know about the i3.

That being said the ASRock Z170 Pro4S LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard is pretty cheap and has 5x PCIe slots.

That's actually the exact board I was going to recommend to you.

 

[Madpacket]

Yeah, the i3-6100 is an excellent choice, since it isn't too expensive, and has a high multiplier. It will also resell for a decent amount, because most of the poor less fortunate gamers know about the i3.

That's actually the exact board I was going to recommend to you.

Awesome, I'll likely order it today. Do you know if these boards are backwards flashable? Like if they come with the latest (non Blcock) BIOS I'm going to be screwed? I can't seem to find any concrete evidence here.

 

[Madpacket]

Okay did a bit more research. Looks like even those special external clock generated bclock boards have been neutered. I don't like this at all.

Look at the BIOS updates from March 18th...

http://www.asrock.com.tw/support/download.asp?cat=BIOS

It'll be harder to resell a Z10 board an 6100 if the board won't be able to also support Intel's next-gen Cannonlake without a neutered BIOS update. I think I'll hold off for now and just keep looking for a cheap AM3+ solution where I can toss in my Sempron 140.

I wanted to support AsRock here because they offered the feature but Intel keeps killing it. I sure hope Zen is good.