[WTB] Looking for a Z77 4 Way SLI/CF Motherboard

[halodude23]

Looking for a Z68 4 Way SLI/CF Motherboard

Title says it, send me offers + pics of the motherboard and we can perhaps negotiate.
Must be in FULLY WORKING condition!

 

[halodude23]

Bump

 

[EarthDog]

Yhpm

 

[Aquinus]

You really want to divvy up 16 PCI-E lanes in a 4-way configuration?

 

[EarthDog]

PLX chip and PCIe3 at 8x... why not?

 

[Aquinus]

PLX chip and PCIe3 at 8x... why not?

The PLX chip still only uses the 16 lanes off of the CPU, you're not gaining any bandwidth you just have more lanes with less bandwidth and the added latency of having to go through another chip before getting to the CPU. If you really want to do quad-fire SB-E and X79 is the way to go because at least that way you really have 40 lanes of PCI-E rather than 20 that tries to pretend it has more (4-lanes typically go the PCH on 1155 as well, which is why you typically only see x16, x8/x8 and x8/x4/x4) where SB-E will give you a full real x8/x8/x8/x8 without any intermediary and you don't have that bandwidth loss.

 

[EarthDog]

I hear that, but hard to overclock Ivybridge in a SB-E board. It is what it is if he is on this platform.

 

[Aquinus]

I hear that, but hard to overclock Ivybridge in a SB-E board. It is what it is if he is on this platform.

IVB and z77 are still a mainstream platform and isn't intended to run more than 2 GPUs. Why do you think Intel gimped how many PCI-E lanes on it? It's not to make it run more GPUs, that is for sure. With that said there is a reason why Intel put twice as many lanes on SB-E. I personally just don't think that running quad-sli or quad-crossfire is a good idea on SB or IVB, especially if you're going to be using high end GPUs that love the extra bandwidth.

Don't let me stop anyone from doing this, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I feel like issues will arise with performance let alone the issues running 4 gpus itself not even considering the PLX chip.

 

[halodude23]

You really want to divvy up 16 PCI-E lanes in a 4-way configuration?

:O is there something wrong with that? I have 2 7970s and you stated that high end house are better when in an x79 platform?

 

[blibba]

Worst case scenario you get 4/4/4/4 PCI-E 3.0. This has been shown to have negligible impact on performance. Remember that PCI-E 3.0 is twice as fast as 2.0 and four times as fast as 1.0.

 

[Aquinus]

:O is there something wrong with that? I have 2 7970s and you stated that high end house are better when in an x79 platform?

You're sharing less bandwidth with more cards, it's very possible even though the PLX chip gives more lanes that you'll run into a bandwidth issue. I haven't been able to find a single review of multi-gpu configurations using 4 GPUs with the PLX chip. In fact I haven't been able to find a single performance review using the PLX chip which makes me even more weary.

Worst case scenario you get 4/4/4/4 PCI-E 3.0. This has been shown to have negligible impact on performance. Remember that PCI-E 3.0 is twice as fast as 2.0 and four times as fast as 1.0.

I haven't seen any proof of this. I've seen reviews that says 1 GPU at 4x @ 3.0 doesn't lose too much performance, but SLI and Crossfire has a lot more communication going on than a single card.

 

[blibba]

I remember reviews on the old P67 platform (which isn't even PCI-E 3.0) showing no performance penalty for tri-SLI with 580s. Double the bandwidth and less-than double the performance, and I don't see any issues appearing.

 

[cadaveca]

You might wanna look at this:

Haven't had much time to play with it yet, I'll have the review done in 2-3 weeks. Got an ASUS I'm working on now, and then the ASRock Z77 Extreme 9.

Guess I'll have to do some testing on PCIe and stuff, too.

 

[EarthDog]

IVB and z77 are still a mainstream platform and isn't intended to run more than 2 GPUs. Why do you think Intel gimped how many PCI-E lanes on it? It's not to make it run more GPUs, that is for sure. With that said there is a reason why Intel put twice as many lanes on SB-E. I personally just don't think that running quad-sli or quad-crossfire is a good idea on SB or IVB, especially if you're going to be using high end GPUs that love the extra bandwidth.

Don't let me stop anyone from doing this, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I feel like issues will arise with performance let alone the issues running 4 gpus itself not even considering the PLX chip.

Here is the thing, in some benchmarks (we are talking Hwbot competative benching which is far outside the scope of most at TPU), CPU speed is key and SB-E isnt touching IB. Not sure what this guy is doing, but that was my first guess. If its just gaming, well, scaling blows after 3 cards anyway... so to that end, who cares.

 

[Aquinus]

You might wanna look at this:

http://img.techpowerup.org/120619/088.jpg

Haven't had much time to play with it yet, I'll have the review done in 2-3 weeks. Got an ASUS I'm working on now, and then the ASRock Z77 Extreme 9.

Guess I'll have to do some testing on PCIe and stuff, too.

Absolutely! Go to town, I'm really curious. If you have anything that measures PCI-E latency and bandwidth I would be really interested in those numbers. Can't wait to see the review.

Here is the thing, in some benchmarks, CPU speed is key and SB-E isnt touching IB. Not sure what this guy is doing, but that was my first guess. If its just gaming, well, scaling blows after 3 cards anyway... so to that end, who cares.

Well, halo might. I mean if he was planning on doing this, it might convince him to think of a better plan. I just hate the idea of wasting money for the sake of having something completely ridiculous that might not even run that well.

 

[halodude23]

Here is the thing, in some benchmarks (we are talking Hwbot competative benching which is far outside the scope of most at TPU), CPU speed is key and SB-E isnt touching IB. Not sure what this guy is doing, but that was my first guess. If its just gaming, well, scaling blows after 3 cards anyway... so to that end, who cares.

Bitcoin mining, not really looking to CF more like adding as many various cards as I can. So it'll still have a negative impact even when non CF?

 

[blibba]

I don't think Bitcoin mining is very bandwidth intensive. One of these boards with an i3 might be perfect.

 

[halodude23]

I don't think Bitcoin mining is very bandwidth intensive. One of these boards with an i3 might be perfect.

Really now.... I thought it would be LOL.

 

[Soup]

it's not at all. in fact you don't even need x16 slot. I had a PCIe x1 -> x16 riser cable worked fine. Also, given the right miner, you can get by with 1gb ram and a sempron 145

 

[halodude23]

it's not at all. in fact you don't even need x16 slot. I had a PCIe x1 -> x16 riser cable worked fine. Also, given the right miner, you can get by with 1gb ram and a sempron 145

Thanks was about to go a 280$ route for 4 pci express slots on a Z77, guess ill Lok.for a cheap. 4 way z68 one then

 

[Soup]

If you are just making a miner, I'd go with:

• AMD SEMPRON 145
• MOTHERBOARD
• RAM
• RISER CABLES

With proper riser cables you could have 6 GPU's mining on this setup

 

[halodude23]

If you are just making a miner, I'd go with:

• AMD SEMPRON 145
• MOTHERBOARD
• RAM
• RISER CABLES

With proper riser cables you could have 6 GPU's mining on this setup

Thank you but wouldn't that CPU bottleneck the system even though mining does not even use the CPU? How would those adapters go, can they be placed antwhere

 

[Aquinus]

Sounds like a hoax. The euro is a great example of how 1 currency without 1 government didn't work well. I think it's hilarious that someone can call something currency, give a way to mine it and make more and people start drooling at the mouth and forget that it still isn't real money.

 

[halodude23]

Sounds like a hoax. The euro is a great example of how 1 currency without 1 government didn't work well. I think it's hilarious that someone can call something currency, give a way to mine it and make more and people start drooling at the mouth and forget that it still isn't real money.

LOL I've heard this many times but this applies for folding also, why waste your time on folding proteins when it might take decades to find a cure? I think mining and folding can be looked at in many perspectives, To help others or to help yourself.

 

[Aquinus]

LOL I've heard this many times but this applies for folding also, why waste your time on folding proteins when it might take decades to find a cure? I think mining and folding can be looked at in many perspectives, To help others or to help yourself.

Folding might turn up something, bitcoin is just going to cause controversy. All you're doing is making something out of nothing. I wouldn't put Folding in the same category as Bitcoin.