PC for 8/8+ gpu

[mtbiker]

Budget (including currency): 

Country: 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Blender (rendering)

Other details:

 

Hello, already have 8 GPU: nvidia rtx a2000 (PCI 4.0)

Which motherboard should choose? How many PCI lanes i need? 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Can you sell these cards? There not great for blender rendering. The quadro/pro features aren't used, so something like a 4090 would be much faster for the price, and have more vram.

 

Otherwise, they make server cases that are designed for 8 dual slot gpus. 

[manikyath]

if you want to stick 8 GPU's into a system and have a propper amount of lanes allocated to each, you're basicly gonna "have to" go with epyc, presumbaly in some GPU oriented chassis, supermicro perhaps?

 

however.. from a quick google, it appears that some crazy people are doing blender renders over those PCIe 2.0 1x crypto risers... but if your budgets can pay for 8 workstation cards, you should do the rest of the workstation properly too.

[mtbiker]

any real advices ? please 

[Electronics Wizardy]

15 minutes ago, mtbiker said:

any real advices ? please 

What other solutions do you want? Using 8 of those gpus for blender isn't a great solution, there are much better gpus for that task.

 

You can get servers that are made for 8 gpus. Here is an example https://www.ebay.com/itm/295947760460?hash=item44e7dc734c:g:cHkAAOSwIXlkGjYy&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4MlcTD7kBcdJ12vXo47upJkcT42ZWuGOb0NfBEwdGuxOJRmsNXLLf1Enj0IfHcckSnYz6ywKxIYN66NIB1rKfrn5w%2FOb4dX%2BveQpxI27c9hyxrmid9nTMV2pV6DKVKS%2By%2BGMzNXd4aUNlSTEhjr4WC8cS3ehaLUQatRIyoIcKeBXnXjjCgUS43Y6H7xXaXMs3Wb%2B4OP53otWf2nRlf2W87B7lVBLJ6qHkilWKnuA%2FVVcemkH8VsDqSO%2FkoBguKzG5U9pTJCFgHW4otZB7kkXgmXZ0nzwgL%2BW%2BxWhuSIB%2BExo|tkp%3ABFBMqvmlpdxi

 

You can also get multiple workstations and split the workloads between the systems if your rendering multiple frames.

[mtbiker]

Electronics Wizardy thanks, do i really need 2 cpu mobo?

 

Funny that PCI 2.0 x16 (8gb/sec) is enough for my 6gb vram (but in real life render time is not so predictable?)

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, mtbiker said:

Electronics Wizardy thanks, do i really need 2 cpu mobo?

 

Funny that PCI 2.0 x16 (8gb/sec) is enough for my 6gb vram (but in real life render time is not so predictable?)

 

well most of those servers have dual socket for ram, cpu and pcie lanes. You don't need it here.

 

vram and bandwidth can't be compared like that. 

 

The other problem is physical space. WIth 8 dual slot cards that 16 slots. ATX is made for 7 slots so the challene is physically connecting the gpus, not the bandwidth to the processor.

 

But really, sell those, and get 4 4090s. Should be faster and has more vram too.

[Middcore]

36 minutes ago, mtbiker said:

any real advices ?

 

You're getting real advice. Sometimes real advice isn't stuff one wants to hear. 

 

This hardware is impractical for your planned use-case for a variety of reasons and if possible you should do something different. 

[mtbiker]

Can You please advice single CPU motherboard with "maximum" PCI lanes? Thanks.

 

Why impractical? Space/power/cable management already solved.

 

You have only 1 answer, but what about real build ?  

 

bandwith and vram -  pci 2.0 x16 is enough speed for render (if no please answer briefly why not)

[Electronics Wizardy]

53 minutes ago, mtbiker said:

Can You please advice single CPU motherboard with "maximum" PCI lanes? Thanks.

 

Why impractical? Space/power/cable management already solved.

 

You have only 1 answer, but what about real build ?  

 

bandwith and vram -  pci 2.0 x16 is enough speed for render (if no please answer briefly why not)

Whats your budget?

 

PCIe lanes doesn't really matter, the slots and how they can be split up to the differnet cpus matters here. 

 

w790 has many boards with lots of pcie slots to plug the gpus into. You can go with a mining board if you really want a lot of 1x slots and don't care about anything else.

 

But really sell those gpus, get 2 4090s. Your probably get leftover money and a much better rendering system.

[mtbiker]

 

Electronics Wizardy thanks w790 look interest. 7 pci not 8+. PCI 5.0 is overkill, but it is futureproof.

Maybe should choose more $ friendly mobo with PCI4.0? 

 

[SorryBella]

12 hours ago, mtbiker said:

Blender

Just because it supports MDA explicit doesn't mean you should. Considering that A2K 8GB is still pretty highly appraised id rather fold it off for 1 used A6K or aforementioned 2 RTX 4090 if you don't need GPU ECC (Not like Blender uses most Quadro instructions in the first place).

 

The CPU cost to get all the pcie lanes you need to run it at at least 3.0 x8 is not going to be compensated.

 

Also, please press quote to get a response from someone. @Middcore @Electronics Wizardy @manikyath

[manikyath]

11 hours ago, mtbiker said:

 

Why impractical? Space/power/cable management already solved.

maybe it would be worth expanding on the information we get then. from outlined in the OP you had 8 GPU's and no plan. if you've got this worked out, how about we start off with how you expect to mount the GPU's, and what you have in mind to connect them to before mentioned motherboard.

[Middcore]

5 hours ago, SorryBella said:

Just because it supports MDA explicit doesn't mean you should. Considering that A2K 8GB is still pretty highly appraised id rather fold it off for 1 used A6K or aforementioned 2 RTX 4090 if you don't need GPU ECC (Not like Blender uses most Quadro instructions in the first place).

 

The CPU cost to get all the pcie lanes you need to run it at at least 3.0 x8 is not going to be compensated.

 

Also, please press quote to get a response from someone. @Middcore @Electronics Wizardy @manikyath

I would prefer OP did not expect a response from me.

[mtbiker]

On 9/30/2023 at 10:30 AM, manikyath said:

maybe it would be worth expanding on the information we get then. from outlined in the OP you had 8 GPU's and no plan. if you've got this worked out, how about we start off with how you expect to mount the GPU's, and what you have in mind to connect them to before mentioned motherboard.

Right now it looks like this. But maybe place all GPU to desktop tower (on photo) because a2000 is real small.

 

Have 2 motherboars :

Asus P6T SE (is faster, have PCI 2.0 x16 and better CPU)

BTC-b75 (is slower, have only PCI 2.0 x1 and slower CPU)

[mtbiker]

On 9/30/2023 at 9:48 AM, mtbiker said:

 

Electronics Wizardy thanks w790 look interest. 7 pci not 8+. PCI 5.0 is overkill, but it is futureproof.

Maybe should choose more $ friendly mobo with PCI4.0? 

 

Can PCI5.0 16x bifurcate to double 16x 16x PCI 4.0 on w790 motherboard? 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, mtbiker said:

Can PCI5.0 16x bifurcate to double 16x 16x PCI 4.0 on w790 motherboard? 

Bifurcation doesn't work like that. It can't go more lanes on a lower spec. it could do x8x8 pcie 5 or x8x8 pcie4 etc, but it can't create lanes. The end needs to always equal 16.

[mtbiker]

59 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Bifurcation doesn't work like that. It can't go more lanes on a lower spec. it could do x8x8 pcie 5 or x8x8 pcie4 etc, but it can't create lanes. The end needs to always equal 16.

Well, w790 motherboard support bifurcation? If use something like this, can be achieve  x8 x8 ?

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, mtbiker said:

Well, w790 motherboard support bifurcation? If use something like this, can be achieve  x8 x8 ?

Just get a board that has 2 x16 lanes. Each will run at x8 when bifurcation is used. Just make sure that the board supports bifurcation. Do you have a board in mind?

[mtbiker]

On 10/12/2023 at 5:01 PM, Blue4130 said:

Just get a board that has 2 x16 lanes. Each will run at x8 when bifurcation is used. Just make sure that the board supports bifurcation. Do you have a board in mind?

Maybe Asus Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE  (or You can advice better 7 pci board) ?

 

Interest, If i use all 7 pci slots will be the speed of m2 lowered ?  

[brob]

1 hour ago, mtbiker said:

Maybe Asus Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE  (or You can advice better 7 pci board) ?

 

Interest, If i use all 7 pci slots will be the speed of m2 lowered ?  

 

According to the user manual with a W3400 CPU six of the seven PCIe slots will operate with 16 lanes and one with 8 lanes. There are no indications that NVMe m.2 connectors share lanes with the PCIe slots.