Cool - A lot neater than faffing with risers, but 7 slots are only 1x speed, which isn't ideal. 1 DIMM too - 16 GB would be cutting it fine for 8 GPU slots, so that's a rather pricy 32 GB SODIMM to go with it.
Also, I don't understand all of the PCI power connectors - are some outputs for the GPUs, or are they just to supply the slots with power which seems overkill? 32 8 pin connectors would be a monster PSU or four!
Board has no 24-pin power connector so the pcie power connectors are used, 8x 6pin to deliver 75 watts for each slot. (The other 8 pcie power connectors are optional.) Because of x1 pcie speed this board needs Linux because Windows would bottleneck too much.
Very good points raised. Completely forgot about losing all those PCIe lanes per slot. Seems like the tried true standard mobo is still the best folding setup.
Running GPU since it came out, CPU since client version 3. Folding since Folding began (~2000) and ran Genome@Home for a while too. Ran Seti@Home prior to that.
I'd love that board, but not for a 8x 1080ti sort of dream. But for a 8x passive 1050ti folding system or 8x 1060 watercooled silent system. Build a custom tower to house it and the cards.
I have tested my current cards on x1 and the PPD gain between x1 and x16 seems negligible on them. Just like the 1-2 % drift between pci-e 2.0 and 3.0. Yes on a 1080 it makes a difference, but when you are running something that makes 250k/day, 1% is not something I would lose sleep over.
If I could source one I would. Probably wont be able to get them over here anytime soon. But to build a 700w silent system purely for folding that I could stash somewhere out of the way and would produce ~1mil PPD, while not turning that room into a raging inferno. Very sweet.
Interesting, but an 8x1080Ti system would need at least a 25-amp electric circuit (probably 30amps to be safe). Not a lot of those in residential buildings -- at least I don't have one except for my central AC unit which I use half of the year. I could run power cords to two outlets on different breakers, I suppose. Is this what guys with racks of GPUs on risers do?
