Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Mining => Topic started by: mike678 on July 30, 2011, 01:14:19 AM



Title: max ammount of gpu's
Post by: mike678 on July 30, 2011, 01:14:19 AM
Ok so I know the max amount of gpu's in windows is 8 that's not what I'm asking. I have seen multiple posts on this forum where there are rumors and people stating they have over 8 gpu's in one system running linux. Can any one actually prove this?


Title: Re: max ammount of gpu's
Post by: sergio on July 30, 2011, 12:49:01 PM

Yes it is possible, but you will need pci extenders and then the max is 8 using a psu of 1200 watt or better.

The other problem if you do not use pci extenders, the max is 6 GPU due to physical limitation on the 890fxa-gd70, and you will need to run the fans at full speed since having the video cards with almost no free space in between them causes the temperature to go up a lot, unless you water cool them, without the pci extenders the last pci slot can not be used since the card does not fit properly on the motherboard since it was not meant for a double width card.

The other problem is you will need to use amd sdk 2.4 and catalyst 11.6 which has a bug that with the mouse that causes everything to lock up once a while if you use the computer while mining.

With catalyst 11.7 it did not work for me. the X and ati utilities will see the 8 cores, but not the miners, strange problem, however catalyst 11.6 seems to work fine other than the mouse bug.
This is using debian squeeze.




Title: Re: max ammount of gpu's
Post by: mike678 on July 30, 2011, 02:20:57 PM

Yes it is possible, but you will need pci extenders and then the max is 8 using a psu of 1200 watt or better.

The other problem if you do not use pci extenders, the max is 6 GPU due to physical limitation on the 890fxa-gd70, and you will need to run the fans at full speed since having the video cards with almost no free space in between them causes the temperature to go up a lot, unless you water cool them, without the pci extenders the last pci slot can not be used since the card does not fit properly on the motherboard since it was not meant for a double width card.

The other problem is you will need to use amd sdk 2.4 and catalyst 11.6 which has a bug that with the mouse that causes everything to lock up once a while if you use the computer while mining.

With catalyst 11.7 it did not work for me. the X and ati utilities will see the 8 cores, but not the miners, strange problem, however catalyst 11.6 seems to work fine other than the mouse bug.
This is using debian squeeze.



So how many gpu's do you run on linux then? That was the real point of the question.


Title: Re: max ammount of gpu's
Post by: antares on July 30, 2011, 02:37:05 PM
Well, I'm sorry I cannot give you the answer you wanted, however we use NVIDIA Clusters at work for GPGPU, and each of our node has 12/16 GPUs. However our nodes use special ASUS boards that have been built for this and feature extra length so all the cards can be inserted. Clusters fit into a 19" rack at 3 HE.
Ofc I cannot state whether the 8GPU limit for AMD is a general windows limit or an ATI/AMD driver limit, as we do not use Windows or AMD Graphics


Title: Re: max ammount of gpu's
Post by: iamzill on July 31, 2011, 05:12:42 AM
without the pci extenders the last pci slot can not be used since the card does not fit properly on the motherboard since it was not meant for a double width card.

Actually it's possible to use the last slot without extenders. I have 4 5850 on my 890fxa-gd70 as we speak. You just need a big enough case.