Dopamine Build (4 gpus + gtx 980m)

[ff7darkcloud]

Hi there, I am really happy after a couple weeks of frustrations and scares to have finished my build, I still need some rubber feet and a extension bracket for the power supply, but I improvised there, here it is!

I made some test prior with connecting the pci-usb extensions, there is a minimum loss in speed, but the gain in less temperature must make up for it. Still, I would love to change all the cards to 980s or 980ti's, so I can save up on my electric bill and also be able to use 6 cards without worrying too much. I connected the 980 directly as I game occasionally, also I am not sure but if I connect the monitor to any of the 780ti's with riser, sometimes it drops that card after an hour or so, so I connect the monitor to the 980 better, problem solved.

[glimpse]

well, now that's a beautiful piece! Haven't seen one yet on these forums =)

Curious what temps do You get under load? (with all those fans around & non reference design cooler equiped 780Ti cards) .

Those Keplers migh be a bit power hungry, but..not so much =) if You're ok with 3GB of vRAM think it's not worth to change them!

What You get out of OctaneBench? 400-450? =) interested how efficient that works!(?)

Thanks for sharing =)

[smicha]

Great setup!

I am also curious about temps and fans speed.

[ff7darkcloud]

Hey there thanks for the compliment Glimpse and Smicha, I sigh everytime I look at it hahah.

I made some benchmarks and did this small chart with temperature and fan speed too. For Temperature, I took the last readings before the benchmark ended. I did the temperature test using all 4 video cards at the same time. For fan speed I used 100%, Normal (About 40%) and took 70% as middle point, which I found that blends well with the case fans, not too noisy.

I uploaded the actual benchmarks as a ZIP

[glimpse]

pretty good performance =) thanks for data! I have a fealing that this should be more quiet than box with 4GPUs inside (not to mention ruuning not so hot ? do You have everything else now or before to compare this on Your ears? (Guess a lot depends on the fans..)

[ff7darkcloud]

Yes I used to have these same 4 gpus on a Thor V2 Case. The room would get so hot even with a big fan in front of it to help. Since I moved, Temperatures would get to 80-85 and that is with 100 percent fan speed. Noise level would be like 150%-170% of what it is now. This is a lot more quiet and cooler now!.

[Hydra]

If you can... stick the PC in another room. i.e. drill a hole in the wall.

A friend of mine put his PC in the basement that way.

[ff7darkcloud]

That is a nice Idea! Too bad I live in a apartment now , my other home was made of concrete, and was 2 stories, so the first floor was quite cool. The Boxed Thor V2 would even make the room more comfortable, but here it would make heat unbearable, more so when rendering for 24-48 hours (Animation rendering), that is the first reason I changed to this setup, it should also better the cards life, which was a concern too.

[bepeg4d]

wow, great setup, thanks for sharing
impressive temperature, I'm not brave enough for the liquid route like glimpse and smicha and definitely prefer a solution like this
ciao beppe

[ff7darkcloud]

I'm not brave enough either! haha, thanks, the case is available at ebay right now, some modding was necessary because they had some issues with manufacture, like the mounting holes for the Cards but nothing that cant be solved. They will re-release it with some upgrades like the missing rubber grommets, but they don't have an ETA for it yet.