NVLink on Gigabyte MD72-HB3 LGA4189 mainboard

[Sushidelic]

Hello fellow forum members,

I know this question will most likely remain unanswered, but maybe anyone out there did test this already.
We are in the process of ordering a bunch of LGA4189 render slaves and workstations and wanted to use the Gigabyte MD72-HB3 (c621a) dual mainboard. It is very similar to the Supermicro Supermicro X12DPi-N6, but offers a better physical layout for what we need.
The Supermicro supports SLI / NVLink (nowhere mentioned in the description, but apparently works from experience), so we thought the very similar Gigabyte should, too. But now we heard, that the board might not be suitable for SLI config, despite offering 6x PCIe 16x Gen4 slots.
Gigabyte support is contacted but still lacking an answer, so does maybe anyone here know if this works or not?

Thanks and best regards,
Michael

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hey Sushidelic

NVlink/SLI support requires Gigabyte or SuperMicro to purchase a license/key for it for each individual product, the board needs to be configured for NVLink to work . The fact that a board offers PCIE Gen4 slots doesn't mean it will support Nvlink
One example is all ProArt motherboards from Asus, they don't support NVlink/SLI while almost all similar products in this price range/category supports it

If your workflow relies on NVlink I wouldn't purchase until Gigabyte tells me, chances are this board doesn't support it

I'm not sure about SupriMicro, they don't list SLI for this board either. Have you tested NVLink? do you know for sure it works there?
If SuperMicro goes out of their ways to purchase NVlink/SLI keys, they should market it

Best,
Muhammed

[Sushidelic]

Hey Muhammed_Hamed,

thanks for your reply, which is unfortunately what I expected... We want to use RAM pooling with 2x RTX3090, as 48GB is about the amount where it starts making sense for us to invest and use it in production.
Fortunately, we have another ten Asus C621e Sage based dual xeon render slaves and workstations here, this board explicitly supports 4x SLI, so they could be repurposed for that matter, involving quite some physical and electrical modification, but this would work.
Looks like the plan to implement GPU rendering for the upcoming projects is abandoned for now anyway, as I didn't know that PhoenixOceanTex is not supported, and those are two large scale water sim projects that will keep us busy until mid next year... So wouldn't make much sense apparently. Already pinged Georgi and Svetlin - so who knows, maybe this gets a priority bump .

Thank you very much,
Michael

EDIT: I am actually not 100% sure about the Supermicro, I got the information that multi GPU is supported, but the source maybe only meant, that you can stick in multiple GPUs... So don't bet on it.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

as I didn't know that PhoenixOceanTex is not supported

Hey!

I have this on the GPU roadmap for a while now, I will add your vote to this request. I hope we can get to work on this soon

we have another ten Asus C621e Sage based dual xeon render slaves and workstations here, this board explicitly supports 4x SLI, so they could be repurposed for that matter

Should work just fine, there are plenty other boards with the same configuration, 7x PCIe slots Gen 4
Look at Threadripper Pro 5xxx boards or even the older 3xxx Pro

it could be used with riser cable on a rack like this one, it is my personal machine with 4x 3090s. Could be expanded to 7 GPUs in the same way

I am actually not 100% sure about the Supermicro

I can ask and verify, I don't think it supports NVlink

On another note, if you have more requests or feedback about V-Ray GPU let me know.

Have a nice day!

Best,
Muhammed