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ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

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Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#41

Post by PowerElectronix »

mk_stjames wrote: post #17

The prices of these boards have gone up it seems since the knowledge on how to bring them up and effectively utilize them has proliferated. After the crypto miners dumped them (that was, what, 2 years ago?), I saw one of the entire rack systems on eBay- I think they held 12 of these in one rack on a common backplane - for $800. (or maybe less?) That's $66 per BC-250.

Support for the board is also way better than before. Now you can customize RAM assigned to cpu/gpu, idle power, in some cases unlock cores, distros work out of the box, etc.

And the alternative of getting a gpu, cpu, ram, storage is like 5 times as expensive.

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#42

Post by kersny »

mk_stjames wrote: post #17

The prices of these boards have gone up it seems since the knowledge on how to bring them up and effectively utilize them has proliferated. After the crypto miners dumped them (that was, what, 2 years ago?), I saw one of the entire rack systems on eBay- I think they held 12 of these in one rack on a common backplane - for $800. (or maybe less?) That's $66 per BC-250.

I bought a full rack for $240 (free shipping) Thanksgiving day 2024 - got lucky!

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#43

Post by infofarmer »

embedding-shape wrote: post #29
stavros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, please don't throw away perfectly functioning hardware just to avoid unscrewing a few screws.

Cries in my ongoing Apple Watch Series 6 battery replacement Seriously, how close can you even put a screen and a metal casing?! Incredibly tiny gap that is impossible to jimmy open. I'm on day 3 trying to get this bastard open now...

Incidentally, just replaced batteries in my Apple Watch S6, MBP M1 2020, and iPhone 12 Pro Max during a one-day visit to Shenzhen. A dude in Huaqiangbei did everything in two hours for a small fraction of what Apple would charge.

ECG stopped working reliably after the battery replacement, but otherwise the watch should be good for another few years (stuck on watchOS 26.x)

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#44

Post by latchkey »

I ran 20,000 of these boards for an eth mining operation. The interesting thing here is that this was right before AI happened the way it has and we couldn't find anything profitable for these after eth switched to PoS. Company shut down and everything was probably sold for pennies on the dollar (I have no idea). Now, these things are actually worth something and people are doing all sorts of wild things with them. Heck, I had no idea there were locked off CU's and we had all the inside information and contacts!

I'm not saying that mining was a great industry or anything, I'm glad that eth switched to the much lower power usage option. I wish bitcoin would too. But, when people talk about the e-waste of the crypto mining industry... remember this one chip. One mans trash, is anothers treasure...

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#45

Post by latchkey »

mk_stjames wrote: post #17

The prices of these boards have gone up it seems since the knowledge on how to bring them up and effectively utilize them has proliferated. After the crypto miners dumped them (that was, what, 2 years ago?), I saw one of the entire rack systems on eBay- I think they held 12 of these in one rack on a common backplane - for $800. (or maybe less?) That's $66 per BC-250.

It was a box of 12 and 6 shared one of 2 PSUs in the box. Each board was effectively an independent "server".

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#46

Post by latchkey »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #41
mk_stjames wrote: post #17

The prices of these boards have gone up it seems since the knowledge on how to bring them up and effectively utilize them has proliferated. After the crypto miners dumped them (that was, what, 2 years ago?), I saw one of the entire rack systems on eBay- I think they held 12 of these in one rack on a common backplane - for $800. (or maybe less?) That's $66 per BC-250.

Support for the board is also way better than before. Now you can customize RAM assigned to cpu/gpu, idle power, in some cases unlock cores, distros work out of the box, etc. And the alternative of getting a gpu, cpu, ram, storage is like 5 times as expensive.

You're welcome. I was the one who uploaded the firmware mods.

The CU's is genius though, I didn't know about that.

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#47

Post by embedding-shape »

infofarmer wrote: post #43
embedding-shape wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cries in my ongoing Apple Watch Series 6 battery replacement Seriously, how close can you even put a screen and a metal casing?! Incredibly tiny gap that is impossible to jimmy open. I'm on day 3 trying to get this bastard open now...

Incidentally, just replaced batteries in my Apple Watch S6, MBP M1 2020, and iPhone 12 Pro Max during a one-day visit to Shenzhen. A dude in Huaqiangbei did everything in two hours for a small fraction of what Apple would charge. ECG stopped working reliably after the battery replacement, but otherwise the watch should be good for another few years (stuck on watchOS 26.x)

> A dude in Huaqiangbei did everything in two hours for a small fraction of what Apple would charge.

I much prefer my approach of ordering hundreds worth of new equipment first just to change the battery on my wife's watch, over the course of maybe one-two weeks in total (pending I actually manage to open it, new tool for opening just arrived today!), which may or may not end up with me breaking the screen. Well, or breaking ECG it sounds like, the cables inside seem brittle indeed.

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#48

Post by ValdikSS »

mk_stjames wrote: post #17

The prices of these boards have gone up it seems since the knowledge on how to bring them up and effectively utilize them has proliferated. After the crypto miners dumped them (that was, what, 2 years ago?), I saw one of the entire rack systems on eBay- I think they held 12 of these in one rack on a common backplane - for $800. (or maybe less?) That's $66 per BC-250.

Right now the same situation happens with CMP 170HX.

These GPUs physically have 64GB RAM but locked to 8GB RAM. You can unlock all 64GB RAM with a patched driver.

They used to cost $200-250 but now cost $700+.

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#49

Post by PowerElectronix »

latchkey wrote: post #46
PowerElectronix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support for the board is also way better than before. Now you can customize RAM assigned to cpu/gpu, idle power, in some cases unlock cores, distros work out of the box, etc. And the alternative of getting a gpu, cpu, ram, storage is like 5 times as expensive.

You're welcome. I was the one who uploaded the firmware mods. The CU's is genius though, I didn't know about that.

Well, thank you very much, then!

Re: ASRock BC-250: Building the Budget Steam Machine

#50

Post by pipes »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #31
pipes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 1660 super and I believe it is only a little less powerful than the ti. It definitely is not as powerful as a ps5. Though the original post is saying the bc250 is. I'm not sure which is correct!

It is a silicon lottery if the hidden BC-240 cores are stable when unlocked. Almost ps5 level, but not quite... still a lot cheaper than a GPU these days, and the discounted racks came with NVMe ssd on each BC-240 as well. =3

I see thanks :)
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