external graphics cards?

[havensole]

The MSI is great. I almost bought that board awhile ago. I know Tiger had a deal awhile ago for an Asus mobo with decent PSU for something like $130, but I don't remember if it did SLI (might have 1 pcie at 16x and another one at 8x). That second link, for the asus, uses ddr3. Not sure if you noticed that. I will be hard to find a motherboard, cheap, that will handle a 4-way sli. If you want to put any of the newer cards on there you will need to find one that has the PCie slots spaced out pretty well. I often wonder why they would put 2 PCIe slots right next to each other and be proud of that. Most high powered gpu's for the last few years have all been double wide. Good luck in finding something, and let us know what you do find.

[radiance]

we've got the Asus Workstation MB's wich we got at about 350 euros a piece. very nice and 7 PCI-E slots, fits 4x dual cards.

Radiance

[GeoPappas]

we've got the Asus Workstation MB's wich we got at about 350 euros a piece. very nice and 7 PCI-E slots, fits 4x dual cards.

Model #?

[juan]

jmm, the only one i know is this : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

its an intel one and costs $399

its beautifull it allows 4 video cards at full 16x bandwith

[Storen]

A more complete list:

MSI
MSI 790FX-GD70 - $168
MSI 890FXA-GD70 - $200


GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 - $246
GA-X58A-UD9 - Soon


ASRock
ASRock X58 Deluxe3 - $225
ASRock X58 Supercomputer - $275


ASUS
ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer - $230
ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer - $290
ASUS Maximus III Extreme - $350
ASUS Rampage III Extreme - $380
ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer - $400
ASUS ROG Crosshair IV Formula/Extreme - Soon

[Storen]

I really want to see some Octane performance benchmarks for 4x/8x/16x PCI-E bandwidth.
I have the feeling the results of x4 and x16 may not be that different.

[radiance]

i have a ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer - $230 in one of the office machines and it's a great motherboard.

i think you can run octane fine on a 4x or 8x PCI-E speed.
1x will be useable but you might have to wait a few minutes for the initial upload of your scene, especially if you have a large scene with lots of textures.

Radiance

[havensole]

I've noticed on my external box that there is a very slight drop in performance versus having a card directly installed in the motherboard. The drop was only about a few seconds of a 40 minute render.