Are Z170 boards a lost cause?

There isn’t a memo service for miners. Helpful as we are, we are to some extent all competing. It’s in our interests to share a good community, less so to hand things out on a plate.

So you should not make assumptions about what will and what will not work, it behooves you to do your own research.

All that said, what really gets my goat is people who go in with no knowledge and then refuse to own that, and blame the community. You on the other hand - if you can truly be as philosophical about it all as “I’m new and this is a good learning experience”, then more power to you. Stick around.

There is one person, who got 7 cards to work on the MSI Z170 board, you can find him over at ETH forums. but noone since has been able to repeat that even with the same board.

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You can just use this

my H170 pro gaming can work with 4 GPUs.
Z170 Pro4 can handle 5 GPUs.
its PCI bus limit.
https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/9639/5-gpus-worked-on-asus-h170-pro4

Turn a loss into a profit by throwing a GTX 1070 in the mix, and selling it as a custom gaming machine. DDR3’s the way to go right now.

In other news, AMD’s regional sales manager told me yesterday that Zen (AMD DDR4 processors) architecture won’t have the same limitations as Skylake (1151). I’m hopeful that someone will make a solid Zen mining board before Haswell (1150) chips go poof.

No, those don’t work because its not a PCIe slots issue, there are enough slots. Its a PCIe lanes issue, and Z series can not handle more than 4 cards.

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Even if it only has 20 lanes, can’t you can run 6 or 7 gpus on x1 mode?

in my experience… no :frowning:

Nothing to do with the lanes it’s just the boards being picky about running more than 4 x1 risers. Asus boards specifically are a headache even to run 4 GPUs .

What about x99 ?
Does work 7 cards ?

X99 is crazy expensive … depends on the motherboard if it can run 7 GPUs
Which do you have in mind ?

Sorry. i mean can i run 6 card on x99 MB (example ASUS X99-S) ?
if in z170 not work 6 card
(write with google translate)

It isn’t money.
I can take any motherboard with 6 PCIe slots of x99 or z170/h170
I want to be sure that I will be able to start 6 cards
it is good that saw this topic. Almost took already Asus z170 Pro Gaming and here saw that 6 cards don’t work at it

Pricier boards usually don’t have problems. If you have the board already it should be ok.

I have an expensive Asus x79 board that can do 7 GPUs

You should just check eBay or Craigslists and get the old and durable.

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3.

6 PCIe slots all work, and it accepts a $5 CPU.

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I just bought an MSI Z97 GAMING 5 motherboard, under $100 after rebate. It’s 1150 chipset, so $50 Celeron plus $30 stick of RAM and you’re off to the races. Oh, and 7x PCI-E slots.

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To add another data point.

I am using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with an i5-5600 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 mobo with 16 gb ram.

I have 5 RX 480 4gb working fine without changing any bios settings. Having trouble getting the 6th to work though.

just a heads up for everyone
ive flashed 10 gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming K3 to latest bios F20
9 out 10 work flawlessly with 6 cards no need for changing any settings in bios
they work plug and play now
been stable for 2-3 days now

for anyone with the following board

ASROCK Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6
using BIOS 2.8
can run 5 cards by doing the following in the bios
go to advanced mode
and chipset settings
Change PCIE to gen1 on both options
change max TOLUD which is the next option down from the above to 2.5GB

this makes 5 cards work
I have not got round to flashing the bios yet to reassess if can do 6 cards

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Great, will try that board and see if I can get 6 to work. Ty dude.

I’ve done it, but I’ve got multiple M5/M7 boards and only one out of them all will do 7 cards.
I’m almost certain that these boards are hit and miss with getting one to do 7 cards stable.