Recommendations for 4 GPU build

[feedchicken]

Hello, I am planning on doing the exact same thing. Right now I am using 2 GPU's for Octane rendering but I am planning on building a 4-GPU rendering rig running on a X99 mobo for some additional power.
I first had my sights on ASRock x99 WS but couldn't find a good deal locally so I've shifted over to the Formula OC, it seems however not a lot of people have succeeded running a hackintosh on this board aside from a few random posts here and there
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/interesting-experiment-today.174267/

Apparently it uses the same circuit board as the ASRock X99 Fatal1ty Professional http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...x99-professional-3.1-motherboard,4235.html#p1
So one might find a successful build on that particular board and try it with either.

I might just go ahead and order one of these to give it a try very soon.

Meanwhile I would love to hear any thoughts on how well 4 GPU's run on X99 boards from anyone who has tried it.

 

[Fl0r!an]

Octane Render doesn't require a lot of bandwidth, so it could be a lot easier to go for a Z170/Z270 system. There are some mainboards with 3 or 4 full-width x16 slots. Obviously they won't run at full bandwidth since the consumer CPUs can only provide 16 lanes, but it shouldn't matter at all for Octane (even Thunderbolt is sufficient for a huge performance boost).

 

[feedchicken]

What would you recommend as a good z170/z270 board for 4 GPU's along with full m.2 PCIe x4 functionality? Does such a thing even exist or are there simply not enough lanes to support it? Part of the reason I've been looking at X99 boards is to avoid situations where the PCIe slots would share bandwidth with the storage on the board.

 

[joevt]

What would you recommend as a good z170/z270 board for 4 GPU's along with full m.2 PCIe x4 functionality? Does such a thing even exist or are there simply not enough lanes to support it? Part of the reason I've been looking at X99 boards is to avoid situations where the PCIe slots would share bandwidth with the storage on the board.

You can try the tonymacx86 Buyer's Guide to find a motherboard with the features you want.
A motherboard can have as many PCIe slots as you want (limited by space). The PCIe bus is hierarchical, so you can branch an upstream port into multiple downstream ports using a switch.

For example, the GA-Z270X-Gaming 9 uses a PEX8747 PCIe switch chip (48 lanes, 1 port 16 lanes upstream, 4 ports 8 lanes each downstream). The switch is connected to the 16 lanes of the CPU. The chipset lanes do not share bandwidth with the 16 lanes of the CPU.

You can add PCIe slots using an external expansion chassis. These also use a PCIe switch. Some have 16 slots! They can either be connected using Thunderbolt 3 (PCIe 3.0 x4) or to a PCIe card in one of your slots (up to PCIe 3.0 x16).

 

[whoacowboy]

What would you recommend as a good z170/z270 board for 4 GPU's along with full m.2 PCIe x4 functionality? Does such a thing even exist or are there simply not enough lanes to support it? Part of the reason I've been looking at X99 boards is to avoid situations where the PCIe slots would share bandwidth with the storage on the board.

Hey feedchicken, did you get your 4 GPU system working? I would love to know what your build is.

 

[whoacowboy]

Hello mate - this machine is meant for rendering, not games. SLI is not used in render plugs. They address multiple cards using CUDA instead.

Hi highpass, I am looking at building a similar setup. Did you get your working. It would be great to get a list of the components you used.

 

[davelogiudice]

I'm also interested in getting a 4 GPU system running. I have a few Hackintoshes with 3xNvidia and its fine. Someone on the Octane Facebook page showed me this about getting 4x working:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...h-couldnt-allocate-runtime-area/#entry2533997

It seems like the problem you might run into is allocating the CPU's 16 PCI lanes in a way MacOS likes. I'll let you know if I try this myself.

 

[highpass]

Hi highpass, I am looking at building a similar setup. Did you get your working. It would be great to get a list of the components you used.

Hi, I chickened out. Got an old 5,1 tower and maxed it out with 3 GPUs.