2 or 4 x GPU motherboard, intel or AMD

[shbris]

Any recommendations?

I have a few old nvidia gpu's that could be put to use for folding, will it work in a 'non SLI' setup with a mixture of gpu's for folding?

Low price is a big plus, don't mind about whether intel or AMD but preferably AMD due to cost.

Also, spacing between slots would be nice so i can use double slot cards!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get one of these AMD 990FX based motherboards:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

You should able to run three dual slot graphics,each running in a PCI-E 2.0 8X slot IIRC.

One of these cheaper 990X based motherboards would do the job:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

However,with three GPUs,the third will be running in a PCI-E 2.0 4X slot.

Regarding a CPU,I would look at Athlon II X2 240E which has a 45W TDP.

[shbris]

cheers!

how would the reduced bandwidth on the 3rd card effect the PPD of the card?

EDIT: also, problems with mis-matched cards or not?

[Terbinator]

cheers!

how would the reduced bandwidth on the 3rd card effect the PPD of the card?

EDIT: also, problems with mis-matched cards or not?

You can mix and match cards - you may have to do some settings trickery though to assign the correct WU's to the respective GPU.

[scaryjim]

shbris - I have an AMD 790FX motherboard going dead cheap in the for sale section at the minute.

Only issue is it probably needs a BIOS flash via spi to get it working! My googling found one company in Wales that can flash that motherboard for ~ £20, there might be others if you have a hunt around.

However, the board will take 4 graphics cards (I believe 4 double slot) at x8, x8, x8, x8, and would be perfect for your plans (it's pretty much why I bought it!). If you want to drop a post into the FS thread I'd probably be willing to let you have it for postage only if it's going to folding, as I could do with getting rid of it. It'd be a bit of a risk on your part I admit, but an incredibly cheap board if you could get it working

[Golden Dragoon]

Folding on different cards isn't much of a problem as long as you stick to nVidia or AMD, if you mix and match then things get tricky, I folded with a 4850 and a GT240 for a while and it was constantly unstable and wasn't an optimal solution.

[shbris]

shbris - I have an AMD 790FX motherboard going dead cheap in the for sale section at the minute

hey thanks for the offer, but i'm cautious about risking flashing a new bios. my track record with any kind of flashing is terrible!

cheers for the tips all. i'm gonna try and spec up an AMD rig with 3x nvidia GPU. would a single core sempron provide enough 'oomph' to power 3 folding gpu's?

[Tattysnuc]

hey thanks for the offer, but i'm cautious about risking flashing a new bios. my track record with any kind of flashing is terrible!

cheers for the tips all. i'm gonna try and spec up an AMD rig with 3x nvidia GPU. would a single core sempron provide enough 'oomph' to power 3 folding gpu's?

yes - they should be - so long as they are not Fermi based.

[colinmcr]

Can I ask you guys, is there any difference in ppd if you have multiple cards connected in sli or do they produce more not connected?

[Golden Dragoon]

You used to get a 100% improvement with nVidia cards by not having them in SLI, but that is simply because it used to be that in SLI you couldn't fold on the second card not sure if you are able to now though, but I wouldn't have thought there would be much difference between SLI and non SLI.

[watercooled]

In response to an earlier question, PCIe lanes don't really matter for folding, as long as the cards fit you should be fine.