Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

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Kamicrit
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 3:10 am
Hardware configuration: 3 SMP - i5 4670K
1 GPU - 660Ti
Location: Western Canada

Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by Kamicrit »

Image

https://www.techpowerup.com/236961/colo ... -x16-slots

Eight cards, two power supplies, and a custom case later. The most powerful single board folding setup yet.

Eight of any GPU would net you crazy PPD, would be a great rig to do a bulk buy of a GPU with the best $/PPD.

If you had eight 1080 TI's at full tilt, you'd be pulling 2000W from the wall. Electric stove element glowing red hot pulls 1500W.
Last edited by Kamicrit on Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rwh202
Posts: 410
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:51 pm
Hardware configuration: 8x GTX 1080
3x GTX 1080 Ti
3x GTX 1060
Various other bits and pieces
Location: South Coast, UK

Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by rwh202 »

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!
foldy
Posts: 2040
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2012 3:43 pm
Hardware configuration: Folding@Home Client 7.6.13 (1 GPU slots)
Windows 7 64bit
Intel Core i5 2500k@4Ghz
Nvidia gtx 1080ti driver 441

Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by foldy »

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.
Nathan_P
Posts: 1164
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:22 pm
Hardware configuration: Asus Z8NA D6C, 2 x5670@3.2 Ghz, , 12gb Ram, GTX 980ti, AX650 PSU, win 10 (daily use)

Asus Z87 WS, Xeon E3-1230L v3, 8gb ram, KFA GTX 1080, EVGA 750ti , AX760 PSU, Mint 18.2 OS

Not currently folding
Asus Z9PE- D8 WS, 2 E5-2665@2.3 Ghz, 16Gb 1.35v Ram, Ubuntu (Fold only)
Asus Z9PA, 2 Ivy 12 core, 16gb Ram, H folding appliance (fold only)
Location: Jersey, Channel islands

Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by Nathan_P »

Anything will bottleneck on x1, that board isn't worth it for folding IMHO.
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Kamicrit
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 3:10 am
Hardware configuration: 3 SMP - i5 4670K
1 GPU - 660Ti
Location: Western Canada

Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by Kamicrit »

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.

But cool in concept nonetheless!
v00d00
Posts: 390
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Hardware configuration: FX8320e (6 cores enabled) @ stock,
- 16GB DDR3,
- Zotac GTX 1050Ti @ Stock.
- Gigabyte GTX 970 @ Stock
Debian 9.

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.
Location: UK
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Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by v00d00 »

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.
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lastole
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue May 24, 2016 1:50 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Pro (mid-2012) dual hexcore (3.06Ghz) Intel X5675s. Radeon 5770.

Re: Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

Post by lastole »

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?
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