OTOY Forums

I've been trying to work out how to extend my current rig and it seems it's easier to just build a new one?

Two questions:

1) Is it easier and more cost effect to build a new rig or has anybody successfully extended their current rig with costs lower than a new rig?

2) Is this all I need or am I missing something? this is excluding the GPUs

mb $200
cpu $200
hdd $100
ram $100 - will 16GB be enough?
case $100
psu $200 - 1200W enough?
other $100 - riser cards/ pci express extenders
---------
total $1000

This post shows you my search for the 4x gpu (aircoolig) config with details on config, photo and price.
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... pet#p97599
Greetz,

looks like a good setup you had there, I don't want to spend 3k on this machine though, I just want it to be a render drone, not a work station
I need to add win8, cpu cooler, fans and better psu, by the looks of things

I have no idea how you managed to squeeze 4 gtx 580s on top of each other, I have 3 gtx 580s and they're all non standard width, none of them fit into an ordinary 2 slot space, when I started buying them I didn't know the manufacturers paid no attention to this, I assume you researched this in advance?

Yes, I did good research by asking questions on this forum and getting good info and help from expert users,
and I also communicate more then a few times with the guys where I bought the pc...they figured out the possibilties and loved to build the 'monster' for me. I got exactly what i wanted for the budget i set

In he future I hope to extend my gpu power, but I don't know how yet.. There are possibilities with seperate gpu extensions.. there are some posts about that.. You can try and find them with search if you want to know more about that.
Greetz,

here's my next motherboard, 7 x GTX 580s
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... rComputer/

unless I can find a Big Bang Marshal with 8
http://au.msi.com/product/mb/Big-Bang-M ... ?div=Basic


also fixed my issue with over-sized GPUs with PSU extender and PCIe extender, so able to hook up 2 PSUs and 3 x GTX 580 now

I have the same motherboard (P6T7 WS), work as usual.
A question: How did you mange to put 2 psu? Today I am getting 4x 580s for he P6T7, and 1250W seems to be just enough, on the border.

Btw I am pretty sure the P6T7 only supports up to 4 cards, even if you can find 7 single slot cards. Also I read that a bios update is needed to activate quad sli on some P6T7`s.

Greets

If you want to use a 7 or 8 slot mobo you will have to plan the pcie extension carefully. You will need a second psu and custom case as well.
16 GB is more then enough and a 1200 psu should work fine if it is a high quality one wich has constant and higher output. You could measure the watts before and then decide what kind of psu you need...
EVGA 580s have a standart layout that requires 2 slots...

So with Octane it doesn`t matter that your motherboard " only" supports up to quad sli? You can put 4 590s dual slot, for theoretical "octa-sli"?
I would definately look out for bandwith problems in that case, and 7 x PCIe x16/8 motherboards like evga SR-2 are pricey!

Greets

Whersmy, here's something You might need in order to run multiple PSU's http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1698/1/
Though I would rather go for one really good one, like Corsair 1200i or the one from EVGA that has 1500w.

If you use 8 580s, 1500 Watts are not enough, so you need 2 PSUs.
Quad SLI works only with the 580s. The 590s work only in dual sli mode, but they have two chips each...