Best MotherBoard for Butterfly Labs Monarch PCI card?

[ThatFatGuy]

Looking for opinions on best MotherBoards for Butterfly Labs Monarch PCI card?  I have not built a data center style board before.  I would possibly buy 5 at a time, and then wait to fill them in.

If anyone can point out imperative major design features, and any favorites, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks.  

[crazyates]

You can find all sorts of motherboards that support 5 PCIe x1 slots. The issue is A) Finding a rack-mount chassis that can accommodate 4-5 double-wide PCIe cards (that isn't $4,000), and B) finding a PSU that can power 5x 350W cards. You're looking at almost 2KW of power for every board. No cool. Not cheap.

My suggestion? Buy some 3U or 4U chassis that accept ATX motherboards and support 7 PCI slots. Buy any motherboard that is known to work with at least 3 GPUs, and put 3 Monarchs in them. You'd probably want a 1500W PSU, but we don't know what kind of PSU hookups the Monarchs will take.

[ThatFatGuy]

thanks that makes sense since I cant buy fifty Monarchs.

I wonder what the best mobo for three cards is?  I'll go Google that.....

[crazyates]

Remember that you also don't have to use PCIe. They have stated they will also ship with a USB port, so you could put any motherboard in there, and connect them all using USB.

[crazyates]

Remember that you also don't have to use PCIe. They have stated they will also ship with a USB port, so you could put any motherboard in there, and connect them all using USB.

Could even buy something like This, strip the MB/PSU out of it, install 4-7 Monarchs, and hook them all up to a 7-port USB hub connected to a rPi (or some sort of other small form factor PC if the Pi is too weak). You could get away with 1 PSU if you're only running 4, but you'd prolly need 2 PSUs if you're looking to do more than that.

[realestone]

uh when do you think you'll have these in hand? i hope you like waiting atleast a year   

[crazyates]

uh when do you think you'll have these in hand? i hope you like waiting atleast a year   

Did you come in to make that (well) overused joke, or do you have anything constructive to add?

[realestone]

uh when do you think you'll have these in hand? i hope you like waiting atleast a year   

Did you come in to make that (well) overused joke, or do you have anything constructive to add?

just stating facts

[nexus99]

Troll sighting.

[n691309]

B) finding a PSU that can power 5x 350W cards.

350W estimate? Could be 1000W in reality easily

[DeathAndTaxes]

Here is a fun experiment.   Put 3x 7990s in a sealed 3U or 4U rackmount chassis and try to keep the cards from burning up.  There is a reason that people use open rigs.  Trying to remove that kind of heat is next to impossible.  Even if BFL delivers the form factor is next to useless because you are never going to be able to fill a rackmount server with 3 to 5 of them.

[HellDiverUK]

In motherboard terms, 6 months to a year is an eternity.  There's plenty of boards that'll take 4 double slot PCI-E cards, but that's the limit to a normal ATX board.  My P8B-WS will take 4 double slot cards, and it's marketed as a workstation/server board.  By the Haswell-E might have come along, with enough PCI-E lanes to cope.

Beyond that, you're in to EATX which aren't cheap.  Then you're looking at 4U cases at least, and probably 2KW PSU.  It's all going to be big money, and by then probably pointless due to difficulty (unless BTC goes up to $200 or more).

Besides, my understanding was that the Monarchs were still run off a USB, and the cards were only the PCI-E form factor for ease of mounting.  Am I wrong?  If that's the case, then any case with lots of slots and a miniITX (or even NUC) motherboard would be more than sufficient.

[superduh]

by the time these are released motherboards will likely be totally different from today. i would look into this closer to release date

[young3dvard]

Here is a fun experiment.   Put 3x 7990s in a sealed 3U or 4U rackmount chassis and try to keep the cards from burning up.  There is a reason that people use open rigs.  Trying to remove that kind of heat is next to impossible. 

You have to use water cooling

[CrashX]

uh when do you think you'll have these in hand? i hope you like waiting atleast a year   

Did you come in to make that (well) overused joke, or do you have anything constructive to add?

BFL pundit at work.

Promoting BFL wont make it come true, I'm afraid.

[CrashX]

Troll sighting.

+1

[HellDiverUK]

I run a pair of 7950 in a big tower case, and it's difficult enough to cool (Fractal Design Define XL with several 140mm and 120mm fans).  Keeps the bottom half of the house warm, though.

[FUKT]

Are people actually thinking of buying this crap? (Monarch).

[southerngentuk]

Warning - I put up a shelf for my little singles 3 months ago.

Wife is pretty tired of dusting that empty shelf now.. 

[monsters4r]

Remember that you also don't have to use PCIe. They have stated they will also ship with a USB port, so you could put any motherboard in there, and connect them all using USB.

Maybe when the Monarch will be available the USB technology will be obsolete and no one device will have this old connection.