Build Trouble - Urgent

[richard_rosenman]

Hi gang;

The computer store that ordered my new build is having some trouble.

It seems that the Asus Prime X399-A Socket TR4 MB has unevenly spaced PCI-e slots and therefore, the bulky MSI GeForce 1080 Ti Gaming X cards do not fit.

They want to replace the motherboard with one that has evenly spaced slots and also replace the GPU's with slightly thinner ones (I believe they recommended the EVGA ones).

The motherboard they recommended is a 5 slot PCI-e one but unfortunately I did not get the model number. I believe it is this one: http://www.canadacomputers.com/produ...item_id=117837

My concern is that the 4-5 slots will not be 16X. This is what the specs say:

1. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2)
2. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2)
   (The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
3. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
   (The PCIEX4 slot conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

Anyway, what would be the recommended motherboard for a 4X GTX 1080 Ti GPU Threadripper build? Someone recommended the Asus ROG Zenith Extreme X399 AMD but that is a $650 motherboard.

This is a costly build so I want to get the right parts.

Any prompt help is appreciated as I don't want them to order in a motherboard that is not suitable.

Thanks,
-Rich

[Morne]

Don't have an answer for you but some other info that's relevant:
For the 1080Ti cards if you plan on sticking it in same pc they should be the blower type cards with only 1 fan. Typically they're called Founder's Edition or Reference Edition cards. The design is such that the fan guides and blows the air out the back of the case. The typical gaming cards with super duper fans of 2 or 3 fans per card will generate excessive heat if you have a bunch of them in a single case as they dont blow the air out back, but just around inside the case. If you have them stacked against each other there's nowhere for the heat to go, therefor the blower type cards are better.

Also, for rendering the slots don't all need to be 16X

[bildform]

It seems all available tr4 boards are 2x x16, 2x x8. But I do not think it matters for GPU rendering. As far as I understand it, and you can read about here on the forums, the bandwidth is more than enough.
I got the ASRock X399 Taichi for a rendernode because I could upgrade it for GPU Rendering.
Have you read this? https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nv...faq,37067.html You could start with less 1080ti and upgrade in a few month...

[super gnu]

you will not get any noticeable difference in rendering speed going from 16x to 8x, maybe a tiny bit slower to start rendering but really, not worth worrying about. good advice about the blower fan cards though. or, of course, watercooled

[richard_rosenman]

Don't have an answer for you but some other info that's relevant:
For the 1080Ti cards if you plan on sticking it in same pc they should be the blower type cards with only 1 fan. Typically they're called Founder's Edition or Reference Edition cards. The design is such that the fan guides and blows the air out the back of the case. The typical gaming cards with super duper fans of 2 or 3 fans per card will generate excessive heat if you have a bunch of them in a single case as they dont blow the air out back, but just around inside the case. If you have them stacked against each other there's nowhere for the heat to go, therefor the blower type cards are better.

Also, for rendering the slots don't all need to be 16X

The blower style cards would be the GTX 1080 Ti Turbo or the GTX 1080 Ti Aero, correct?

-Rich

[richard_rosenman]

Just a quick follow-up. I finally got my system: Threadripper 1950x with 3x Asus GTX 1080 Ti Turbos.

VRay benchmark put it at 45 seconds for CPU and 23 seconds for GPU. So I think that's on par with what it should be.

I'll be doing a full GPU project soon so we'll see how it performs there.

-Rich

[Alex_M]

Congrats! It's a really really nice setup that you got.

[Morne]

Which motherboard and power supply did you end up getting Richard?

[squintnic]

i want to build something similiar for home. what was the damage on this?

[richard_rosenman]

i want to build something similiar for home. what was the damage on this?

All in with taxes, a few additional warranties and computer store build costs, as well as computer store software installation approx $7,500. Keep in mind this is in CAD funds so USD would be 30% less.

Also, it seems Microsoft is still 'unofficially' honoring free migration from Windows 7 to Windows 10. So all I had to do was give the store my new Win 7 Pro serial and it legitimately converted to Windows 10 Pro.

One important thing to note is that if I had ordered the parts myself I would have been screwed. The store had to try different cases, 2 different motherboards and 3 different GPU's before getting it right. This tech is still so new that putting 3-4 GPU's together is still challenging.

-Rich

[richard_rosenman]

Which motherboard and power supply did you end up getting Richard?

I got the MSI X399 Gaming PRO Carbon/AC MB.
The first MB we tried did not have sufficient space to fit 3-4 GPUs together because the slots were not evenly spaced out.

The power supply is EVGA Supernova 1600 G2.

-Rich

[Morne]

I got the MSI X399 Gaming PRO Carbon/AC MB.
The first MB we tried did not have sufficient space to fit 3-4 GPUs together because the slots were not evenly spaced out.

The power supply is EVGA Supernova 1600 G2.

-Rich

Great, thanks

[particlerealities]

Rich - do you think you'll be able to squeeze the 4th card in some day? I found the bottom row of headers on the motherboard may interfere with the 4th gpu (I think we basically have the same MOBO - I went with this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746CT3Y5/?tag=pcpapi-20), requiring a low profile USB header extender cable (like this https://www.amazon.com/Low-Profile-H.../dp/B01N7DU5LC). My 2nd GPU was dead on arrival - as soon as the replacement arrives, I'm going to plug it into the bottom PCI-E slot and see what all interferes with insertion.

[richard_rosenman]

Rich - do you think you'll be able to squeeze the 4th card in some day? I found the bottom row of headers on the motherboard may interfere with the 4th gpu (I think we basically have the same MOBO - I went with this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746CT3Y5/?tag=pcpapi-20), requiring a low profile USB header extender cable (like this https://www.amazon.com/Low-Profile-H.../dp/B01N7DU5LC). My 2nd GPU was dead on arrival - as soon as the replacement arrives, I'm going to plug it into the bottom PCI-E slot and see what all interferes with insertion.

Well, I had stated at least 15 times that it is imperative that a fourth GPU can be fitted and they had assured me over and over that it could. I even asked them to have the power cables ready for it so I can just drop it in.

Our motherboards are different. This is mine: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X399...CARBON-AC.html You can see that there appears to be enough space on the last slot, and that they are evenly spaced out to accommodate 4 double-width GPU's. But I do not have 100% certainty at this time.

One thing they did say was that they had to remove the wifi card to be able to fit them. But I don't need that in my machine.

-Rich