Motherboard of choice for 6 or more GPU's

[Benny1985]

Pretty sure that the standard answer is that you can't get more than 4 cards on Win7, but 8 can do 5-6 rather easily.

[FullLife]

Pretty sure that the standard answer is that you can't get more than 4 cards on Win7, but 8 can do 5-6 rather easily.

Five is the max number of cards for Windows 7 apparently.  I'm running (5) 7950s on my Z77A-GD55, no presence shorts or anything.

[FullLife]

FullLife,

I had problems even getting 5 cards working on Win7 without presence shorting. Windows 8 is much nicer and cleaner for running 5+ GPUs. I suggest it highly!

If you don't want to pay for a license on it, there's some nice torrents for it around if you don't mind that sort of thing. (:

I guess that's the route I'll have to go, thanks.

[jaywaka2713]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

[lbr]

why do people still spread this powered riser FUD? I have NEVER used a powered riser, and I have never had problems. All my rigs have 6 cards (8 gpu for 5k series, or 6 7970) and use 16x and 1x slots all with 1x > 1x risers. Been mining since july 2011.

Just because you did not have issues - does not mean powered risers are FUD ; )
Yesterday my friend burnt couple of non-powered 16x-1x risers and before that mb and the same conf with powered risers have no issues.

Also using powered risers makes perfect sense technically speaking unless you have proof that all the GPUs are using no more than 10W from PCI-E slot and that all the motherboards are capable providing 10W on each PCI-E slot(or any other W combination which won't burn mb power regulator).

p.s.
I'm also running non-powered risers on all my rigs with no issues.

edit 2013/07/28: After running ~2months 24/7 my rig burned ; ) PSU ATX motherboard connector to be exact.

[lbr]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

Is voltage regulation available on *nix?

[jaywaka2713]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

Is voltage regulation available on *nix?

Yes. I don't regulate voltage on my rig, but I have seen it done on youtube videos.

Because I just had to: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=voltage+regulation+linux

Overclock is so easy on Linux.

[lbr]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

Is voltage regulation available on *nix?

Yes. I don't regulate voltage on my rig, but I have seen it done on youtube videos.

Because I just had to: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=voltage+regulation+linux

Overclock is so easy on Linux.

[FullLife]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

I understand this opinion well.  The problem for me is that I don't know linux that well at all.  So if I have problems, it's going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  Plus, I haven't seen a tool like Trixx or Afterburner in Linux, which I have to have.

[Bogdan]

No normal desktop motherboards have any more than 4 PCI-E slots for sure.

[jaywaka2713]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

I understand this opinion well.  The problem for me is that I don't know linux that well at all.  So if I have problems, it's going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  Plus, I haven't seen a tool like Trixx or Afterburner in Linux, which I have to have.

http://alternativeto.net/software/msi-afterburner/?platform=linux

No normal desktop motherboards have any more than 4 PCI-E slots for sure.

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/Z77A-GD65.html

7 PCI-E slots...

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/890FXA-GD70.html

6 PCI-E slots...

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970%20Extreme4/

7 PCI-E slots...

I am convinced you use Windows for sure.

[FullLife]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

I understand this opinion well.  The problem for me is that I don't know linux that well at all.  So if I have problems, it's going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  Plus, I haven't seen a tool like Trixx or Afterburner in Linux, which I have to have.

http://alternativeto.net/software/msi-afterburner/?platform=linux

Reading through the descriptions of those software tools, it looks like those are for nvidia cards only.

[jaywaka2713]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

I understand this opinion well.  The problem for me is that I don't know linux that well at all.  So if I have problems, it's going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  Plus, I haven't seen a tool like Trixx or Afterburner in Linux, which I have to have.

http://alternativeto.net/software/msi-afterburner/?platform=linux

Reading through the descriptions of those software tools, it looks like those are for nvidia cards only.

http://www.linux.org/article/view/amd-graphics-card-overclocking-guide

Sorry, didn't read through it in detail. This is what you are looking for.

[FullLife]

Debian Linux is free and easy to install. More stable than Windows if used correctly. A 10 minute guide on youtube can teach you how to use it, and once you do you won't regret it. Run Linux for your miners, not Windows. I don't see why people honestly use Windows at all. Run Wine on Linux and you'll be fine.

I understand this opinion well.  The problem for me is that I don't know linux that well at all.  So if I have problems, it's going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  Plus, I haven't seen a tool like Trixx or Afterburner in Linux, which I have to have.

http://alternativeto.net/software/msi-afterburner/?platform=linux

Reading through the descriptions of those software tools, it looks like those are for nvidia cards only.

http://www.linux.org/article/view/amd-graphics-card-overclocking-guide

Sorry, didn't read through it in detail. This is what you are looking for.

Nice, I might have to reconsider Linux then.  My next question is, what's the best tool to use for remote access in Linux?  With Windows for instance, I would use TeamViewer.

[CartmanSPC]

Give Linux a try but honestly Windows is more than fine. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you.

[jaywaka2713]

Nice, I might have to reconsider Linux then.  My next question is, what's the best tool to use for remote access in Linux?  With Windows for instance, I would use TeamViewer.

For access to the terminal (all you really need if you are experienced): Just SSH into your rig over your network.

For access to the GUI and Desktop Interface (more geared towards most people): http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.aspx

There is a Linux Teamviewer version. Nothing really changes for you.

Give Linux a try but honestly Windows is more than fine. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you.

I actually would. Once you learn it, Linux is so much more efficient than Windows. MUCH less issues as well, and easy support for 7 cards.

Remember, we all had to learn how to use Windows too.

[boozer]

http://www.linux.org/article/view/amd-graphics-card-overclocking-guide

Sorry, didn't read through it in detail. This is what you are looking for.

Does this control voltage for voltage unlocked 7950's?  I tried using cgminer, which I thought used AMD's utilities in this link and it would not control voltage on the Sapphire 4L cards... I had to flash a different bios to lower the voltage.  But if this works for them like msi afterburner does in Windows, that would be great!

[nexus99]

Going in for a Z77A-gd65 for my first litecoin rig. Fun fun fun!

[christov84]

I have 6 cards per rig, 3 of them on powered risers... two rigs... 3 Seasonic 1250 Watt gold power supplies.  Each power supply powers 4 cards.

I have the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 and the MSI 990FXA-GD80 and they both can handle 6 GPU's I believe (still waiting on 1x risers to arrive).  It looked like they had been out for awhile so I didnt know if there was anything better on the market that most people were using or not.

Hey I have the GA-990FXA-UD5 and do you have to short one of the slots to get the 6th working?

[MangoJ]

Pretty sure that the standard answer is that you can't get more than 4 cards on Win7, but 8 can do 5-6 rather easily.

Five is the max number of cards for Windows 7 apparently.  I'm running (5) 7950s on my Z77A-GD55, no presence shorts or anything.

SIX is the max number for windows 7.
I use windows 7 and I have 6 GPUs running on my GPU rigs.