4x or more Graphics cards in mobo?

[palespartan]

I was wondering if anyone had a guide on the most cost efficient way to hook up 4 or more graphics cards to a system for computing purposes (F@H mostly but maybe trying some mining with the latest craze going on). And just so you all don't freak out this is all old card that I have laying around so I'm not the one buying up all the cards out there that you all are looking for. I will admit I didn't look very hard but it would be nice to have a guide or walk through here and maybe even sticky it... Although that might be a bit far.

 

Thank you all in advanced for the help.

 

EDIT: I am an idiot and didn't search for pcie 1x to 16x adapter. But the question still stands for the idea that these are all 2 slot cards and should hopefully fit into a normal(ish) case if possible as well as powering them all for cheap. (If possible) 

[Billy_Mays]

You could get a wire rack to farm with zip ties

[palespartan]

4 minutes ago, Billy_Mays said:

You could get a wire rack to farm with zip ties

so basically we all give up the idea of keeping this all in a case of some kind? (full tower atx)

 

[OliverBryant]

There are PCIe x1 to USB which you can then plug into a 16x adaptor. Buy 4 of these and put the GPUs outside your case

[palespartan]

2 minutes ago, OliverBryant said:

There are PCIe x1 to USB which you can then plug into a 16x adaptor. Buy 4 of these and put the GPUs outside your case

Any good way of securing the gpus to the outside of the case? or just let them lay there?

 

[OliverBryant]

Just ripped this straight off the internet, but see what this person is doing, using adaptors then just putting them on a normal rack. Also while you're at it make sure your power supply can supply enough power!

[KenjiUmino]

1 minute ago, palespartan said:

Any good way of securing the gpus to the outside of the case? or just let them lay there?

 

put 'em in a shoe box so they don't get dirty or knocked over by your child, wife, cat, dog, werehamster or whatever you have prancing around in your house. you can also add a 140mm fan to the box for good airflow

[2bitmarksman]

15 hours ago, palespartan said:

I was wondering if anyone had a guide on the most cost efficient way to hook up 4 or more graphics cards to a system for computing purposes (F@H mostly but maybe trying some mining with the latest craze going on). And just so you all don't freak out this is all old card that I have laying around so I'm not the one buying up all the cards out there that you all are looking for. I will admit I didn't look very hard but it would be nice to have a guide or walk through here and maybe even sticky it... Although that might be a bit far.

 

Thank you all in advanced for the help.

 

EDIT: I am an idiot and didn't search for pcie 1x to 16x adapter. But the question still stands for the idea that these are all 2 slot cards and should hopefully fit into a normal(ish) case if possible as well as powering them all for cheap. (If possible) 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147155
or
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219020

Mod them a bit by taking out the hard drive cages and putting the cards there essentially:



This isn't exactly like those cases but it's a similar concept. The cheaper method though is to make your own frame

[2bitmarksman]

Kinda crappy quality but this is someone modding a one of the cases I linked to make it work: 
 

 

[palespartan]

3 hours ago, 2bitmarksman said:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147155
or
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219020

Mod them a bit by taking out the hard drive cages and putting the cards there essentially:



This isn't exactly like those cases but it's a similar concept. The cheaper method though is to make your own frame

Actually this is kinda perfect. And considering that the case is only like $90 that really isn't bad relative to like a normal "gaming" tower.

 

Now for the really dumb question... Since these 1x to 16x cards seem to work through usb 3.0 cables is there any chance that you can plug more cards in through simply usb?

[palespartan]

I also just noticed in the pic that there are 6 cards and even though I don't know what they are they do have a 6 and an 8 pin input how can all of that run off of a 1000w power supply?

[KenjiUmino]

14 minutes ago, palespartan said:

is there any chance that you can plug more cards in through simply usb?

nope ... that does not work.

 

the usb cables are just used as a means to transfer PCIe signals instead of usb signals - the cables were never officially intended to do this but it works.

 

i have seen similar solutions that use HDMI cables instead. 

 

technicaly you can use any cable with high enough quality and enough wires in it to transfer PCIe out of your case.

 

whoever invented these PCIe adapter thingies just tried to be nice and chose something that is already on the market instead of re-inventing the wheel and forcing the customer to buy overpriced proprietary cables.

 

wich is a nice move IMO

[palespartan]

11 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

nope ... that does not work.

 

the usb cables are just used as a means to transfer PCIe signals instead of usb signals - the cables were never officially intended to do this but it works.

 

i have seen similar solutions that use HDMI cables instead. 

 

technicaly you can use any cable with high enough quality and enough wires in it to transfer PCIe out of your case.

 

whoever invented these PCIe adapter thingies just tried to be nice and chose something that is already on the market instead of re-inventing the wheel and forcing the customer to buy overpriced proprietary cables.

 

wich is a nice move IMO

Ok that is kind of what I figured. Just a cable with enough pins to do what they needed. Definitely a good move.

[KenjiUmino]

i would love to see eGPU cases that use one or more 40 pin IDE cable to transfer PCIe 4x or even 8x

 

or something similar ... do you remember the old external SCSI devices with their i-don't-know-how-may-pins connectors ? i think these cables would be perfect. 

[palespartan]

1 minute ago, KenjiUmino said:

i would love to see eGPU cases that use one or more 40 pin IDE cable to transfer PCIe 4x or even 8x

 

or something similar ... do you remember the old external SCSI devices with their i-don't-know-how-may-pins connectors ? i think these cables would be perfect. 

 

I still have some of those cards laying around. They are crazy. But I think the issue with the external gpu housings is that they run on thunderbolt (though I don't think the alienware does though) and I don't think thunderbolt can go beyond a 4x signal as of yet. But one thing to keep in mind is when amd releases whatever equivalent they use and how fast that will be in comparison.

[KenjiUmino]

27 minutes ago, palespartan said:

 

I still have some of those cards laying around. They are crazy. But I think the issue with the external gpu housings is that they run on thunderbolt (though I don't think the alienware does though) and I don't think thunderbolt can go beyond a 4x signal as of yet. But one thing to keep in mind is when amd releases whatever equivalent they use and how fast that will be in comparison.

i wasn't talking about thunderbolt eGPU cases ... the number of devices with true thunderbolt support isn't very large so these cases will probably stay a niche market ... wich is sad ... 

 

some years ago, companies like villagetronic had eGPU cases that used the expresscard slot.

it was only PCIe 1x but it was something ...

 

the problem was the same as it is today:

 

there were not many consumer laptops that came with expresscard slots and the damn case was WAY too expensive ... 

 

that's what made me build a desktop PC in 2015 again ... i was happy with my laptops CPU but the intel iGPU didn't really cut it in games... my laptop has expresscard and this sounded interesting ...

so i did the math:

 

around 300 euros for the case (shipping not even factored in)

a little under 200 euros for a graphics card to put in the case

 

= 500 euros for a bottlenecked graphics upgrade to my i5 laptop ... yeah ...

 

then i dropped only a little bit more to build a core i3 desktop that had everything i wanted ... plenty of RAM, SSD, HDD, ODD and a GTX 750.

 

everything packed into a cute little lian li ITX case