Hey Leo and all you folders

Ryder

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12071/asus_p6t7_ws_supercomputer_motherboard_coming_soon/index.html

1 folding farm all on 1 PC.. check it.. 7 !! PCI-e slots on 1 board. Can you say 30K per day from one box?

QCH

And what... a 1000 watt PSU... would that even power it? One PSU for the MB and drives, and other for the Video?

_k

Why only 7? You should be able to get 4 GX2s in there with the right case. Then that should get your power reqs down from sticking 7 single slot vid cards in there. I say that would make a 41,800 point rig loaded down that way with smp(5k for an i7, but will go higher 8-9k). Major issue is that it needs way to much air, sepperate room with its own ac ducted to it to keep things cool and stable with stock or OC.

Leonardo

OK, I'm officially drooling.

You should be able to get 4 GX2

Exactly. Although there are certainly much faster single GPU solutions than one single GPU from a 9800GX2, the 9800GX2 remains the single-slot Folding production champion. There are already some heavy hitter folders running 3X and 4X 9800GX2 Folding boxes. Two of my rigs are dual GX2 boxes, each turning in up to 25K points per day. That production is each system running 4 X GPU Folding clients and the Q6600 CPU running 2 X CPU SMP clients.

The trick right now with multi-GPU Folding rigs is not so much the hardware, but rather software. With Vista and Win7, it can be difficult to get all the GPU clients to work simultaneously. XP is still the most reliable for that format. Thanks for the link, Ryder. What does look very attractive about the board you linked is the spacious layout of the PCI-e slots. That appears be a superbly engineered motherboard. Oh, that would be so much fun!

Power requirements.

And what... a 1000 watt PSU... would that even power it?

No, it would not. My dual GX2 systems (2 X GX2 + overclocked Q6600) each pull between 615 and 700 Watts, as measured by the UPS.

You should be able to get 4 GX2s in there with the right case. Then that should get your power reqs down from sticking 7 single slot vid cards in there.

Exactly right. Given like GPU specifications, a multi-GPU card draws less power than the combined separate cards running the same number of GPUs.

_k

Something like this would be required. It offers the kind of 12v power that the cards would ever need but to be safe you would need one of these. Simply to take the last card off the load would be enough for me to feel good but there are the 450 supplies to be safe. So bottom line a 400$ psu set up to cover it all, I think PCP&C make a 1.5kw but you would need something like a supermicro case to take the EATX supply.

Leo I think we have a challenge!! How can we do a fundraiser to build this beast. I know we used to have client rigs out there but why not have one beast of a rig. $400 for psu, $800 for GPU, $300 for i7 920, $90 for 6GB of OCZ DDR3, $??? for board, $100 for some case. I am sure we can find a harddrive to rig in there and ubuntu is always free. $1,700 without the board most likely just over 2 grand without shipping. We could take fourth. Plus we could slap Icrontic on everything and might get some deals but at least get some free publicity.

Leonardo

the 9800GX2 remains the single-slot Folding production champion

OK, I'll call myself out on that one before someone else does. False, the 9800GX2 is second highest single slot Folder. The king is the 295.

_k

I was waiting for you to correct yourself didn't want the master to look like an idiot

Leonardo

You are kind.

I was stuck in a previous time. It was early 2008 all over again.

_k

So would there be no way to do my idea unless we personally forked over all the money.

DrLiam

_k_ wrote:

So would there be no way to do my idea unless we personally forked over all the money.

All you need is an idea... lottery/contest perhaps?