GPU Workstation Build

[richard_rosenman]

Hi gang;

After thoroughly reading through these threads I've started trying to put together a system.

I am interested in having a minimum of 6, ideally 7 or possibly 8 GTX 1080 Ti's, housed inside a case, not external.

The first and most obvious issue myself and the computer store guys are running into is trying to find a motherboard with that many PCIe slots that run at 8x or 16x which I understand is needed for the GTX 1080 Ti's.

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding this?

Again, I do not want to use risers because I understand that would be for externally housing the cards and the goal here is to keep them in a tower case (a big one I suspect).

-Rich

[Raven]

There are a few around that have 7 PCIE x 16 slots, but I don't think you could put all the cards on the board, at most you could only fit 4 cards on as they are double deck cards if I'm not mistaken.
I have seen people suggest that you use risers in a big enough case and the cards can actually sit away from the motherboard. Would be better for cooling and power cable management as well I would think.
You also might want to look into mining boards, they may have enough slots more spread out.

[KhyeKading]

Hi gang;

After thoroughly reading through these threads I've started trying to put together a system.

I am interested in having a minimum of 6, ideally 7 or possibly 8 GTX 1080 Ti's, housed inside a case, not external.

The first and most obvious issue myself and the computer store guys are running into is trying to find a motherboard with that many PCIe slots that run at 8x or 16x which I understand is needed for the GTX 1080 Ti's.

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding this?

Again, I do not want to use risers because I understand that would be for externally housing the cards and the goal here is to keep them in a tower case (a big one I suspect).

-Rich

From my research and experience, 1080ti's don't /require/ 8x or 16x PCIe lanes--it'll work just fine on a 1x,2x, or 4x lane. It will be slower but posts on this forum suggest that vray doesn't require much in lane speed. Furthermore Threadripper is the only CPU I know of that would support 64 PCIe lanes (8 lanes at x8 speed).

[richard_rosenman]

So it looks like there's options for motherboards based on the 2x, 4x, and 8x lane alternatives but an equally challenging problem is finding a case that can house 6-8 GTX 1080 Ti's as they are thick cards and require two rear slots each.
Tom Glimps managed to do that but only by cutting off one slot from each card which voids the warranty and that's not something I want to do: http://tomglimps.com/7_gpu_workstati...0_octanebench/
So are there any cases that would work for this kind of setup?

-Rich

[dlparisi]

Something like this https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7610-_-Product? I have no experience with it, I just thought it was interesting. Maybe something similar is available without the dual cpu requirement.

[KhyeKading]

I think you're best option is to look at mining forums for case solutions. I've seen some slick designs based on 4u rack systems with a third party frame insert to support the extra cards.

[biochemical_animations]

I've read guys removing the fans from the cards and mounting low profile liquid coolers so they can pack the cards in closer...I think some of them were able to achieve single spaced PCIE slots. But then your build gets more complicated/costly and they ran a large external radiator. Also there is the liquid maintenance (algae, etc.)

[jstrob]

Mining is not the same as GPU rendering. I built many 8 gpu systems that are very stable and efficient at mining but are very unstable and slow at gpu rendering. I would suggest staying safe and building 2 systems with a max of 4 gpu each. And just look at the vray benchmark. 4 gpu is 1.6 times faster than 2 gpu but 8 gpu are just 1.1 times faster than 4.

And using risers and lowering pcie speed to gen 1 to detect more than 4 gpu will give you very low framerate when flipping frames sequences. you will need 2 psu and 20 or 30 amp circuit to make it run. Not really worth it.

you can fit more gpu if you use watercooled solution that use only 1 space instead of 2. but again not worth it.

[particlerealities]

As jstrob mentioned, that's 2,000 Watts of power requirements just for the ( GPU cards. If you're on 120V outlet, just the GPUs will draw 16.7 amps of power. Throw in your other internal components, external accessories (monitors, speakers, lamps, phone chargers, etc.) and you'll likely need to get an electrician involved.