Fire and Ice, Full AMD 7970 Quadfire Rebuild (56k Warning)

[YellowDragon]

Ive been meaning to do a rebuild of my system for the summer as for the longest time it has sat out as a breadboarded system on the top of an old motherboard box, I couldn't decide on a theme then I thought of doing a blue and red themed build. For the build i went for the HAF-X blue edition since it came stock with alot of blue led fans which would be perfect for my theme, plus I love the styling of the HAF series cases.

 

My rebuild consists of the following components:

 

CPU: FX 8150 

Mobo: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 ( kinda the only choice :P)

RAM: 16Gb AMD Radeon Gamer Series 2133MHZ

SSD: 120gig Corsair Force GT ( did have a second, on loan to a friend after his hard drive failed)

HDDS: 2X 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blacks 

GPUs: 4x Radeon HD 7970s (3 Powercolor, 1 Visontek)

PSU: EVGA NEX 1500 Supernova (there has to be a law against using an EVGA product in a AMD build, surprised it dosent commit suicide)

Cooler: Cooler Master V6GT (sucker for the aesthetics)

 

The Case:

 

 

Here three of the GPUs set out on my desk, Logan should be jealous of all my coasters, kinda makes me mad the visontek card has a blue PCB:

 

The Purdy RAM:

 

 

The last GPU and the Mobo with the RAM and Processor Installed on a leftover motherboard tray from an old case:

 

 

For those of you with weak stomachs for poor cable management I apologise, a dry test to make sure everything is good to go:

 

Another image, 2nd GPU installed:

 

Everything Installed, Now cable management ( the blue PCB still glaring at me):

 

I honestly love how this PSU is designed with linked cables:

 

Cable management finished, (the one stray is to the side panel):

 

 

 

 

 

Finally some pics of the current setup for this GPU monster:

 

[WoodenMarker]

The blue lighting and red interior theme bothers me..

[bchampion96]

Ive been meaning to do a rebuild of my system for the summer as for the longest time it has sat out as a breadboarded system on the top of an old motherboard box, I couldn't decide on a theme then I thought of doing a blue and red themed build. For the build i went for the HAF-X blue edition since it came stock with alot of blue led fans which would be perfect for my theme, plus I love the styling of the HAF series cases.

 

My rebuild consists of the following components:

 

CPU: FX 8150 

Mobo: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 ( kinda the only choice :P)

RAM: 16Gb AMD Radeon Gamer Series 2133MHZ

SSD: 120gig Corsair Force GT ( did have a second, on loan to a friend after his hard drive failed)

HDDS: 2X 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blacks 

GPUs: 4x Radeon HD 7970s (3 Powercolor, 1 Visontek)

PSU: EVGA NEX 1500 Supernova (there has to be a law against using an EVGA product in a AMD build, surprised it dosent commit suicide)

Cooler: Cooler Master V6GT (sucker for the aesthetics)

 

The Case:

 

 

Here three of the GPUs set out on my desk, Logan should be jealous of all my coasters, kinda makes me mad the visontek card has a blue PCB:

 

The Purdy RAM:

 

 

The last GPU and the Mobo with the RAM and Processor Installed on a leftover motherboard tray from an old case:

 

 

For those of you with weak stomachs for poor cable management I apologise, a dry test to make sure everything is good to go:

 

Another image, 2nd GPU installed:

 

Everything Installed, Now cable management ( the blue PCB still glaring at me):

 

I honestly love how this PSU is designed with linked cables:

 

Cable management finished, (the one stray is to the side panel):

 

 

 

 

 

Finally some pics of the current setup for this GPU monster:

 

Awesome build. I am mucho jealous, Microstuttering much?

[M-ursu]

Awesome build, looks clean.

[YellowDragon]

Awesome build. I am mucho jealous, Microstuttering much?

No microstudder at all, 3 and 4 way setups never really suffered for it, only really effected dual card systems, plus I use Radeon pro. I was going to upgrade the CPU but at 5760x1080P you are always GPU bottlenecked, i will probably upgrade when steamroller comes around.

[bchampion96]

No microstudder at all, 3 and 4 way setups never really suffered for it, only really effected dual card systems, plus I use Radeon pro. I was going to upgrade the CPU but at 5760x1080P you are always GPU bottlenecked, i will probably upgrade when steamroller comes around.

 

That sucks but doesnt suck about the microstuttering thing :P Good for you with your epic 4 cards but rubbish for us mere mortals. We are not worthy :P

[prolemur]

Sponsored by Trojan? :P

[YellowDragon]

Sponsored by Trojan? :P

[LimeDk]

can see why the blue pcb is annoying you but can't you get some blackplates for your 7970s

[YellowDragon]

can see why the blue pcb is annoying you but can't you get some blackplates for your 7970s

Its just that its the odd man out of the bunch, you could say the combobreaker, backplates would make even less space between the cards and they already run a bit warm bunched up together.

[iSuzak]

awesome rig sir !

[Homicidium]

4x HD7970? wow

 

But will it run Minesweeper?

[YellowDragon]

4x HD7970? wow

 

But will it run Minesweeper?

Depends on how fast you can click the mouse when minesweeper is running with fraps on it :P

[Xelithium]

Won't that CPU bottleneck the cards? Oh and terrible color scheme. You don't mix blue with red like that. Specially not with such a bright red.

 

Thank you for making my eyes bleed.

[YellowDragon]

Won't that CPU bottleneck the cards? Oh and terrible color scheme. You don't mix blue with red like that. Specially not with such a bright red.

 

Thank you for making my eyes bleed.

 

Sure Im bottlenecked by less then a frame, my FX 8150 performs similar to this as I overclocked it to 4.4Ghz on this cooler. The FX series holds up well in this resolution as you are limited by your graphics cards, this benchmark is with two HD 7970 and its clear to see that its GPU limited.

 

Also my rig, my color scheme, you can have your opinion but I still like how it turned out, Its not like I mixed Red and Blue leds, I chose blue leds illuminating red components, in person it gives the reds a rather "ethereal glow" especially the VGA cables.

[NihKiller]

your build.... wow.... i mean WOW. amazing. beautiful. generous. pleasant. brilliant. sexy. and every other positive word form winspiratin!!! http://www.winspiration.co.uk/positive.htm  :P  

i LOVE your rig YellowDragon!!! :D

and maybe a little comment to Xelithium, personally i like red and blue builds, because red and blue are good contrast of one another. i have also had a red and blue build once, and that was my best looking build ever in my eyes  ^_^

[LimeDk]

Its just that its the odd man out of the bunch, you could say the combobreaker, backplates would make even less space between the cards and they already run a bit warm bunched up together.

i dont know if you already got a fan installed into your graphic card air duct thing but that might help a bit if your 7970 runs a bit warm (=

[ALXAndy]

No microstudder at all, 3 and 4 way setups never really suffered for it, only really effected dual card systems

 

lmao you're joking yes? I've used Quadfire three times and each time it has completely sucked balls unless all you want to do with your time is smash out benchmarks.

 

You do realise that there are about three games in existence that support quad GPUs yes? and in the others you will lose performance.

[SkilledRebuilds]

lmao you're joking yes? I've used Quadfire three times and each time it has completely sucked balls unless all you want to do with your time is smash out benchmarks.

 

You do realise that there are about three games in existence that support quad GPUs yes? and in the others you will lose performance.

He may have come across such issues and tailored tweaks to radeonpro,he didnt go into a lot of detail.

Your usable experience may be difference from his or mine for that matter, its unfortunate that your experience

wasn't as great,but when your talking serious kit like this you either idle by and think to fix it..and tweak to your fancy or slander and ditch the idea.

[ALXAndy]

He may have come across such issues and tailored tweaks to radeonpro,he didnt go into a lot of detail.

Your usable experience may be difference from his or mine for that matter, its unfortunate that your experience

wasn't as great,but when your talking serious kit like this you either idle by and think to fix it..and tweak to your fancy or slander and ditch the idea.

 

Serious kit? what a quadruple heat sandwich? I'd be all for it if it wasn't for the obvious.

 

IE - there are around three games that actually support 4 gpus. Most of the others will lose performance over running two cards, then the micro stutter dropped/runt frames issue* and then the heat sandwich that will either damage the hardware or, shut the PC down.

 

I've ran pretty much every multiple GPU system there is to run and I can tell you now, this guy's rig ain't going to be much fun in the real world.

 

As for slander? no not really. I just call it like it is.

 

In the world of computers and enthusiasts you usually find yourself with two groups of people.

 

1. The type who know how things are and don't try and kid themselves into thinking otherwise.

2. The "I can make something work that isn't supported, runs as hot as Satan's nutsack and sucks down loads of power" type.

 

Hint - if running more than two GPUs was actually worth it then more and more people would be doing it.

 

* until I actually see hard evidence of Radeon Pro managing to part the red sea and do something AMD's software technicians can't seem to (IE fix Crossfire) and see a video of FCAT being ran and the processed results (IE no dropped or runt frames) I would rather believe, you know? the truth. Some dude on the internet telling me something is true doesn't tend to wash with me.

 

Gotta love science.

[SuneFyr]

Cool i like it...

[Nedyahiske]

4 stock 7970's......soooooooooooo you're office is the acoustic equivelent of a NASA wind tunnel? 

[JoshM]

Thats an awesome build man, if you ever get sick of 4 7970s, feel free to send me one ahah! And as money looks like it isnt an issue, i did read that you will upgrade with steam roller but the FX8350 is so cheap now i would look at it!

[YellowDragon]

Serious kit? what a quadruple heat sandwich? I'd be all for it if it wasn't for the obvious.

 

IE - there are around three games that actually support 4 gpus. Most of the others will lose performance over running two cards, then the micro stutter dropped/runt frames issue* and then the heat sandwich that will either damage the hardware or, shut the PC down.

 

I've ran pretty much every multiple GPU system there is to run and I can tell you now, this guy's rig ain't going to be much fun in the real world.

 

As for slander? no not really. I just call it like it is.

 

In the world of computers and enthusiasts you usually find yourself with two groups of people.

 

1. The type who know how things are and don't try and kid themselves into thinking otherwise.

2. The "I can make something work that isn't supported, runs as hot as Satan's nutsack and sucks down loads of power" type.

 

Hint - if running more than two GPUs was actually worth it then more and more people would be doing it.

 

* until I actually see hard evidence of Radeon Pro managing to part the red sea and do something AMD's software technicians can't seem to (IE fix Crossfire) and see a video of FCAT being ran and the processed results (IE no dropped or runt frames) I would rather believe, you know? the truth. Some dude on the internet telling me something is true doesn't tend to wash with me.

 

Gotta love science.

No you are no "calling it like it is" you are just playing the ignorant. for one no it is not the heat sandwich and I dont face any of your mythical damaged hardware from running 4 in crossfire, they are all refrence cards for a reason, they eject heat from the case, the radiant heat is the only heat exhaust in the case. not to mention there is a 200mm fan drapped across all the cards to feed them fresh air, the GPU shroud also has a 120mm fan wired into it to cycle air around the cards, I never see temps higher then 78C, so Im nowhere near the danger zone of 100C+ and thats with the cards being fully stressed out bitmining or using hashcat, thats another thing you forgot, computer hardware has more implications then just gaming, I built this rig as something that came game WHILE doing hashs or mining.

 

Ive spent alot of time tweaking this machine getting to how I want it and I have no problems with it. Yes I do not have any microstutter, if you are so experienced in microstudder and runt frames you would know that there are different frame assign algorithms depending on the number of GPUs present in a system, with a 2 card config yes there is microstudder and I can confirm it by running on 2 of my cards, whenever Im running the full 3 or 4 cards the problem is not there, the algorithm is different, as each GPU needs instructions for a task, you suffer a microstudder when frames are no sent to gpus in the right order or the gpu renders a frame and displays it while the other one is doing the same instead of them both pushing frames in a sequential order with a frame time. If you know the basics of Pointers and Pointees as well as proper memory allocation and variable storage you can see how this problem exists.

 

With Radeon pro you honestly sound like the Nvidia fanboy that plugs his ears and screams "no no no" at the top of his lungs, there are benchmarks out there on tomshardware showing that frame times and runt frames are fixed with the software.

 

 

 

I dont know, looks pretty fine to me, one might say its doing a bit better then Nvidia, as the Max nvidia spike is 50 and the max radeon spike is about 47.

 

 

I also dont know where you were getting that I was making a silent "Green Machine", Im well aware that this rig drinks power and runs hot with 4 cards and an overclocked processor, Im willing to pay the extra 8 Bucks on my powerbill. 

 

I realized when I was building the rig that no games really use past 3 cards (you still see some benefits with 3), however the point of this rig wasn't just solely gaming so your point is pretty much moot as I use the GPU power for other tasks.

[TicTac]

nice man love them gpus :P