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Profile The Gas Giant
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Message 22526 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 11:01:46 UTC

Here



Imagine the RAC with this set up if you could get the wu's!
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Profile Bruce
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Message 22528 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 11:18:29 UTC - in response to Message 22526.  
Last modified: 17 May 2009, 11:19:08 UTC

I think my R.A.C. started to go up just looking at that MB!!!!
;-p
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Profile Kevint
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Message 22542 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 15:37:14 UTC - in response to Message 22528.  

I think my R.A.C. started to go up just looking at that MB!!!!
;-p




That is not your RAC.


This is a very sweet board. Feasibly 4x16 PCIe slots. - loaded with over clocked Dark Knight 4870's 400K per day.

Very nice.


.
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Profile Lord Tedric
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Message 22544 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 15:54:19 UTC - in response to Message 22542.  


loaded with over clocked Dark Knight 4870's 400K per day.


If you can get it, lol
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zpm

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Message 22546 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 16:24:25 UTC - in response to Message 22544.  

actually if you guys read the article... it's 7 pci-e 16x 2.0..........


7 slots.....
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localizer

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Message 22547 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 16:44:30 UTC - in response to Message 22546.  

.......... think you'll get 3 double height cards in there - and a 4th if you don't have any requirements for USB or sound cards connection that will get fouled by the bottom card.

Nice. But there are already plenty of Mobos out there that will do 3 GPUs.
Anyway - there are not the WUs available to make it useful.
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Profile Kevint
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Message 22559 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 19:15:39 UTC - in response to Message 22546.  
Last modified: 17 May 2009, 19:17:49 UTC

actually if you guys read the article... it's 7 pci-e 16x 2.0..........


7 slots.....


Yes this is true, but each card takes some width, and looking at the board itself the slots are too narrow to fit that many cards ATM. Each card may only take one PCI slot, but the width of the card overlaps the other slots.

If card makers would build the cards so they don't take so much real estate it would be possible to install more than 4.


Maybe someday in the future the card makers will figure a way to make them skinny or the board makers will give more space for each PCI slot.


I have some older Intel boards that have 5 PCIe slots but can only physically fit 3 cards, not at 16x for each slot. But it does not seem to matter with MW if they are 16x 8x or 4x, at least not from what I can tell.
.
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Message 22565 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 19:58:21 UTC - in response to Message 22542.  

I think my R.A.C. started to go up just looking at that MB!!!!
;-p




That is not your RAC.


This is a very sweet board. Feasibly 4x16 PCIe slots. - loaded with over clocked Dark Knight 4870's 400K per day.

Very nice.


imagine X2's in there.... ;-)
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Profile Paul D. Buck

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Message 22566 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 20:16:16 UTC
Last modified: 17 May 2009, 20:20:23 UTC

To use all 7 slots you would have to stick with 9800GT or some other single width card. Assuming that the 9800GT(2) cards are still single width you could then have 14 GPU cores running 14 tasks. If you buy GTX295 cards you would only be able to fit 4 making you limp along with 8 GPUs.

In that my 9800GT takes on average 17 hours per task (or more) on GPU Grid, and the GTX295 takes about 6.5, call it 7 hours per ... The 14 GT cards will do about 16-18 tasks per day while the 295s will do about 32 ...

I know, my two GTX295 cards do on average 16 tasks per day.

{edit}

And I don't know of a PSU that is going to be able to give you enough of the right kind of connectors to power a bunch of single slot cards which all would want 6 pin connectors. Most PSUs you would get will give you a mix of 6 and 8 pin that assumes a more standard mix of GPU ...

Besides, unless he changes his mind Dr. Anderson is against mixing GPU capabilities so having a mix of cards is also going to be an issue ...

Oh, one last point, unless you have that as a single rig it will also suck the power plant right out of your socket ...
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Profile Westsail and *Pyxey*
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Message 22574 - Posted: 17 May 2009, 22:41:31 UTC - in response to Message 22566.  


Besides, unless he changes his mind Dr. Anderson is against mixing GPU capabilities so having a mix of cards is also going to be an issue ...

What means this? Is it not OK to have say a 260+9800GTX in same rig with <use_all_gpu> flag enabled??

Oh, one last point, unless you have that as a single rig it will also suck the power plant right out of your socket ...

Touche' *giggle*
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Profile Paul D. Buck

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Message 22588 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 1:57:59 UTC - in response to Message 22574.  

Sure, right up to when he decides to take it out again.

They are not seriously addressing the potential gottchas in the current design.

Hypothetical, I buy a new MB and processor to up date my current rig that has a low end CUDA card that is not capable of running GPU Grid, but is tolerable for running SaH ... so in my new MB with two PCI-e slots I add in a GTX260 card that I got on sale with the MB ... now, if I use the system now, the problem is that if i attach to GPU Grid the system is not smart enough to know to not run GPU Grid work on the old card and will likely try to run tasks on that card that are not going to be completed in time. Yet, I don't want to run SaH that much on my new 260 card.

This is going to be a common scenario... and because they are not taking this seriously now, when it is not a problem, it is going to be another nightmare later on when the project mix gets bigger ... like MW needing only 200 series cards ... what then?

I do have a 9800GT and GTX280 in one box and both in use on GPU Grid, but that is not the "extreme" scenario that they need to consider ...
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Profile Martin Chartrand
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Message 22592 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 2:53:20 UTC
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 2:58:05 UTC

Look at this desktop personal supercomputer Here
4 cards is the max for today's MOBO. So far as I can see. The MOBO will have to be quite extended to accomodate 7 Cards the way they make them today.

No wonder you have to phone them guys for a pricing...
Must be quite the $.


Martin Chartrand
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Profile Westsail and *Pyxey*
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Message 22593 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 3:10:14 UTC
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 3:13:45 UTC

^^^Nice! a 1200 watt space heater..
Think I will move to Iceland and use one in each room to heat the house.. *sly grin*

P.S. Depending on components...They were going for 6-14k last year. Not sure new pricepoint since Tesla has come down so much. lol, mines didn't cost quite that much..
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Profile Martin Chartrand
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Message 22595 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 3:24:48 UTC - in response to Message 22593.  

Yes. You'r quite correct.
I would imagine at least $6000 for barebone kit up to .......
But like you said the pricing changed quite a bit in the last year.

I will stick to my Q9550 for now.

Martin

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Nobodi

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Message 22603 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 7:02:46 UTC - in response to Message 22547.  

.......... think you'll get 3 double height cards in there - and a 4th if you don't have any requirements for USB or sound cards connection that will get fouled by the bottom card.

Nice. But there are already plenty of Mobos out there that will do 3 GPUs.
Anyway - there are not the WUs available to make it useful.



But with waterblocks they can become single slot cards
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Profile Paul D. Buck

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Message 22605 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 9:55:12 UTC - in response to Message 22603.  

.......... think you'll get 3 double height cards in there - and a 4th if you don't have any requirements for USB or sound cards connection that will get fouled by the bottom card.

Nice. But there are already plenty of Mobos out there that will do 3 GPUs.
Anyway - there are not the WUs available to make it useful.



But with waterblocks they can become single slot cards

No experience yet with water cooling, but, I wonder if what you might gain with more cards you would lose due to bus contention.

Besides, with 5 computers in the room I don't know that I would have room for the cooling systems.

The wife was commenting I should get a small room air ... problem is that I am already power limited .. ah well ... if it was easy anyone could do it ...
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Message 22606 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 10:11:11 UTC
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 10:17:44 UTC

Is cheaper and has also 4x PCIe:


http://europe.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=X58 SuperComputer&s=

Maxxx
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Message 22607 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 10:22:51 UTC
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 10:23:44 UTC

Multiple cards in a single PC can cause a 'traffic jam on the PCIe bus' problem.

I have 2 oc'd nehalems, with RAM@1800 so not real slowpokes, running GPUGrid.
One has one GeForce 9800GT, the other has 2. one has a rac of 5300, 2 has a rac of 9400. For twice the raw crunching power 2 sure doesn't have twice the rac. My guess its the old 'traffic jam...', which would be even worse with more cards.
Cheers,

PeterV

.
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Message 22628 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 14:22:42 UTC - in response to Message 22607.  
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 14:24:26 UTC

I don't have any BUS issues, you should make sure your board is set to handle multiple cards.

Some will run the first slot at 16x, if you put two some boards will drop both slots to 8x, some will go 16x on 1, and 4x on 2.

It varies between each board.

new x58 multi slot boards run 2.0 16x on atleast 2 slots, some can handle 3, going to 4 cards will cut back bandwidth, but there is enough left to handle GPU crunching.

The 7 slot board your looking at here.. 4 blue slots, 3 black.. notice that?!

blues are 16x blacks are 8 or 4x, this mobo is setup for RAIDs, multi GPUs, anything that uses the PCIe16x 2.0 bus.

If Im not mistaken that board can even handle all 4 slots @ a full 16x.

Back to my setup, Im running a RAMPAGE formula with 2 GTX280's. They run equally, when running 2 different WUs they will vary on time and report at different times, but my daily output is almost always double what one card would put out.

I ran a 280 & 9800GTX in a p5b deluxe for awhile, that did not do as well, the first slot would run 16x fine, second to 4x, worked well back in the ATI 2 & 3k series, but not holding up today! (sold it)

Multislot boards have come ALONG way in the last few years! With the xfire/SLI on the same chipset it will only go farther now!! Thanks you Intel/Nvidia for finally putting them on the same chipset!!!!!

[edit]
Dont forget about the PSU needed for that board/multi GPU!!!! Would probably be best to run a couple 750s or 1ks in a dual PSU setup.
[/edit]
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Biffa
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Message 22676 - Posted: 18 May 2009, 22:17:09 UTC
Last modified: 18 May 2009, 22:20:08 UTC

While folding I ran this for a while:



Now switched to:

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