Good motherboard for maximum GPU

[ASyme1]

What is a good motherboard for installing maximum number of gpu's.
Or is there an afordable expansion box option.

Hi Amathews-
I recently purchased an Asus Maximus V Extreme for holding 4 GTX 680's. It's seeming to work fantastically. I set up this rig with a Corsair 550D case over the Christmas holiday and have been running it pretty much at full throttle the whole time. No extra cooling, no fancy anything. I've got 4 GTX 680's in this thing purring along very nicely. The case is fantastic by the way. Super quiet. Good air flow.

Now this is a serious gaming mainboard with tons of controls to over clock everything. I bought it just to hold the 4 680's. So, it's more expensive than some other boards but with a big (1500 watt) power supply it works great.

I consider this very cheap rendering performance. I have one machine with dual Xeon processors that cost more than three times what this rig costs. So 4 GPU's at about $525 (4 gig), mainboard - $425 and a serious power supply is about $3K minus CPU, RAM, and case. This is an upgrade for my shop. Each rig then is going to be about $3K with a new MB, and power supply.

The 4 gig RAM boards are very important. 2 Gigs justs doesn't do it for bigger projects.

My two thoughts-
Alec

[FrankPooleFloating]

Alec - I am surprised you could get that EATX mb inside your case.. I thought the 550D was just ATX...

IMHO, the ASUS Rampage IV Formula LGA 2011 Intel X79 would be better. It supports quad-channel memory for starters... is LGA2011 and X79... is ATX.. yes, it only supports 4 dimms -- but for me, this is okay. 32gb should be plenty.. even in AE & PS.

This is the one I have in my cart on AMZ currently.. along with the 550D case.

[coon_ra]

Right now I'm running 3 gtx 580 3 gb on asus p9x79 ws in blue and black and white slots. Experimented with each card running solo. The difference in productivity is equal the difference of default chip frequencies, absolutely not slot dependant, as I also tested the videos set with EVGA Precision to equal mHz with no noticeable gap.

[tonycho]

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.as ... SE-W888-KR

I would advise not to choose this item =) some say (rephrase) ”it's as bad as sr2 was good“

to name few things: some unreasonable layout choises, all lanes conected to one CPU, crapy unfinished Bios etc.
no wish to spoil anything just informing to make a good homework before deciding to go for product like this,
..there are better made products (like the one i've posted before) that actually are priced lower too..

Hi Glimpse
What about evga mobo z77 ftw. I already buy it
The problem is I use 2 590 which it very hot. So i need extra space (3 slot total) to make the 590 cool
take a look at
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.as ... IB-E699-KR
So i will put 590 in first and fifth pcie
Then quadro 4000 single slot in 3rd pcie
Then gtx 680 in 4rd pcie
Bye2 my 3rd 590

[kivig]

Bye2 my 3rd 590

You can TRY to use this:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=pci ... &_from=R40

Didn't test, but it's possible it could work even with 1x, though if I remember right, some pins should be shorted for that.

[tonycho]

Bye2 my 3rd 590

You can TRY to use this:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=pci ... &_from=R40

Didn't test, but it's possible it could work even with 1x, though if I remember right, some pins should be shorted for that.

Hi Kivig
I already buy that cable 3 pcs
and buy it again 2 pcs

but it only few month old before it broken
and my second buy, all the extender is broken before I can use
I am from Indonesia, so I cant return it without much cost

maybe I will consider turbobox, but maybe next time after I got many projects

[kivig]

but it only few month old before it broken

Strange - though I didn't had to use them I have a couple around and they don't look like breaking. What exactly is wrong with them?
Also I've seen a bit altered variation on e-bay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-16X-Riser ... 3cb8a05b1f) could be better?

[glimpse]

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.as ... IB-E699-KR

hi, Antonius,

this board is very attractive, especially worth record low sale out (just under 100$ in Canada was spoted =)
on the other way in hardware comunity they are talking that it doesn't shine..
but for our needs it should be quite a good workhorse..

it isn't the most feature rich, but it does what we are looking for: four cards will run at 8x 16x 8x 8x if You place double cards.
as for Your plan of placement You could run into some issues..(have to read about that more though)

some also mentioned that south bridge under heavy load introce some instability..

[tonycho]

but it only few month old before it broken

Strange - though I didn't had to use them I have a couple around and they don't look like breaking. What exactly is wrong with them?
Also I've seen a bit altered variation on e-bay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-16X-Riser ... 3cb8a05b1f) could be better?

Hi Kivig
i dont know, the mobo just dont detect anymore. and if they detect the card with pcie extender, when rendering , in 2 minutes the computer hang, cant move.

Hi Glimpse
Yes, my only reason to choose this evga z77 ftw is the fast pcie speed in all slot.
I already bought msi bigbang marshal b3, but the speed of pcie 2.0 x1 very slow
I will configure the z77 ftw today, will give you another update for this mobo soon
wish me luck

[BorisGoreta]

My system could detect the second card connected via PCI extender but the card wouldn't work because windows reported there is a problem with it so Octane didn't pick it up. This is what I did:

boot windows
go to device manager ( there should be your card but with a yellow warning sign over it )
right click on the card name and disable it
load overclocking software you got with your card
set voltage and TDP to max
enable the card
if the card is still yellow, disable and enable few more times until it starts working
once I do that it works for days until I shut down my computer and do the procedure again