Unlimited GPUs on 1 System!?!

Saw this somewhere, these expansion cards…can run so many GPUs on 1 board

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The cable management of that would be a monster.

Where did you see these, I would be interested.
Power should be fun too.

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if you think you can plug a riser usb cable run 13 gpu’s off of each board for a total of 104 gpu’s, you are very mistaken.

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@CitricAcid
Why?

Would that not depend on what the slot type is and if it can deal with the bandwidth required? a 1x slot is one thing, a 8x is another.
Other than power, I don’t see a big issue.

From my knowledge, a 1x slot wont do what you see in this picture, there is not enough bandwidth available for that many GPUs. I believe that board supports 12 or 13 1x slots for mining.
Now if it was an 8x slot, why not?
I believe there is a chip on board that controls the lanes. I have a similar board, that supports 4 gpu per slot. 13 is another can of worms…

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First of all: I’m an amateur.
Second: @darkrider Based on what I read online, the cap on the amount of GPUs that one can connect would be based on two things: 1) the amount of chipset PCI-E lanes, 2) the amount of CPU PCI-E lanes.

Am I right? Please, correct me if I am wrong - I always wanna learn :smiley:
PS. For example, this is the diagram for the B250 Chipset that is used in the mobo, like the one brought up above

you would be correct.

I have seen 1 to 2 splitter work on the PCI express x16 slot. I’ve seen video’s of 1 to 3 and 1 to 4 on the same slot.
There is not enough lanes to do more, especially on the PCI-E slots.
Those extenders are more for people who want to connect USB - external hard drivers or usb drives for that type of cryptomining.

Hi @CitricAcid

Could you provide some links please. I can’t find a lot about it.

I have one of those 1 to 4 Splitters. I have tried it once. It was recognised and installing drivers, but then system froze. Same after restart → freeze. Asus P5Q Deluxe and win 7 pro 64 Bit.

As I don’t need it at the moment, I stopped trying. But I would like to get it running.

Again I have personally seen the 1 to 2 work on a single PCI express board, I have only seen the others on videos.
simple youtube search

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Are those boards not smart enough to do some sort of lane-sharing akin to hyperthreading? Would that potentially be possible in the future?

Could they build it in the future, sure!

Analogy : you have a two lane road, with traffic going in a single file line in both directions. Now add a second row of traffic running in each direction parallel with the first set, but it is still only a two lane road. Now keep adding a row of traffic for each direction to run parallel, What’s going to happen?

Hey guys, I am under the impression that it does lane switching. I am not quite sure how it works. I know they have integrated some of this type tech onto motherboards. Channel switching is not new at all.

I do have to agree that unlimited seems not very plausible, I could see 4 though. I have never attempted it, and I do have one of the boards posted above its just a 4 though.
This is the one I own.

I have not tried this yet, I need a few more video cards first. I dont like to take my running rig down to play hehe.

I am open to buying other ones and testing them if you guys can point me in the right direction.

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There has got to be a way, otherwise why would these companies have these extender riser cards? Or is it for another purpose?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2Pcs-Motherboard-PCI-E-PCI-Express-Riser-Card-PCI-E-x16-Data-Graphics-SATA-to-8Pin/32827350296.html

https://www.ebay.com/itm/6-GPU-Mining-Motherboard-6pcs-PCI-E-Extender-Riser-Card-For-BTC-Eth-Rig-Ethereum-/372010615470

Xeon chips and chip sets typically have more lanes if you really want to try to run more cards per board.

Could you potentially turn 12 PCI-E Gen 3 lanes into 36 PCI-E Gen 1 lanes?

Why cannot made run 104 GPU’s ? Even if Windows don’t recognize GPU’s (I am in doubt that cannot do it) exist Linux as alternative. For my point of view the single doubt is regarding to BIOS: can use/recognize motherboard in this configuration all GPU’s !?

Also, other problem can be power supply which must be support by motherboard. Also I see here second issue which can generate problems .

With a deluxe 99 MB and a xeon processor (Intel Xeon Processor E51630 v3 10M Cache 3.70 GHz Product Specifications would do) you could have 40 GPU’s running.

You would need some good riser extenders (with a good PLX chip).

In the not so far future(2020) I’m sure we will be able to have 100+ gpu per MB.

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I did a little more research…its about addressing it seems.

As an example a 16x lane has 1 address, but so does a 1x. Lane switching just addresses the address issues.
Xenon processors can address more lanes? Not exactly sure how or what or why…more reading into white papers I guess.

In theory there is 16 addresses per 16x lane, banded together to allow more bandwidth. Is this not how M.2 technology is working on a 4x PCIe?

Thank you very much for link and explanation ! It is very useful for me, and I am not sure that I am the only one.

But, if it is not possible, than why it was made risers with New PCI-E 16X to 8 Port USB 3.0 Expansion Card for GPU Mining ? Who or maybe decide how many GPU’s must can be add on a motherboard ? I am curious to know, only to understand better where is the limitation.
For me doesn’t have sense that if you have Linux operating system and good PCI ricers (with many USB slots) + PSU’s dedicate to support more GPU’s, to cannot use it !

I waiting your opinion !

Kind regards.

That board will probably work since it has a switching chip on it. I tried the regular 4 port switches that don’t have a switching chip. They are like 4 regular risers fused into 1 board, but with 1 USB connection. It helps with wiring and the 1 USB connection is plenty of bandwidth for at least 2 cards. I haven’t tried more on it yet.

They will allow you to have up to the amount of cards your motherboard will support even on 2 boards so it isn’t the slot that matters and I assume the lanes don’t matter either. I can’t explain why setting to Gen 1 from Gen 3 works however.

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