dual vid cards

[dabaerman]

Originally Posted by booman

Wow, sounds like you have a few extra Power Supplies. Very powerful ones.

as with every upgrade in cpu, mem, drives and of course video cards, the need for power increases.
with the purchase of an EVGA GTX295, I found the Enermax Liberty 720W just didn't have the amps on the 12v to power it. I just got the Antec 1200W and the ABS 1100W to power the 2 GTX285's and 2 GTX295's.
I'm on a mission to FOLD and trying to get down to 4 boxen. still a ways to go as I started with 11. now down to 8. actually, the 2 remote boxen ar due for some up-grading as well, so I will have 6 folders with 6 Quad Core CPU's and 12 GPU's.

Ron

[booman]

Wow, folding 4 boxes is a lot to power. Your power bill must be really high...

[dabaerman]

Originally Posted by booman

Wow, folding 4 boxes is a lot to power. Your power bill must be really high...

so far I can afford it. nobody home but me, the cat and the missus. kids are grown and gone.

actually, I'm trying to get DOWN to 4 folding rigs. right now there are 7 at the house.

I use as much of the cheap NW power I can. they sell it to you for more than me to make up the difference.

Ron

[booman]

Thats pretty awesome!
7 folding machines and working down to 4.
Very nice.

[dabaerman]

I am wondering if 2 pci-e gpu's @16X are faster than (the same gpu's) 8X for folding or gaming.
then there are vid cards that are only 8X. do they perform better @16X?

I have 2X285GTX@8X (MSI NF750-G55 dual @ 8X) and 2XN9800GT@16X (MSI NF980-G65 dual @ 16X)
and haven't swapped things around to see if there was any difference. when I do make changes, I'll
keep you up to date!

the cold/cool temps here have been a great help with the folding rigs. I'm getting ready for the heat of Summer.

[ThunderRd]

I'm not sure about the effects of the 16x bandwidth vs. the 8x on GPU folding but I'm sure someone on the folding forum could help you, if Gizmo or one of the Illuminati here can't.

[dabaerman]

my curiosity stems from the mainboards with as many as 5 PCIEX16 slots who claim 3 Way SLI @ 16X/8X/8X.
then the question about SLI and CrossFire becomes one about the bandwidth as well. and now there
comes a chipset that will do both. it's about time! crazy good or just nutz? just because I chose Folding
over gameing, my choices in hardware have been nVidia based. I have 2 AMD chipset (660/770 no onboard vidio)
boards with nVidia graphics folding very well. the one with onboard vidio doesn't like the nvidia card/s!
so, for me, single card folding rigs are not the answer. nVidia chipset with 3+ 16X slots are getting
harder to find and the 990FXA chipset just might be the ticket.

[dabaerman]

the current setup with 2X285 water cooled. one card is having trouble and I need to pull them for the 295's.

[dabaerman]

the 295's are ready. I'll find time to put them in the box soon. yes, all 3 in one boxen!

[booman]

show off!

[danrok]

Very nice!