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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the miner-49er dept.

ASUS will sell a motherboard that can support 19 GPUs. The product is intended for cryptocurrency mining:

ASUS this week teased the new "B250 Mining Expert" which boasts all those slots because – as the name implies – its role in life is mining cryptocurrency.

The board can't do it all itself, of course. ASUS' preferred GPU is the P106, a variant of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060), 1,280-CUDA-core, 1,506MHz affair that can surge to 1,708 MHz when required and boasts 6GB of RAM. ASUS' version is shorn of anything to do with displaying video so that it can smoke hashes to cook cryptocurrency.

Do the math: 19 GPUS, 1,280 cores apiece ... this motherboard could end up hosting 24,320 cores before you fill the Intel LGA 1511 socket with a Skylake, Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake CPU. That chip's half-dozen or so cores are hardly worth counting!

The board is also equipped to slurp three power supplies, because all those GPUs are thirsty. There's also a capacitor dedicated to each PCIe slot to make sure the juice doesn't fluctuate and upset the precious mining machines. A mining-specific BIOS that lets you manage all those GPUs rounds things out.

What do you do with this after cryptocurrency mining is dead?


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:52PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:52PM (#558558)

    Could be great for a terminal server. Fill that baby with multiport cards! [tldp.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24PM (#558872)

      Or a killer robocaller.

      • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @05:08PM

        by Osamabobama (5842) on Friday August 25 2017, @05:08PM (#558980)

        Or a video wall.

        --
        Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:56PM (24 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:56PM (#558559) Journal

    All indications are that CFL will need an updated 300-series chipset. B250 is for Sky/Kabylake only. ...man, a lake of coffee sounds really good about now.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:11PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:11PM (#558565) Journal

      From the looks of it, the CPU is not exactly the star player in this setup. Maybe it's more like the team coach.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:34PM (22 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:34PM (#558579)

      man, a lake of coffee sounds really good about now.

      No, it doesn't. Coffee is a nasty drink. Civilized people drink tea.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by mhajicek on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:50PM (18 children)

        by mhajicek (51) on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:50PM (#558591)

        I'll get that going in the microwave for you.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:13PM (17 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:13PM (#558598)

          I'm not sure I get your point here, but that's another thing that's nice about tea: you don't need some stupid fancy machine to make a cup (or a stupid special-purpose machine that makes an entire pot instead of just a cup), a simple microwave oven works just fine. A microwave, mug, water, and a tea bag are all you need, and if you want to get fancy you can use loose tea and a simple infuser in place of the teabag. Or if you're roughing it, you can replace the microwave with a sterno can or an open flame (and the mug with a stainless steel cup).

          • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:18PM

            by mhajicek (51) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:18PM (#558605)
            --
            The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:52PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:52PM (#558632)

            Or if you're roughing it...

            Yes, I always make sure to have a jar of stuffed olives for my martinis when I'm three miles from the front

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:19PM (3 children)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:19PM (#558642) Journal

            you don't need some stupid fancy machine to make a cup (or a stupid special-purpose machine that makes an entire pot instead of just a cup)

            You think you need a machine to make coffee?

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:55PM (2 children)

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:55PM (#558663)

              You think you need a machine to make coffee?

              I'm sure it can be done without it, but I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen anyone do this. They always use a machine. I've even had visiting relatives go out and buy a small coffeemaker because I didn't have one and they wanted coffee in the morning.

              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @12:48AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @12:48AM (#558678)

                Just pour hot water on to coffee grounds in a filter which drips into a cup or pitcher. The coffee machine just drips real slow for you.

                • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday August 25 2017, @03:17AM

                  by Gaaark (41) on Friday August 25 2017, @03:17AM (#558715) Journal

                  That's what I used to do.

                  Nice and strong: too strong. Seems to have pissed off my stomach. Now I can only drink it in small quantities.

                  --
                  --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24AM (#558698)

            ...then there's Ginger Baker who notes that no matter how simple it is, Yanks (USAians) can screw it up.
            T. U. S. A. Lyrics [metrolyrics.com]

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday August 25 2017, @09:41AM (9 children)

            by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 25 2017, @09:41AM (#558791)

            I'm a little surprised that you wrote that entire paragraph without once mentioning a kettle. In the UK, the electric kettle is a standard piece of kitchen equipment, even in a household that doesn't drink tea. (Instant coffee of various qualities still has a following in the home market, possibly because everyone owns a kettle.)

            Is the kettle not a common appliance in (say) the USA?

            • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Friday August 25 2017, @12:26PM

              by Fnord666 (652) on Friday August 25 2017, @12:26PM (#558822) Homepage

              Is the kettle not a common appliance in (say) the USA?

              In my home it is, but in general not so much. A coffee maker is much more common than an electric kettle.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday August 25 2017, @03:14PM (6 children)

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday August 25 2017, @03:14PM (#558895)

              No, it's not. Some people have stove-top "tea kettles" like this one [walmart.com], and there are electric ones like this one [walmart.com], but honestly I've never seen anyone with an electric one that I can recall. I also don't really see the point of either of these; if you just want to boil water, the fastest and easiest (and probably most efficient) way is to use a microwave oven. Now a microwave oven is a completely universal appliance in the US (is it in Britain?). You probably won't find any home that doesn't have one, even extremely poor people. Also importantly, they're very common in workplaces, unlike kettles or any other resistive-heating items (which are a fire hazard, so some companies don't want them around). So it's easy to make tea at work by just bringing a mug and a teabag and some sugar if you prefer.

              The only advantage I can possibly see to the electric kettle thing is that you can keep water heated up in it in case a bunch of people want to make tea and not all at the exact same time. But keeping a pot of water nearly boiling (probably around 190F is optimal for tea) for hours can't be very energy-efficient; those cheap kettles probably aren't all that well-insulated.

              • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday August 26 2017, @06:56AM (5 children)

                by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 26 2017, @06:56AM (#559327)

                Thanks for all the details. To reply to your various points:

                I'd expect an electric kettle to boil water quicker, as they tend to have a higher power rating (1200-3000W), and that energy goes to an element sat in the water. I'll agree that if you already use a microwave to do the job, the perceived benefits from buying a kettle to do it instead may be limited. (If cooking pasta and in a hurry, I'll boil the water in a kettle as I turn on the hob, and pour the boiled water into the pan.)

                Microwave ovens are now standard equipment in UK kitchens, since at least the 1990s. They're also standard fare in an office kitchen, alongside a kettle or (at larger establishments) a wall-mounted electric boiler, but the microwave is usually for reheating food or drinks.

                On kettles being a fire hazard, many workplaces have lost their bread toasters in the last decade due to risk-averse policies, but there'd be uproar if somebody sugested taking the kettle away. A small kettle is an expected piece of equipment in a hotel room, in order for guests to make their own hot drinks.

                With regard to your last paragraph, electric kettles have been fitted with a thermal cut-off since the 1950s, so they can't be kept on a rolling boil. This can be done with a (gas) hob kettle, but these are rather niche items these days. These typically have a steam whistle that fits over the spout to let you know when the water has boiled (and remind you to take it off the heat so it doesn't boil dry).

                • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:28PM (4 children)

                  by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:28PM (#559445)

                  I'd expect an electric kettle to boil water quicker, as they tend to have a higher power rating (1200-3000W)

                  Who actually boils a single cup of water with a kettle? Sure, if you're trying to boil a large quantity of water (enough for 6 cups of tea perhaps), I can see your argument here, but I only drink one cup of tea at a time, not enough for a whole family. It seems to me the whole kettle thing only makes sense if you have a small group of people you're making hot drinks for all at once.

                  Also, there's problem with that power rating: it's flatly impossible here in the US. Our wall outlets are limited to 15A at 120V, or 1800W max (really more like 1500W realistically, as no one makes a device that actually consumes 15A as that'd be too close to blowing the breaker, so they stick to around 12A). So you're not going to find an electric kettle that has significantly more power than a microwave (which these days are 1000-1200W; the decent-size ones are 1200, the small ones are 1000).

                  A small kettle is an expected piece of equipment in a hotel room, in order for guests to make their own hot drinks.

                  Hotel rooms here all have microwaves for this purpose, and because they're also useful for reheating food, making oatmeal, and lots more. In short, microwaves are far more versatile.

                  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:20PM (3 children)

                    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:20PM (#559538)

                    Who actually boils a single cup of water with a kettle?

                    One of the low-hanging fruit of energy-saving initiatives in decades past was to encourage people here not to boil a full kettle of water, only what they needed. You just need to make sure you reach the minimum-fill level to cover the element (typically 500ml on a 1.8l kettle). I just timed my kettle boiling roughly 500ml of water from room temperature, reacheda rolling boil at around 55 seconds, and the thermal cut-out tripped after 64 seconds. (I hope this is useful for you to compare with.)

                    Our wall outlets are limited to 15A at 120V, or 1800W max ... So you're not going to find an electric kettle that has significantly more power than a microwave (which these days are 1000-1200W

                    Aha, UK household appliances are fused at 13A (on a ring circuit), but that's at 240V AC, so we can hit 3kW with no risk of blowing anything. In contrast, a typical power output for microwaves in the UK is 700-800W. Given that, I can well understand why we use kettles to boil water, whereas you opt for microwaves.

                    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @02:54PM (2 children)

                      by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 28 2017, @02:54PM (#560262)

                      Holy crap, 700-800W? Why on Earth do you use such tiny microwaves these days? Around here, you can get a really nice medium-size (which is really as large as you really need) microwave that's 1200W for maybe $120. The 800W things are in the $50-75 range; those are the crappy tiny ones you'd get for dorm rooms or offices and not expect to last too long. And it's not like the UK makes its own microwaves; they're all made in China by the same handful of companies.

                      The other thing about using microwaves to heat water is that it doesn't have to be water: if I want to make a latte or hot chocolate, I can easily pour a mug of milk and heat that in the microwave. When I'm done drinking it, the mug goes in the dishwasher. I assume you don't clean your kettle after every cup of water you heat (because it's just water), but if you tried that with milk you'd have to clean it every time which would be a pain.

                      You guys need to start buying some nicer microwaves. You have plenty of electric power to run them after all (over here, it's pretty easy to blow a breaker by running the microwave at the same time as the toaster, as they''ll frequently be on the same circuit in older houses; in new construction there's usually a dedicated circuit for the microwave but older houses weren't designed for microwaves).

                      • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:32AM (1 child)

                        by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:32AM (#560729)

                        1200W is really rare in the UK, and you'd be paying dearly for it. Looking at microwaves sold by a common bricks-and-clicks electrical retailer, Currys, they have 25 microwaves at 700W, 84@800W, 85@900W, and 19 @ 1000W. A bare bones 700W model can be bought new for £40, and a typical price for a standard microwave would be between £70 and £150. Prices go well into the hundreds of pounds if you want a combination microwave oven, etc.

                        I'll turn to a microwave to warm some milk for a mug of cocoa, but only because doing so in the kettle would be silly. (Pan on the cooker would be the backup choice.)

                        Incidentally, another key difference between the UK and USA/Canada is that dishwashers are still not standard in every home: they're more common than they have been, but are still a bit of a luxury. (I've never had one, neither have my parents or parents-in-law, my sister-in-law does have one in her current house, but didn't in her previous one. Oddly, TV ads for dishwasher powder have been around since my childhood at least.) Similarly owning a tumble dryer isn't universal: many still use a washing line to dry clothes. This was a surprise to my Canadian mother when she moved here in the 80s. Some of the above might be explained by a wobbly economy in the 50s, 70s and 80s, but UK houses are a lot smaller than in North America, so there isn't as much space for such things. The combi washer/dryer has made significant inroads, especially in flats that don't neccesarily have a garden to put a washing line up in.

                        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:28PM

                          by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:28PM (#560896)

                          Given how rainy and foggy the London area of English is famous for, I really don't understand why electric dryers aren't more popular there. Line-drying doesn't work too well when it's raining or damp. Maybe my perception of that area is flawed, but can you imagine trying to rely on line-drying outside in the pacific northwest area of the US (Seattle, Portland)? Your clothes would never get dry because it's always drizzling. Line-drying also doesn't work well when it's cold outside, or worse, below freezing.

            • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @05:13PM

              by Osamabobama (5842) on Friday August 25 2017, @05:13PM (#558983)

              Who needs a kettle when your coffee maker can dispense hot water on demand, in 4 or 6 ounce increments? (It only has a moderate residual coffee flavor.)

              --
              Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:13PM (2 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:13PM (#558599) Journal

        I prefer tea, but i've gotten to the point that coffee (with the proper add-ins--stevia, a bit of skim milk, some cinnamon) has about the right level of kick to it. Caffeine addiction is an awful thing but it keeps me going through multiple jobs.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:20PM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:20PM (#558606)

          Stevia? Yuk. That stuff tastes so nasty to me. It seems like every non-sugar sweetener is either an acquired taste, or certain people like them while other people think they taste nasty (much like how many people like the taste of cilantro, but some people with a certain gene sequence think it tastes like soap). My ex loves stevia however, which makes me think it's like cilantro: it tastes radically different to different people.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:02PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:02PM (#558560)

    So with all of these GPUs, how fast can it run DOOM?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:07PM (#558562)

    Can that gtx 1060 do 16 bit floats at a reasonable speed yet?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:10PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:10PM (#558564)

    What do you do with this after cryptocurrency mining is dead?

    I mean, I'd rather use it for projects like F@H and the sort.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:52PM

      by mhajicek (51) on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:52PM (#558592)

      Do both. Curecoin.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @02:18AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 25 2017, @02:18AM (#558695) Journal

      What do you do with this after cryptocurrency mining is dead?

      Start yet another cryptocurrency, of course! With an even bigger blockchain (and hookers and blackjack too)!!
      You see, unlike the money the Treasury "prints", cryptocurrency is not "fiat money"!!!

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:16PM (9 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:16PM (#558569) Journal

    How many watts?

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:26PM (8 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:26PM (#558575) Journal

      2.2-2.5kW at full power. (GeForce GTX 1060 [geforce.co.uk] is speced at max 120W, have 19 of those, add a CPU and some RAM - somewhere there).

      Doubles up as a pottery kiln - granted, a small one, for hobbyists perhaps. Or as a water preheater in a thermal power plant.
      Just don't use it in Arizona's summer time.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by forkazoo on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:22PM (4 children)

        by forkazoo (2561) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:22PM (#558609)

        So, assume another ~ 2 kilowatts worth of air conditioning sitting right next to it.

        The average home only uses like 1 kilowatt. (It spikes much higher, but on average the fridge isn't running while the dryer is going while you are watching TV, etc.)

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:32PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:32PM (#558616) Journal

          The average home only uses like 1 kilowatt.

          I suspect the incidence of failed raids for hydro-weed may climb sharply - high energy consumption all the time with localized IR patterns, regular deposits on bank accounts or just significantly big ones from time to time (from exchanging the mined crypto-$).

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:43PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:43PM (#558622)

          According to SCE, I only average 300W, but then again my bill is half to a quarter of my neighbors', and we don't live in total-AC-land or total-frost-land, so we can have Euro-style energy usage.
          I previously ranted about it being too low, and they won't let me put solar panels.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Friday August 25 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)

          by drussell (2678) on Friday August 25 2017, @05:09AM (#558735) Journal

          So, assume another ~ 2 kilowatts worth of air conditioning sitting right next to it.

          No, air conditioning is a heat pump. It only takes about 1/3 the power to move the heat in most systems, so a typical 5000 BTU window air conditioner moves that heat (5000 BTU is about 1500 Watts of heat) from one side to the other using about 500 Watts of power.

          You're looking at about 750-800 watts or so if you needed to pump that heat outside from a fully loaded rig.

          Of course, if you're somewhere like here where we heat instead of cool, then it just reduces your heating (gas/oil/coal/wood/etc.) bill while raising your electricity bill.

          Of course, if you already heat with electricity (egads! that must be expensive!) then it makes no difference. :)

          • (Score: 2) by forkazoo on Friday August 25 2017, @11:49PM

            by forkazoo (2561) on Friday August 25 2017, @11:49PM (#559158)

            It only takes about 1/3 the power to move the heat in most systems,

            There are enough inefficiencies that a lot of real world data centers are shockingly close to the 1:1 rule of thumb, even if it can theoretically be much better. If you have an air conditioning unit on the top of a nine story building that pushes air down to a second floor data center and back up to an exhaust on the top, you use more energy than just the heat pump. You may say that's a stupid design, but a lot of things are both stupid and exist. /shrug.

            Of course, if you already heat with electricity (egads! that must be expensive!) then it makes no difference. :)

            Indeed, the general wisdom is that computers are almost 100% perfectly efficient electric heaters, that leak a very small amount of energy as math!

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:30PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:30PM (#558628) Journal

        Arizona would be the best place. The damn thing will only make money if it's solar powered, otherwise it all goes to the power company

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday August 25 2017, @08:59AM (1 child)

        by TheRaven (270) on Friday August 25 2017, @08:59AM (#558782) Journal
        2.5kW is the power of a small fan heater. Those GPUs are going to need to to extract the heat at the rate that it's generated and keep the temperatures low inside. I doubt that air cooling will do it.
        --
        sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @12:14PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 25 2017, @12:14PM (#558817) Journal

          Depends on the temperature and flow.
          Pump the air at -50C and it shouldn't be a problem.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:29PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:29PM (#558577)

    "What do you do with this after cryptocurrency mining is dead?"

    what a bunch of fud.

    if it's priced right, i'll be buying one/some. cuts down on unnecessary motherboards, cpus, cpu coolers, ram, SSDs, etc.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:46PM (#558586)

      Cryptocurrency is unlikely going to die off, but the current implementations are quite shaky. Not anonymous and relatively easily controlled by whoever has the hashing power.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:52PM (#558661)

        Bannock, or Virginia City, Montana. Digital ghosttowns, after the cryptocurrency rush of the late 'oughts and early 'teens is over. Tumbleweeds blowing down the south bridge, PCIe busses covered in sand or infested with kangaroo rats, occasional groups of tourists passing through, saying, "How could they have lived that way?" Did you know Donald's grandpappy ran a bordello in a gold rush town in Washington State? True story.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:16PM (#558602)

    Imagine a beowolf cluster of them!

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:27PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:27PM (#558613)

    See if Windows 10 is any faster.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday August 25 2017, @03:23AM

      by Gaaark (41) on Friday August 25 2017, @03:23AM (#558716) Journal

      BSOD at 10 X the speed of light.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:33PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:33PM (#558617)

    > What do you do with this after cryptocurrency mining is dead?

    Get a bunch of SATA expansion cards. Find a case that holds more hard drives than an Antec Ninteen Hundred and make it look crowded. Make computer unstealable with dozens of hard drives and multiple power supplies simply weighing it down too much to move.

    Then build a second one somewhere else.

    For redundancy.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by toddestan on Friday August 25 2017, @02:59AM (1 child)

      by toddestan (4982) on Friday August 25 2017, @02:59AM (#558711)

      The thing I don't get (and the article doesn't really talk about) is how does one actually physically use all those slots? I assume that populating all those "slots" involve special mining GPU's in a non-standard form factor*. I suppose the slots closest to the rear are in the correct place for the installation of a standard PCIe x1 card which will likely physically cover up the two x1 slots in front of it. So if you wanted to re purpose the board for something else you now basically have a board with a x16 slot and 6 x1 slots. Unless they also make special SATA expansion cards that fit in those slots, I suppose.

      *That I also assume lack any kind of video port.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Fnord666 on Friday August 25 2017, @12:33PM

        by Fnord666 (652) on Friday August 25 2017, @12:33PM (#558824) Homepage

        The thing I don't get (and the article doesn't really talk about) is how does one actually physically use all those slots?

        PCI-e riser [newegg.com]cables [amazon.com].

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:56PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:56PM (#558623)

    How is it gonna feed all them GPUs (and their onboard RAMs)?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:33PM (2 children)

      by ledow (5567) on Thursday August 24 2017, @11:33PM (#558647) Homepage

      Doesn't need to.

      Rather than a super-duper gaming computer, it's literally just an off-loader.

      Upload the data to each card in turn. Uploaded the code. Let the cards run on their own cores/RAM until they come up with a solution. Return the solution.

      You'll probably find that this thing would suck for graphics etc., even if the graphics cards were normal cards for this reason.

      Unless all you're interested in is as many cores churning on supplied problems for as long as possible, this is going to have limitations that get in your way for everything else and make it useless.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:06PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:06PM (#558977)

        good for renderfarming. physics... mini super computers... anything that runs on gpus.

        • (Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:37PM

          by ledow (5567) on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:37PM (#559412) Homepage

          Render-farm, possibly.

          Physics, not if it has any kind of interaction on a large scale... it'll help but it won't do much.

          It's more useful for compute-clusters in general, but then it pulls far too much power for that, most likely, and the I/O does let it down again.

          Pretty much this is why people don't make these kinds of devices. It's just 19 GPUs with local memory and poor connectivity to everything else. It's an churner - upload problem, wait for solution, so long as it rarely needs to know or interact with ANYTHING else but the problem at hand.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @10:24PM (#558626)

    Because we need to track all those green aliens.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @12:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @12:58AM (#558680)

    OpenVSwitch, anyone?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:07AM (#558684)

    Everyone here knows that a beowolf cluster of fully loaded, 19PCI slot machines will enable them to crack the Gibson!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:24AM (#558699)

    tweak it a little and you have human flesh, it's what they want and what they get.

    it's in most foods now with Illuminati designs.

    they cannot maintain their human appearance without ingesting human flesh. if you're in the right frame of mind, or should I say WRONG state of mind, these hybrid beings give off the same sick (not sick as in cool) scent. I do not know why this is. when you discover the scent and you're sniffing about in public, it's like the comments made to the creatures in THEY LIVE where they discover he can "see".

    There are many ways to "see" the aliens and/or hybrids on this planet. But no matter how much you want to, trust me, it's not worth it, and they'll never let you forget it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:39AM (#558778)

      Oh, wow. Glad to see you are still around. I thought John Podesta and his friends got ahold of you.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:03PM (#558839)

    How many hashes per second can it process with hashcat software.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:50PM (#558855)

    Minesweeper at ~60 fps.

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