Topic: Motherboards: What Works w/Four or More GPUs? List Them - page 5. (Read 53356 times)

WORKING

Motherboard: GA-990FXA-UD7
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3880#ov
PCIe Slots: x16 * 6
Cards: 6* Powercolor 6770
Extenders: x16 -> x16

We've tried x1 -> x16 risers in that one and it was a nightmare. It can work, but be prepared for hell. Use x16 -> x16 extenders.

USB key can be really problematic with that motherboard. If you get the dreadful "Boot Error" with your USB key, update the BIOS. We've used the F4B and it worked for some. Still, we have some Linuxcoin key that don't work on it, and I really don't understand why.

Motherboard: MSi 890FX-GD70
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/890FXA-GD70.html
PCIe slots: x16 * 5, x1 * 1
Cards: 4* Sapphire reference 6950
Extenders: x16 -> x16

The PCI-E no 5(the second x16) seems dead on our motherboard. We can't do anything with it. Maybe its a bad configuration from our part...
Right now, we've put our 4 reference we had on the 4 remaining PCIe slots, and it works great. The x1 could be used. We didn't, those 4 cards are heating a lot, and we needed the extra space.

Motherboard: Biostar A870
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/content.php?S_ID=523
PCIe slots: x16 * 2, x1 * 2
Cards: 3 * 5770, 1 * 6950
Extenders: x1 -> x16, x16 -> x16

This board is magic. It works. Top quality board for mining.

Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A79T_Deluxe/
PCIe slots: x16 * 4
Cards: 1 * 6950, 3 * 5770
Extenders: x16 -> x16

Works great, a little costly compared to the Biostar, but it delivers.

From our experience, the Biostar come on top and will probably be our motherboard of choice from right now. And it's coming from a guy who bought FOUR GA-990FXA-UD7 with 6 cards on them. I can't understand how this board is sold at 250$ and it can't handle USB boot correctly.

WHAT WORKS

Motherboard Brand: Biostar
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: A870U3; two x16, two x1
PSU Brand & Model: Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775w
Number & Model GPUs: 4x Sapphire 5850 (3 are Extreme model, one not)
Extender Cables: 3 1x --> 16x; 1 16x --> 16x (No Molex. Cables purchased from www.9mart.com)

Running linuxcoin 0.2b (old version). The only issue I had was that the cards in the x1 slots wouldn't mine initially, but rebooting solved this. All four cards are undervolted to 0.95 VDC using Atitweak. Currently getting about 300 Mhps from each card and pulling 450 watts from the wall. I haven't tuned the cards yet, and I'm sure I can get more out of them at the current voltage setting (I'm undervolting for efficiency).

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: Every Gigabyte/Asus/Intel x58/LGA1366 Motherboard I have tried (P6T/Reg/Green/Deluxe, Gigabyte UDx?)
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: (above)
Power Supply Brand & Model: Depends on cards used.
Number & Model GPUs: 4x 6870's, 4x 5770's, 4x 6950's *All matching, not tried mix/match*
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: No Power, x1 & x16 passive cables

All of my Mining Rigs are X58/LGA1366 based setups, due to having a shit-ton of money invested into the platform anyways, Refurb Motherboards are often cheap from NCIX and 60w-80w Engineering Sample LGA1366 Xeons are dirt cheap in Dual & Quad-Core configuration.

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: Gigabyte
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: 990XA-UD3  3 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: Corsair AX1200
Number & Model GPUs: 3 x 5850 ,  1 x 5770
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: x1-->1x-->x16 extender(w/o MOLEX power) for the 5770 card.

Debian Squeeze(6.0.2), AMD SDK v2.4

I've learned that it is VERY  important to first try a 4+ GPU rig at STOCK card clocks, then if that proves stable gradually OC each card until it becomes unstable then back off 10MH/z. Do this for each card until they are all running 24/7, in both mild and hot weather, without a problem. You will likely notice that some cards will OC very well and some will NOT. One unstable card can bring down the entire mining rig. Stability RULES!

Thanks pixilated8.  With that info, I think I've narrowed down my problem to a bad motherboard.  I'm have another one and will test 4 GPUs on it tonight, but it seems like the one I'm having trouble with has trouble even with two GPUs directly plugged on to the board.

Thank you for this thread.

I have two 16x->16x and two 1x->16x extenders.  No pin-mod for the 1x PCI-e slots.  Rock solid stability.  Using LinuxCoin booted from 4GB USB, running headless.

There no reason why any 1x PCI-e slot wouldn't work.  

You may need to do the pin mod, but other than that.  Anything work.

I'm trying almost exactly the same configuration, except with 5850's and it's not stable.  Are you using 16x->16x extenders for the two 16x slots?  Have you noticed any stability issues?

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand:  ASROCK
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: 970 Extreme (3x16 2x1) -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157262
Power Supply Brand & Model: 2 x Sunbeam PSU-ECO750-US-BL 750W -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817709021
Number & Model GPUs: 5 x SAPPHIRE 100297-2L Radeon HD 5830 Xtreme 1GB)
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 3 x 16x Extenders and 2 x 1x to 16x Extenders

Running BAMT and everything is working better than expected. getting 315Mh/s per GPU at 965/300 with the phatk2 kernel.

This motherboard is a champ, just bought 10 more. 

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: ASROCK
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: 890FX Deluxe4, 3 x16, 2 x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: Antec HCP 1200 Gold
Number & Model GPUs: 4x 5850 5x 5850
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 1 x16 extender w/o power, 3 4 x1 w/molex power

I have a another 5850 that, although seen by the motherboard as the 5th card, was problematic and caused very unstable hashrates for all cards and several complete lock-ups. I'll revisit trying to use it later.

EDIT 8/23/11: Switched to BAMT software and tried the 5th 5850 GPU -- been working fine with 5 GPUs for 12 hours, pulling 830W and making 1850MH/s. VERY happy with BAMT! Seems one of the GPUs (not the 5th) could not sustain the 900,300 OC the other cards were comfortable with. Set that card at 875,300 and now seems stable. Easy to do with BAMT.

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand:  ASROCK
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: 970 Extreme (3x16 2x1)
Power Supply Brand & Model: Antec HighPower 750 watt
Number & Model GPUs:4 x HD 6770s (various brands)
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 1x to 16x Extender, no Molex

Also:

MSI 890FXA-GD70 - already listed above by someone else so I won't go into details.


*Side note - Has anyone been able to get more than 4 GPUs to work with Windows XP Home 32bit?  I can get them all installed, all recognized by CCC, HWMonitor, and Trixx, even GUIMiner recognizes them, but anytime I click on "Start" for anything over 2 GPUS they never connect.... any combination of the 5 GPUs will work with just 2, but the third fourth and fifth won't show any signs of life.  If I remove any one of the 5 GPUs it will work like a charm and run without problems for weeks.  I've tried both 11.6b, 11.7, and 11.8 and nothing works with more than 4. :/

No. Cards are at default voltage and 800/300mhz. It pulls 600w at the wall. PSU is fine and all of it is stuffed into a tub with lid with only a 14cm exhaust and intake fan. I'm using 11.6 with linux so i dont have the one core 100% cpu bug, power usage will probably be 50w or so higher with my $70 Intel G620 CPU if i did, though.

WHAT DOESNT WORK
Motherboard Brand: Gigabyte
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: GA-H61M-D2H-B3 1x PCIE16x, 3x PCIE1x.
Power Supply Brand & Model: Thermaltake 700w Lite Power
Number & Model GPUs: 4x Sapphire 5850 Extreme
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: Using Risers WITHOUT molex power

700w Lite Power cannot output more than 550w, computer will hard reset.

WORKS

Motherboard Brand: GIGABYTE
Model: GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128509

PCI Express 2.0 x16: 5 (x16, x16, x8, x4, x4)
PCI Express x1: 1

Power Supply Brand & Model: Rosewill BRONZE Series RBR1000-M 1000W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182188

Number & Model GPUs: 4 x Radeon 5830

Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 4 Extender Cables (x16,x16,x4,x4) w/o molex.

i'm just going to be lazy with my post and list which motherboards works with 4+ cards that i've personally tested. if you don't already know the motherboard, you can look up the specs

- MSI Big Bang x58
- MSI 890FXA-GD70
- Asus P7P55 WS SuperComputer
- Asus Rampage Extreme x48

WORKS
Motherboard Brand: Biostar
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: A870U3 (2x16, 2x1)
Power Supply Brand & Model: Corsair TX850 (Pulling ~615W at the wall)
Number & Model GPUs: 4x Sapphire 5830 Xtreme (Overclocked & undervolted)
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: No

Motherboard automatically unlocks 2nd core of Sempron 140.

To be honest - it really looks as if one sure-fire 'good solution' is to build a frame rig for two micro-ATX boards, and then use two of the Gigabyte boards that both myself and kripz have found work perfectly without powered extenders. Mine cost me £60 brand new - that's less than half of the price of ANY of the 'big bang shazam whoopy-doo' gamer boards. Yes, you need twice the number of CPUs, RAM and PSUs, but most 8-card rigs will need two PSUs anyway regardless, and dedicated miners don't need much memory (on Linux, and I'm running the system off USB flashdrives, so any swapping to 'disc' would destroy performance)...

The only additional cost is having to buy two CPUs and maintain two systems. I've cancelled my order for the 890FXA-GD70 board and CPU - I was only expecting to get 6 cards onto that big ATX board, yet for the same money I can have two Gigabyte boards *with* (cheap) CPUs, and space for 8 graphics cards.

If having two micro-ATX boards isn't a problem, as opposed to one ATX or ATX-XL board, then I think we've already got a winner.

I've got lame 5770s in my Gigabyte board but kripz confirmed that it'd supply a full set of 5850 extremes - off a 775W PSU? That's bloody brilliant, and demonstrates that the board can handle the full power to each of the x1 slots too. No Molex-augmented extenders required either, nor any BIOS voodoo witchcraft - the board must consume low power too. Sounds ideal... may get two in!

kripz - have you had any power issues with all four 5850s using only a 775W PSU? Is the PSU running hot / fan racing? Do you have a wall power measurement? (sorry for any thread derailment)...

not powered I edited my original post as well.

@mike678,

Are those PCIe extenders molex powered or not?