Aurum wrote:I believed the claims when I built my last rig that as long as the CPU has one core per GPU you'll get full performance. My experience seems to prove otherwise.
Intel
Xeon E5-
2603 v4 ($229, AVX 2.0, 6 cores & 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes) with CoolMaster EVO 212
https://ark.intel.com/products/92993/In ... -2603%20v4
Gigabyte GA-X99-SLI ($124, has four 16x slots that run x8x8x16x8 3.0 straight off the CPU)
http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X99-SLI-rev-10#ov
Quadkit DDR4 2666 G.SKILL Ripjaws 4
250 GB M.2 SSD
Corsair AX1200 PSU
Four Gigagbyte cards: GV-N
1070G1 (x8), GV-N
1070G1 (x8),GV-N
1080G1 (x16), and GV-N
1070G1 (x8)
Open tray, no case and NO risers.
I started folding for a few days expecting 2.4 million PPD and never saw higher than 2.0 million PPD. If the
GPU Folding Projects - Performance database is to be believed I should've seen about 2.84 million PPD.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... utput=html
I then swapped out the 1080 for a GV-N
1070G1 and saw the same level of PPD performance.
I then installed the Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming Engine and tried each of its 3 OC modes (Eco, Gaming & OC Mode) to all four cards. I saw no increase in PPD with OCing.
The weak link in the chain is the
Xeon E5-
2603 CPU. I picked it becuase it was the cheapest 40-lane CPU at $229. I tried folding on 2 cores and not CPU folding with no difference. I was watching the CPU Usage on Windows Task Manager and it was consistently about 86% with no core pegged at 100%. If I CPU folded on 3 cores it did max out at 100%.
(Note: My dual-GPU rigs are much more forgiving of the CPU.)
So I searched for FCLGA2011-3 CPUs with 40 lanes and had to look one by one as Intel does not search for that feature.
i7-6850K $610.00
i7-5930K $621.00
i7-6900K $1,050.00
i7-5960X $1,073.00
i7-6950X $1,650.00
Anyone know if there's a cheaper
Xeon with 40 PCIe lanes