850 Watts enough for 2 x GTX 970 ?

[glimpse]

And here is something I don't get (asus x99 ws)

40-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)

28-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)

28 lane cpu and x16/x16/x16/x16?

"However, the X99-E WS uses a pair of PLX chips on the motherboard to expand the usable number of PCI-Express lanes dramatically. A full four PCI-Express x16 cards can be used at full speed, or up to seven with two at full x16 speed and the other slots at x8."
(source: http://www.pugetsystems.com/parts/Mothe ... E-WS-10664)

these workstation motherboards are really heavy duty & start to respect those designs more & more - do understand where the price comes.. - every PLX additional chip itself for cost 30-40$ for the company..- nu surprise price tags of complete board do rise up from time to time up to 350-500$

however I need to read more 'bout those PLX chips, as from the though on previous post, that I found while reading 'bout NVMe PCIe drives..

"..with the help of PCIe switches it's possible to grant all devices the lanes they require (although the maximum bandwidth isn't increased, but switches allow full x16 bandwidth to the GPUs when they need it)."

..I really start to get curious 'bout their usefulness..in multi GPU rigs..

[sikotik13]

And here is something I don't get (asus x99 ws)

40-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)

28-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)


28 lane cpu and x16/x16/x16/x16?

I swear Asus themselves said something different at some point. I'll have to look into it when I have more time.

It is an incredibly solid board though, and I have no complaints so far. It's quite possibly the first board I've paid full price for and thought was worth every penny. I'm a cheapskate, and always always buy things on sale. At least I got a discount on the (still) ridiculously expensive 5960X. I'm almost tempted to try an animation just to see how it does, though I have no real basis for comparison, having not done anything but a simple camera animation once with Octane 1.2 back on my old gaming rig with a AMD processor and 2 670s.

[smicha]

And here is something I don't get (asus x99 ws)

40-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)

28-Lane CPU-
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)


28 lane cpu and x16/x16/x16/x16?

I swear Asus themselves said something different at some point. I'll have to look into it when I have more time.

It is an incredibly solid board though, and I have no complaints so far. It's quite possibly the first board I've paid full price for and thought was worth every penny. I'm a cheapskate, and always always buy things on sale. At least I got a discount on the (still) ridiculously expensive 5960X. I'm almost tempted to try an animation just to see how it does, though I have no real basis for comparison, having not done anything but a simple camera animation once with Octane 1.2 back on my old gaming rig with a AMD processor and 2 670s.

You may try to measure loading times of a heavy scene, e.g., 2-3GB obj files(s) for a single 780 and for 4x780. When testing don't forget to remove power cables from 3x780 (this ensures a single 780 works in a x16 mode). I am curious about results.

[reckless]

I heard back from Gigabyte about the 4 GPU compatibility on the GA-Z97X-SOC Force motherboard, with an i5 4690 CPU.
And they are claiming that 4 GPUs will work fine, and will be recognised by the board without any problems.

The four GPUs will run at x4 x4 x4 x4 distribution.
The x8 x4 x4 x4 distribution mentioned on there website is only for SLI configuration, where in the fourth GPU wont work.
I guess in terms of compatibility I have got the answer, that all 4 GPUs will surely work on this motherboard.

Now the other question is about geometry & texture data transfer speeds into the GPU. (Render times will not be affected by x4, as Glimpse mentioned)

So if I do a quick calculation, considering all 4 PCI slots work at x2.0 or v3.0, then,

x1 on PCIe v2.0 = 500 MB/s
x4 on PCIe v2.0 = 2000 MB/s

x1 on PCIe v3.0 = 985 MB/s
x4 on PCIe v3.0 = 3940 MB/s (GTX 970 and 980 will get loaded within seconds, Titan X will take 4 - 5 seconds)

Geometry loading time for each frame:
4 x TitanX on CPUs 16 (Z97) lane restriction = 4 to 5 sec
4 x TitanX on CPUs with 28 to 40 (X99) lane restriction = 0 to 1 sec

Would be great if you guys could comment on these calculations.

I really wish I could get the X99 setup. But I am feeling comfortable with this setup, specially
when it is scalable with up to 4 GPUs. And I am pretty certain that I wont be hitting a 12GB VRAM mark with
product animations any time soon (fingers crossed)

Capture PCI.PNG (10.07 KiB) Viewed 2202 times

[reckless]

Thank you so much for helping out guys.
I have finally built my rig. Just wanted to thank you all for your help.

Time to make those GPUs work