I am trying to get parts for a box that starts off with 1 1080 Ti and add a second one later if it feels helpful
Apparently, the motherboard in my build wont allow that, however
It turns out the MSI Z270-A PRO has 1 x16e PCIe slot, not 2. It can hold an extra GPU in a x4e slot, but performance will be constrained. Do not buy this if you plan on using multiple GPUs!
Anyone know which motherboard I should get, and what other parts should change to allow this flexibility?
Iām thinking about getting a multiple GPU box and ideally something that might be able to fit into a small form factor case too and be relatively quiet. Iām thinking about two GeForce GTX 1080 TI Minis, and pairing them up with an Intel i7 that has 40 PCIe lanes.
Iām not sure if I can find a case/mini ITX solution that will be able to support the i7. The intel i7 6850k that Tyler recommended looks great. Just need to see if I can find a motherboard and power supply that would work in a SFF PC.
Does anyone have any experience building a dual GPU small form factor DL rig?
Iāve actually decided not to go this direction, but to build a full tower system that I can expand and add more cards to over time. But I thought Iād share this link in case others pursue this direction of system design.
Hi all, long-time lurker (thank you!), first time poster (sorry!) here.
Iām in the process of putting together a small, speedy DL rig, and have a setup designed that I feel somewhat content with at the moment. The goals are:
Sub-$2k price point
Small-ish (ideally mATX form factor, if that is even possible)
Quiet-ish (prob going to sit in my office or my home, so less distraction the better)
Expandable (PSU + Motherboard) to 2 GPUs if needed later, fits at least one 1080ti-based card for now
Expandable (PSU + Motherboard) to 64GB of RAM if needed later
Iāve measured clearances (GPU size, CPU cooler height, PSU fit), and it looks like they all check out. I figured before pulling the trigger on these purchases Iād check with all you folks more expert than me to see if Iām missing any critical component or have overlooked any critical flaw. Would love to hear your feedback ā thanks in advance for any advice!!!
p.s. once this is built Iāll plan to publish a more detailed blog post on the rationale and build, since I havenāt seen anything to date at this size and price point (plz feel free to DM me if you have seen something similar so I can link and/or not be redundant with others!)
Since youāre getting an aftermarket CPU cooler, youāll need thermal paste. Also, you mentioned wanting to expand to 2 GPUs in the future, but your CPU supports up to 16 PCIe lanes, which could cause a bottleneck. You can read about that here. Other than that, it looks good to me.
As Iāve pointed out before, the 16 PCIe lane bottleneck isnāt really something to worry about ā especially when your goal is to stay below $2k (with one GPU).
I would make sure thereās enough cooling going on, especially if youāre going to stick everything in a smallish case.
Looking to put together a rig in the next few weeks and pretty conflicted over the advice Iāve seen here & other places.
I too would love to keep an upgrade path open ā with PyTorch it seems like adding GPUs is super easy ā but I canāt figure out how to actually go about that.
What CPUs are there that have > 32 PCIe lanes? Iāve seen:
Xeons
i7 6850K
???
I donāt fully understand the tradeoffs between Xeons & i7s.
Coffee Lake looks as if every processor is limited to 16 PCIe lanes ā correct me if Iām misreading.
Other than that, Iām thinking about the other common i7s - 7700K, 7500 etc etc, but Iād like if there was an upgrade path when Iām spending $2k+ on a buildā¦
If you want 2 GPUs max then a fancy gaming PC is just fine. If you want the option of > 2 GPUs youāre looking at server-level computers.
The āi7ā brand is used for a lot of different things: the 7700K is what youād use on a gaming PC, the 6850K is for more high-end stuff. Xeons are a non-consumer server CPU with loads of cores.
The 6850K seems like a good choice for a box with up to 4 GPUs.
While the Coffee Lake processors have only 16 lanes, you really get up to 40 lanes as a system when you add in the 24 you get from the platformās controller hub.
This machine was available for ~ $2000 in September. Plus you can get 3% back and a 4-yr warranty if you use your Costco visa. It has great specs for the price point, you can also add a second 1080 Ti GPU down the road. I think this would be a great way to get started.
It was pretty easy to set up and looks great too! I have blogged about it here. Performance is good - it is about 2x faster on training with the mnist /cifar-10 datasets, compared to using Crestle.
Nice! The specs look similar to what you can put together on your own for that price, so if you donāt want to go through the hassle of building your own computer, this looks like a good one to buy.
Iām currently building a server myself, and after a lot of research (this thread was pretty useful) have decided on a 6850k and 1080TI, and getting 3 extra gpus at some point down the road (hence the 40 lanes cpu).
Any recommendation on which mobo would be most cost-effective and would both support x16, x16 at first, and later on x8,x8,x8,x8 + nvme? So far the MSI X99A Gaming Pro seems to potentially fit best in terms of cost effectiveness, and the x99 deluxe seems awesome but I hope I can buy something cheaper that meets my needs.
Also looking for recommendations on cost-effectiveness of different coolers, cases, and PSUs.
It seems the X99 is what most people go for (that Iāve seen when I was doing my own research).
As for a case, I really like the Corsair Carbide Air 540. Itās not necessarily the cheapest case but it has lots of room, which makes it easy to install things and helps with cooling.
I have been using this machine for the past 2 months and it is amazing. I dual boot windows and ubuntu and use it for gaming, deep learning, and crypto mining. Handles everything well.
OK, hereās what I landed on in the end. it works out.
Whilst Iām waiting for it to arrive, Iām thinking about the software setup. Iād like Windows 10 on it eventually, but Iād also like to not install Windows 10 now. @slavivanov said to install Windows 10 first if youāre going to dual boot; Iām wondering if itās possible to sidestep those issues by installing Windows on an external hard drive. Can you dual boot from 2 hard drives? Iād love to be able to just focus on getting Ubuntu running for the time being and work on Windows later, but I wonāt do that if it will ruin my Ubuntu partition!
Hi, I am also inclining towards buying a gaming desktop from costco for deep learning projects specially kaggle competitions. Can you please share your experience with the costco computer which you purchased.