RX 580 motherboard

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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John wrote:Planning to make a

John wrote:
Planning to make a machine with 4 RX580s.

I suggest you might like to re-think that for a number of reasons

  1. People who have multi-GPU crunching setups often report a lot more difficulty with stable and reasonably problem-free operation.  That's been my experience as well (with just 2 GPUs per host).
  2. Boards with 2 x16 mechanical slots are reasonably cost effective.  I've never really checked but the prices seem to skyrocket when you need more slots than that.
  3. You will need to put a lot of thought into how you will keep it all cool.
  4. It's not just a matter of boards having enough x16 mechanical PCIe slots (unless you are going to invest in some sort of likely poor performance 'riser' system using x1 slots) but more to do with needing expensive processors and PCIe busses that can provide/handle the distribution of PCIe 'lanes'.  GPU performance is likely to suffer (much more than it otherwise would) if you don't get that right.  You can't just take a single GPU performance and multiply it by 4.  You really need a technical expert to come up with a design where some of the GPUs don't suffer from poor performance because of insufficient PCIe bandwidth.
  5. There is not much difference between an RX570 and an RX580.  These GPUs are on 'runout' at the moment.  You might find them heavily discounted by any supplier that has excess stock to clear.  I've bought a number of RX570s recently for the equivalent of less than $US140.  Other dealers still list them much higher.  The best bang for your buck may come from an RX570 - they seem to be discounted by a larger amount.  You need to search around.
  6. If you do your research and if you can get the Radeon VII for the RRP (you might have to wait for prices to settle) I would guess that your best bang for buck option might come from just one of those (to start with).  You can use a very cheap board, a cheap processor, a lower rated PSU and a lower ongoing power bill.  A single Radeon VII should produce around 1.7M credits/day (based on figures already posted).  A single RX570/580 can do a little more than 0.5M.  I think you'd be lucky if 4 of those (when you consider all likely losses when stacked together in one box) actually bettered the 1.7M of a single Radeon VII.  Even if they did, they would lose on the straight economics of capital + running costs without even considering the downtime costs when things go wrong.
  7. With the advent of GPU crunching for GW tasks, you might be wise to delay a purchase until you see how that settles down.  Since GW searches are likely to ramp up in the future, you'd really like to know which GPUs perform best with those tasks.  My guess is that it might take a couple of (potentially bug ridden) months before everything settles and we get smooth operations and stable performance data.  I've set up a single RX570 system to help with the testing once a Linux app is released.  I'm expecting a bit of a roller-coaster ride :-).  I'll be quite delighted if that doesn't eventuate :-).

 

Cheers,
Gary.

John
John
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Step by step :)1. the

Step by step :)

1. the system is meant only for E@H, to run 24/7 (when there are no power cuts)

2. yap, i think the best option is 2 cards, due to the x16 slots, as Gary said. I forgot about that. I was hoping maybe someone knows/uses/used a MB with 4 x16 slots. But now i realise the price might go up pretty much, so maybe not worth buying it.

3. @Zalster: good idea to have a target :) The problem now is the space: i prefer to build 1-2 comps, very powerful (meaning RAC) as i don't have much space to put like 10 having dual 580s. The room is not very big. And the heat may be a problem, mainly during summer. So this is another reason to consider the VIIs over the 580s :)

4. Power consumption: here are some things to consider. So a Radeon VII takes about 322 watts (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vii-vega-20-7nm,5977-5.html) because we can consider top power, right? So 2 would be 644watts non-stop. That means a 1.000 watt PSU would do the job, i think.

RX 580s, 2 of them, would take 460 watts, on average (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html). Yes, 4 would be much more power hungry, compared with the RAC produced. 920 is quite bigger than 644 of the 2 VIIs.

5. Why isn't Crossfire good for E@h? I was under the impression that if it works for games, it should work for this too. I didn't bother to check :)

Thank you!

 

cecht
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John wrote:4. Power

John wrote:

4. Power consumption: here are some things to consider. So a Radeon VII takes about 322 watts (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-vii-vega-20-7nm,5977-5.html) because we can consider top power, right? So 2 would be 644watts non-stop. That means a 1.000 watt PSU would do the job, i think.

RX 580s, 2 of them, would take 460 watts, on average (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html). Yes, 4 would be much more power hungry, compared with the RAC produced. 920 is quite bigger than 644 of the 2 VIIs.

With AMD cards you will want to use power limits to increase overall efficiency for crunching E@H tasks, so card power consumption will be less that what you're assuming. Over at the All things Radeon VII/Vega 20 discussion, folks are finding power consumption at the wall (PC + Radeon VII) is ~306W. Assuming that PC at rest uses about 80W, the Radeon VII alone is drawing less than 230 W while crunching.

On my Linux host, I've found that P-state masking provides slightly better task power efficiency than power limiting/capping. I'm using the utility amdgpu-utils from GitHub to set AMD card run parameters.  It does much the same as WattMan or Afterburner, but I don't know whether those Windows utilities can set clock states to specific values (masks).

Gary Roberts wrote:
The best bang for your buck may come from an RX570 - they seem to be discounted by a larger amount.  You need to search around.

  True. I just picked up a new XFX RX 570 on Ebay for USD $105, including shipping.

Ideas are not fixed, nor should they be; we live in model-dependent reality.

mikey
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John wrote:Step by step

John wrote:

Step by step :)

5. Why isn't Crossfire good for E@h? I was under the impression that if it works for games, it should work for this too. I didn't bother to check :)

Thank you! 

Because the Boinc software isn't designed to use multiple gpu's on a single task, so each gpu runs it's own tasks as a stand alone piece of hardware. Gaming software IS designed to use multiple gpu's on a single task, gaming. Some day that may happen but probably not any time soon, the funding was cut last year or the year before, so all the Boinc software programmers now do it because they support Boinc and also have to have jobs that pay too keep food on their tables.

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