Motherboard with 4 x dual width pcie cards?

[xxdanbrowne]

Hi,

I bought my son a 780 gtx recently, to go along with his 750ti. (I use this as a networked render node at night when he's sleeping).

What I noticed, however, is that although there are 4x pcie slots, it looks like there's only space for two 780s because 780s are so wide (dual width I believe is the correct term).

So that is a bit of a bummer because I had planned to spread my costs by buying one 780 every month till I hit four and then buy a new computer for myself, so I'm not using his computer any more. But now it looks like I'm already at the stage where I need to buy a new computer even if I buy one more card, unless I remove the 750 ti.

So.... anybody have any idea what would be a reasonably priced motherboard which will take 4 x dual width GPUs without having to do some kind of mad scientist open air bit coing rig (which would cause my wife to freak out)?

Thanks

[glimpse]

hi, there! what kind of CPU You're using?
I can try to look for compatible mobos =)

& drop a purpose of Your rig =)
(main PC, Slave, GPU only, other special task dedicated..)

[NVN]

i have a msi big bang 2...it takes 4 Gpus

[fatrobotsneedlove]

Well, I'm getting one of those Red Harbinger Dopamine cases. It is a bitcoin case, but it looks nice and clean, not mad scientisty (well, okay maybe a little mad scientisty). But eventually you could up your card count to 6!

As far as a mobo, anyone have any thoughts on the new asus x-99 e ws? It has 7 full slots...

[glimpse]

dopamine is nice way to spread Your cards =)

man that card is so sick http://anandtech.com/show/8530/asus-ann ... ped8-ws-2p Love it =) simply a wet dream if You get more than 3 cards =) though it's too early to talk about how good is it, as it's just released & no reviews yet, but..I just believe it will be one of the best in this category =) haven't seen much of a competition yet as others seems a bit lagging with the high end (PLX equipped X99s).

[xxdanbrowne]

hi, there! what kind of CPU You're using?
I can try to look for compatible mobos =)

& drop a purpose of Your rig =)
(main PC, Slave, GPU only, other special task dedicated..)

Any advice would be very welcome!
I don't really care if it's AMD or Intel CPU. I'm trying to keep the cost down so maybe AMD?
The PC I'm building will be a networked render-slave for Octane only because I'll be
using my laptop for everything else.
Given that it's going to be the one and only render "beast" I build I want it to have
the most bang for the buck I can get so I'd like to have it capable of taking 4x dual width cards.
I don't need anything exotic like water cooling because I'm not going to be running it flat out for 24 hours at a time.

[xxdanbrowne]

far as a mobo, anyone have any thoughts on the new asus x-99 e ws? It has 7 full slots...

Looks awesome, but my worry about that one is that the furthest pcie slot looks like it's way too close to the CPU. I wonder if you could get a double wide card in there? Maybe you could only get 3 double wide cards in there? I don't know. I'd need to see a picture of it to be convinced. Or maybe ASUS themselves could say.

[glimpse]

if that's the case, personally I would start looking at something like Z97 OC Force from Gigabyte. It is relatively cheap (~200$), but.. You can house up to four cards, though the last one is going to be connected through older gen2 (I would leave it for network card..) but the first there gen 3 (8,4,4). If You couple that board with something like anniversary edition Pentium - it should have plenty of power to feed those cards =) & even with slight over-clock You hold have very nice system =) Included PCIe bracket would allow You to keep those cards on the mother board if You decide to go open case/caseless =) keeping Your rig on the shelf in a basement or so..

for sure, price could be reduce using even lower spec'ed system, though I wouldn't go connecting cards on x1 - it makes no sense for me to put so much money into GPU's & then bottle-neck entire system going too cheap on the rest of parts (but everyone has their own opinion on this =) - that's my take.

But wait a bit, maybe others will give You other ideas =) as everything here is just opinion & You should choose what fits Your needs best =)

[xxdanbrowne]

Awesome! That's good enough for me!

Thanks so much.

[glimpse]

cheers =)