Motherboards: What Works w/Four or More GPUs? List Them

[mikeo]

OK, catfish and I have had some bad experiences (read expensive) with motherboards that fail to support four or more GPUs even though they have five or even six PCIe slots. We want this to be a single thread info source on motherboards that have been proven to fully function with four or more cards (and those that don't).

PLEASE, use the following format:

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand:
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots:
Power Supply Brand & Model:
Number & Model GPUs:
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?:

WHAT DOESN'T WORK
Motherboard Brand:
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots:
Power Supply Brand & Model:
Number & Model GPUs:
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?:

[1714114597]

1714114597

[1714114597]

1714114597

[1714114597]

1714114597

[kripz]

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: Gigabyte
Motherboard Model & PCIe Slots: GA-H61M-D2H-B3 1x PCIE16x, 3x PCIE1x.
Power Supply Brand & Model: Thermaltake 775W Tough Power
Number & Model GPUs: 4x Sapphire 5850 Extreme
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: Using Risers WITHOUT molex power

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.

[mikeo]

WHAT DOESN'T WORK
Motherboard Brand: MSI
Motherboard Model & PCIe slots: 890FXA-GD65, 2 x16, 4 x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: Antec HCP 1200 Gold
Number & Model GPUs: 3 5850, 2 5830
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 2 extenders w/molex, 3 extenders without

RMA'd this board as defective even though it WOULD support 3 GPUs with stable hashrate.

[Jazkal]

WHAT DOESN'T WORK
Motherboard Brand: MSI
Motherboard Model & PCIe slots: 890FXA-GD65, 2 x16, 4 x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: Antec HCP 1200 Gold
Number & Model GPUs: 3 5850, 2 5830
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 2 extenders w/molex, 3 extenders without

RMA'd this board as defective even though it WOULD support 3 GPUs with stable hashrate.

I was thinking of getting this board to run a 4xGPU system, but it does seem to be tricky. Found this post on this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=16474.msg264666;topicseen#msg264666

I'm using a GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 with 4x5830 and I had a fairly fun time getting it to work.  I finally managed, though, and it's running correctly with two cards plugged directly into the mobo and two on x1-to-x16 adapter riser cables (one plugged into an x1 slot on the mobo, another into an x16 slot).  The key break-through I finally had was swapping around the card configurations until all four could be seen in lspci, then running aticonig --initial --adapter=all -f one or two times with intervening reboots.  Eventually all four cards could be seen.

Of course this is in Linux (Linuxcoin booting off a USB drive with persistence, specifically), so I don't know how relevant it is to you in Windows.

[mike678]

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: MSI
Motherboard Model & PCIe slots: 890FXA-GD70, 5 x16(2 x16, 2 x8, 1 x4), 1 x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX1200
Number & Model GPUs: 5x5850
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 5 extenders (x16 to x16) not powered.

[mikeo]

WHAT WORKS
Motherboard Brand: MSI
Motherboard Model & PCIe slots: 890FXA-GD70, 5 x16(2 x16, 2 x8, 1 x4), 1 x1
Power Supply Brand & Model: CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX1200
Number & Model GPUs: 5x5850
Extender Cables w/Molex Power?: 5 extenders (x16 to x16)

@mike678,

Are those PCIe extenders molex powered or not?

[mike678]

@mike678,

Are those PCIe extenders molex powered or not?

not powered I edited my original post as well.

[pixilated8]

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.

[haploid23]

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

[SuperTramp]

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.

[kripz]

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)...

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.

[Elder III]

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. :/

[mikeo]

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.

[jamesg]

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. 

[amazingrando]

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.

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?

[Transisto]

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.

[pixilated8]

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.

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?

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.

[Big Time Coin]

Thank you for this thread.

[amazingrando]

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.

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?

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.

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.

[mikeo]

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!