• A Great friend to the HardForum with a great kid that he is trying to get a scholorship to continue his schooling. Please give hime a vote! Only 24 hours left! Thanks.
    If you have an VOTE FOR KEENAN!

The ultimate GPU farm motherboard

and if they ever make sli on one board (newer cards). thats 16 gpu's
 
While that would be bad-ass on the vidcard side of the house, I'm feeling the cost effective solution would still be -bigadv SMP using a couple of SR-2's for the amount of PPD you're gonna be pushing out. Eight of those GTX580's would scream through some WU's though....
 
While that would be extremely bad ass.

The system wouldnt boot. There is simply not enough ROM space to handle it.

Someone tried it with one of those Supermicro Tesla Boards that has 7 PCIe and it would not even post with more than 4 GPUs.
 
nitrobass24 said:
While that would be extremely bad ass.

The system wouldnt boot. There is simply not enough ROM space to handle it.
Click to expand...
Nitro, I *believe* MSI will likely be replacing the standard PC BIOS with UEFI on these boards but I could be wrong. We should start seeing wider use of UEFI, finally, in 2011.
 
Axdrenalin said:
While that would be bad-ass on the vidcard side of the house, I'm feeling the cost effective solution would still be -bigadv SMP using a couple of SR-2's for the amount of PPD you're gonna be pushing out. Eight of those GTX580's would scream through some WU's though....
Click to expand...
Yes I should have used a smily on that post, it was dripping with sarcasm...;)
 
R-Type said:
Yes I should have used a smily on that post, it was dripping with sarcasm...;)
Click to expand...

LOL, yeah, I kinda figured as much. Seriously though, I currently fold with 5 GTX260's and a GTX460 simply because of the amount of WU's that get processed. While the points are okay, I prefer to shovel more WU's through daily instead of maximizing the points value - better for the science that way. :cool: It did get me to thinking just how many WU's you could process using all of those 580's on a single MB. I just wouldn't want to see the power bill on that boxen at the end of the month.
 
Tobit said:
Nitro, I *believe* MSI will likely be replacing the standard PC BIOS with UEFI on these boards but I could be wrong. We should start seeing wider use of UEFI, finally, in 2011.
Click to expand...

Why Wouldnt UEFI not have a space limitation?
Also the article i read about this board said Triple BIOS, so i guess it could still have EFI but i dunno. :)
 
I'd like someone to max out on that board and having their PSU(s) ultimately going through a Kill-A-Watt meter, and take a photo of the meter at idle versus full folding load. :D
 
Axdrenalin said:
LOL, yeah, I kinda figured as much. Seriously though, I currently fold with 5 GTX260's and a GTX460 simply because of the amount of WU's that get processed. While the points are okay, I prefer to shovel more WU's through daily instead of maximizing the points value - better for the science that way. :cool: It did get me to thinking just how many WU's you could process using all of those 580's on a single MB. I just wouldn't want to see the power bill on that boxen at the end of the month.
Click to expand...

No doubt. Since you would definitely overclock the 580's, we could estimate 300W per card x 8 plus the cpu and you are looking at 2500W of power draw. Is this the same as 2.5 kWh per hour? You could then figure out the monthly bill of such a setup.

Still, it would be an honest 140-150k ppd without any bonus shenanigans.
 
is there even such a thing as a 1u wide 580? you could probably bodge something up with 4 cards and 4 of those flexible PCIe extenders (and that way you could spread the heat around a bit better) or pay some serious dough for 8 GPU waterblocks and sleepless nights wondering about one of those 16 barbs leaking :)
 
There is the single slot watercooled evga I posted above, I haven't seen any others.

Assuming the EFI allows all 8 gpu's to run, the real cost prohibitive thing is the waterblocks since full cover units run ~$100 a piece.

Are there solo blocks like the DD Maze5 or Swiftech MCW80 that have a single slot profile? If so you could probably get away with just one of those and some heatsinks with good airflow over the boards for a farm of GTX 460's, That would be a third of the cost of the 580's while still pumping out like 95k ppd
 
not to mention the radiators you would need, probably at least 2x 360mm
by the time you buy those cards and do all that water cooling stuff you could probably just get 3 separate boards with cheap CPU, 3 cards each, single PSU and air cooling, and less hassle (the point of single board is less hassle right :) )
 
DeFex said:
not to mention the radiators you would need, probably at least 2x 360mm
by the time you buy those cards and do all that water cooling stuff you could probably just get 3 separate boards with cheap CPU, 3 cards each, single PSU and air cooling, and less hassle (the point of single board is less hassle right :) )
Click to expand...


but then thats not [H]ard now is it? :D
 
hmm quick math.... 8 cards @ $700 that's $5600... add in a board CPU and RAM, that should be a quick $6000 and I haven't included cooling that's probably another $150 (the cards come with single slot waterblocks installed..... how much for enough SR-2 lovin' to get the same PPD....?. either way is [H]ard. tho an 8 carded rig would be absolutely sick to see.
 
Tobit said:
Nitro, I *believe* MSI will likely be replacing the standard PC BIOS with UEFI on these boards but I could be wrong. We should start seeing wider use of UEFI, finally, in 2011.
Click to expand...

Is this that new soccer BIOS they are coming out with? Don't be surprised if one of the developers gets paid off by someone and only 8 ATI/AMD cards get supported. I know how that stuff works across the pond.
 
Don't forget the k9a2 platinum could boot with 8 GPUS...but it only had 4 slots.
 
the UEFI bios are the new bios that will take over. it wont have any limitation to hard drive size though we will still be limited by the stupid sata controller's. and there shouldn't be any limitation on gpu's. since UEFI bios basically just see's it as another video display adapter instead of seeing it as an AMD or nvidia display adapter. basically in short terms there's no limitations to the bios unlike traditional bios that constantly have to be updated for new hardware.

brycejones said:
Don't forget the k9a2 platinum could boot with 8 GPUS...but it only had 4 slots.
Click to expand...

only in windows xp. windows vista/7 still only supports 8 display adapters where as windows xp supports up to 8 gpu's.

jfb9301 said:
hmm quick math.... 8 cards @ $700 that's $5600... add in a board CPU and RAM, that should be a quick $6000 and I haven't included cooling that's probably another $150 (the cards come with single slot waterblocks installed..... how much for enough SR-2 lovin' to get the same PPD....?. either way is [H]ard. tho an 8 carded rig would be absolutely sick to see.
Click to expand...


dont forget to add another 1000 dollars for electricity every year just for those cards.

so 6 grand up front with another 3-4 thousand over the next 3-4 years before upgrading again gives a grand total of 9-10 grand over the lifetime of the system.
 
jfb9301 said:
I was wondering when someone would spot that limitation..
Click to expand...


lol nvidia does have a way around it though buy supporting cuda in SLI, when in SLI it disables the extra unused ports. so for example 4 cards it only see's 3 display ports due to eyefinity support across all 3 cards. add a 4th card it doesn't see those ports, add a 5th card it doesnt see those as well. but the problem is nvidia constantly breaks sli cuda support. worked fine in the 198.xx drivers. then broke it in the 258.96 drivers then got it working again in the 260.xx drivers. so odd's are they will find a way to break it again in the next driver version since thats the nvidia way of doing things. only problem is we wont see another nvidia update until late January/early February until they fix some stupid problem that only effects 1% of their current customers.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
only problem is we wont see another nvidia update until late January/early February until they fix some stupid problem that only effects 1% of their current customers.
Click to expand...

This is not a problem. You can just not update to broken drivers and you will be fine.

The only time this is a problem is when that 1% happens to be you (and your favorite game), then you have to choose between folding and gaming.
 
Konstantinnovation said:
This is not a problem. You can just not update to broken drivers and you will be fine.

The only time this is a problem is when that 1% happens to be you (and your favorite game), then you have to choose between folding and gaming.
Click to expand...

Huh? What are you talking about? gaming vs folding? Like there is a choice......we are in the distributed computing forum.
 
Konstantinnovation said:
This is not a problem. You can just not update to broken drivers and you will be fine.

The only time this is a problem is when that 1% happens to be you (and your favorite game), then you have to choose between folding and gaming.
Click to expand...


no they need to get with the big picture and take a lesson from AMD and do incrimental beta updates fixing other issues while they attempt to fix the bigger problem. when you have to wait 3 months to get an update for a AAA game that effects every one because their having to wait for them to fix a problem that effects very few people is just outright stupid. i mean hell even nvidia's so called beta bios really arent beta bios, they are just the drivers waiting to be WHQL certified. but instead nvidia pre-releases them for everyone else to use while they are getting certified. while AMD has released 6 beta versions fixing various issues between the last WHQL drivers and the next set if WHQL drivers. though the majority of this can be blamed on microsoft and them taking their sweet ass time certifying drivers.
 
Oh goodness.........


That would be a LOT of heat as I would hate to see what running 8 GPU's in a single computer could do to your room temperatures in the summer. That kind of electricity usage would probably also get you raided.

I suppose you could also use that to run 4 GTX580's instead of 8 single slot video cards. Also keep in mind the supposedly rumored dual GPU GTX 595......
 
4 GTX 595's....would be awesome but I bet they'd be putting off more heat than a nuclear reactor on air. Would be a helluva space heater in the winter :)
 
TYoda said:
4 GTX 595's....would be awesome but I bet they'd be putting off more heat than a nuclear reactor on air. Would be a helluva space heater in the winter :)
Click to expand...
If you could write some logic that incrementally started and stopped clients based on room temperature, you could have a climate controlled folding furnace.
 
TYoda said:
4 GTX 595's....would be awesome but I bet they'd be putting off more heat than a nuclear reactor on air. Would be a helluva space heater in the winter :)
Click to expand...

I doubt it.....even small reactors are in the Megawatt range.... the best your gonna see for GPU folding is a few Kilowatts.

nuclear reactors are my profession, not just a hobby. ;)

(not so) Seriously 4x 595s would be right around the same as 8 570s (if you go by the 295 was not 2x280s). This thread is about insanity with GPU folding. Sooooo.... there were some single slot water cooled 295s right....... Just imagine 8 single slot 595s.... I'm thinking a Radiator from a Chevy small block might just keep up.
 
Last edited:
jfb9301 said:
hmm quick math.... 8 cards @ $700 that's $5600... add in a board CPU and RAM, that should be a quick $6000 and I haven't included cooling that's probably another $150 (the cards come with single slot waterblocks installed..... how much for enough SR-2 lovin' to get the same PPD....?. either way is [H]ard. tho an 8 carded rig would be absolutely sick to see.
Click to expand...

Thats also more than enough for a 10e style quad G34 rig
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top