OK, having watched my trusty 4yr old gaming rig slide down the rankings recently, and having an opportunity to build a machine and keep it at work, Im putting together a budget crunching rig.
I7 would be nice, but out of my price range so I have gone for

Antec 1200 full tower case
2Gb of budget RAM
MSI K9A2 platinum
Antec 1000W modular PSU
Im going to get a cheap phenom quad off ebay
HDD's I have spare as well as CD-rom

The key bit I want help on is which GPU's to choose
Obviously gtx295's would be nice, but way over my budget!!
As power cost is not a concern, Im thinking that buying 2nd hand 9800GX2 off ebay will give me the best points total. they have a higher Stream Processor count 256 vs 240 for the gtx260/275/280/285
They are basically 2 8800gt's on a single card and if I buy 4 of them I sould get a nice total, and as the the modern cards filter down to the 2nd hand market I can slowly upgrade them.

Is my reasoning correct, I know the more modern cards are clocked higher, but on a price performance ration, I can pick 4 of these up off ebay for around £80 a card vs £140-£300 a card (depending on model) for the newer 200 series


The only other thing I am insure on is do all GPU's have to be the same in one crunching rig or can I mix and match? If I did have a 9800gx2, am I then limited to only these or could I put in a GTX295 and a GTX260 as well or even fermi?
I ask, as I saw that the folding client has limitations over which cards you mix and match with and was wondering wheter seti was the same?

What do you think people??

Thx for your help

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Very good choice, these 9800GX2s.
AFAIK, u can mix the cards.
There is a problem with multi-GPU configurations with 295s under Windows 7, u better check does it apply to 9800GX2s if u run this OS. IIRC it does not, but better check.

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Im going to be running XP, one because I have a spare disc and 2 because I read somewhere that win7/vista needs to have dummy connectors attached to the gpu's whereas XP doesn't

Thanks for confirming my other questions though..

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I wait for 9800GX2s with good price too, but only from local forums, I don't like buying online old stuff. These cards were my primary choice for crunching, but hard to find, they are still good. Atm one of my rigs is with two 8800GTs, waiting for a good offer for third(I wont give more than 50 EURO a piece).
Two 8800GTs(fairly clocked) exceed one 275(fairly clocked too), according to SETI - 2x388 GFlops vs 1x720 GFlops and are less or equal power hungry.
80 pounds for 9800GX2 is descent price. That's less than 100 EURO, and u get two G92 8800 GTSs inside(not 8800GT :) as u wrote, but better ).

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Im going to be running XP, one because I have a spare disc and 2 because I read somewhere that win7/vista needs to have dummy connectors attached to the gpu's whereas XP doesn't

Thanks for confirming my other questions though..

I'm running Vista Ult. x64, and I didn't need a dummy plug for a 2nd Graphics card (I'm running 2xGT 240s). I just had to go into Personalize -> Display Settings and extend the desktop to the non-existant monitor on the 2nd vid card.

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Im going to be running XP, one because I have a spare disc and 2 because I read somewhere that win7/vista needs to have dummy connectors attached to the gpu's whereas XP doesn't

Thanks for confirming my other questions though..

I'm running Vista Ult. x64, and I didn't need a dummy plug for a 2nd Graphics card (I'm running 2xGT 240s). I just had to go into Personalize -> Display Settings and extend the desktop to the non-existant monitor on the 2nd vid card.

cool, might think about vista then

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Im thinking that buying 2nd hand 9800GX2 off ebay will give me the best points total. they have a higher Stream Processor count 256 vs 240 for the gtx260/275/280/285
They are basically 2 8800gt's on a single card and if I buy 4 of them I should get a nice total, and as the the modern cards filter down to the 2nd hand market I can slowly upgrade them.

So you will basically have 8 GPUs in that system? I think you are going to bump into some BIOS problems trying to get that many GPUs into a single system. The BIOS has to assign memory mapped I/O address space to each one, and you will hit the 32bit limit very quickly with that setup.

Read up on the Atlas Folder, to see what hoops they had to jump through to get a lot of GPUs running in the same system. Basically they had to get a specially coded BIOS and then do some Linux kernel hacking to get it working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOW5iW7dJQ

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Im thinking that buying 2nd hand 9800GX2 off ebay will give me the best points total. they have a higher Stream Processor count 256 vs 240 for the gtx260/275/280/285
They are basically 2 8800gt's on a single card and if I buy 4 of them I should get a nice total, and as the the modern cards filter down to the 2nd hand market I can slowly upgrade them.

So you will basically have 8 GPUs in that system? I think you are going to bump into some BIOS problems trying to get that many GPUs into a single system. The BIOS has to assign memory mapped I/O address space to each one, and you will hit the 32bit limit very quickly with that setup.

Read up on the Atlas Folder, to see what hoops they had to jump through to get a lot of GPUs running in the same system. Basically they had to get a specially coded BIOS and then do some Linux kernel hacking to get it working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOW5iW7dJQ

Thank you very much for the heads up on that
Might have to reconsider, initially a couple of 9800GX2's and then maybe a couple of single cards - will have to play..

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Is there anyone else out the running multiple gpu's on a windows system
How many cards do you have in your system?

Is anyone out there running a 4 x dual gpu system??

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Is there anyone else out the running multiple gpu's on a windows system
How many cards do you have in your system?

Is anyone out there running a 4 x dual gpu system??

4x dual GPU system??? That would show as [8] GPU's. The only way I think that is possible with the GT200 cards is buying four GTX295 cards (each GTX295 card actually has 2 processors).

MJS has the two top hosts, the first one (displaying 5 GPU's) is probably 2 GTX295's and another lower spec card, since S@H displays only the main card.

The second one is probably 3 GTX295's.

Also, I'm not so sure about this, but there is a problem with nVidia GTX295 cards displaying on recent versions of Windows (Vista, 7) - that limits the amount of cards available to the system to 2 or 3 I think.

Me, I only have a lowly EVGA GTX260 Core 216 SSC. Perhaps I'll do a build in 2012 with a multi GPU and CPU system.

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- Luke.

Is there anyone else out the running multiple gpu's on a windows system
How many cards do you have in your system?

Is anyone out there running a 4 x dual gpu system??

4x dual GPU system??? That would show as [8] GPU's. The only way I think that is possible with the GT200 cards is buying four GTX295 cards (each GTX295 card actually has 2 processors).

MJS has the two top hosts, the first one (displaying 5 GPU's) is probably 2 GTX295's and another lower spec card, since S@H displays only the main card.

The second one is probably 3 GTX295's.

Also, I'm not so sure about this, but there is a problem with nVidia GTX295 cards displaying on recent versions of Windows (Vista, 7) - that limits the amount of cards available to the system to 2 or 3 I think.

Me, I only have a lowly EVGA GTX260 Core 216 SSC. Perhaps I'll do a build in 2012 with a multi GPU and CPU system.

It could be someone from the Nvidia forum who's running Win7 and S@H and He couldn't run more than 5 out of 8 gpus from 4 GTX295 cards with the current drivers.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

It could be someone from the Nvidia forum who's running Win7 and S@H and He couldn't run more than 5 out of 8 gpus from 4 GTX295 cards with the current drivers.

Yep, that's the problem I was talking about. nVidia is slow when it comes to bug fixes IMHO. They still haven't fixed the problem in the nVidia Control Panel for Vista & 7, where there is no option to click "Horizontal Span" in the Dual Monitors section. So games that you could have played on both screens are still limited to one screen. What's the point of dual monitors then???

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- Luke.

It could be someone from the Nvidia forum who's running Win7 and S@H and He couldn't run more than 5 out of 8 gpus from 4 GTX295 cards with the current drivers.

Yep, that's the problem I was talking about. nVidia is slow when it comes to bug fixes IMHO. They still haven't fixed the problem in the nVidia Control Panel for Vista & 7, where there is no option to click "Horizontal Span" in the Dual Monitors section. So games that you could have played on both screens are still limited to one screen. What's the point of dual monitors then???

No idea Luke, Pardon the Pun, But maybe their using the Sith programming language. ;)

Heck even ATi got that working on 6 Monitors, So 2 should be easy I'd think by comparison at least.

And I still won't say U know what, As It was just a few movies and I have them all too(Widescreen).

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I have done some digging around and it would seem that it might be possible to run 4 dual GPU cards in one system..
I am following a thread at another hardware forum where someone is using 4 x 295's so will see how that one pans out.
It would seem that the asus P6T7 mobo still has problems with 4 dual cards, but the MSI K9A2 or the ASrock x58 deluxe seem to be ok with the latest BIOS.

For the record, I wish I could afford 4 295's, the system I am planning will have 9800GX2's in it, 2 to start with, and a 8800GT, then I will swap the 8800GT out for more 9800GX2's as and when they come up on ebay and when I can afford them!

I have bought the K9A2 mobo, next month I will get the cpu and PSU and then the rest the month after.

Will keep you updated and am always interested in any comments :-)

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I like my old 9800 X2 and it has been stable for over a year but be aware it generates a lot of heat. The fan in the thing pins itself at 100% and that's with the side off the case. The result is a lot of fan noise so the box is relegated to a room not used much and is now the home server (it was previously an old Dell workstation running XP pro).

I tried cleaning it recently and putting the cover back on the case and the card was peaking at 90C. Before I saw it burst into flames I took the side back off! (just kidding of course but I did take the side off and saw it decline 10C).

Regards,

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I have done some digging around and it would seem that it might be possible to run 4 dual GPU cards in one system..
I am following a thread at another hardware forum where someone is using 4 x 295's so will see how that one pans out.
It would seem that the asus P6T7 mobo still has problems with 4 dual cards, but the MSI K9A2 or the ASrock x58 deluxe seem to be ok with the latest BIOS.

For the record, I wish I could afford 4 295's, the system I am planning will have 9800GX2's in it, 2 to start with, and a 8800GT, then I will swap the 8800GT out for more 9800GX2's as and when they come up on ebay and when I can afford them!

I have bought the K9A2 mobo, next month I will get the cpu and PSU and then the rest the month after.

Will keep you updated and am always interested in any comments :-)

That's this thread Here and I've posted a bit there Myself. I went for an Asus 1156 that could hold 3 GTX295 cards, As I like Asus.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

[/quote]
That's this thread Here and I've posted a bit there Myself. I went for an Asus 1156 that could hold 3 GTX295 cards, As I like Asus.[/quote]

And have you managed to get all six gpu cores crunching OK?

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That's this thread Here and I've posted a bit there Myself. I went for an Asus 1156 that could hold 3 GTX295 cards, As I like Asus.

And have you managed to get all six gpu cores crunching OK?

6? Currently I only have One GTX295, So this won't be complete until 2012(according to My notes on this PC), as My funds are quite limited, So I have to budget things better than anyone else here. My specs link give some specs and It's approximate, Only next month is fairly certain, so It's a long ways to June 2012.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Im not quite as poor but i understand where you are coming from.
To build this box and fill it with 4 x 9800GX2's will take approx 5 months subject to no unexpected bills coming in..

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Im not quite as poor but i understand where you are coming from.
To build this box and fill it with 4 x 9800GX2's will take approx 5 months subject to no unexpected bills coming in..

Have you totaled up the cost of this new system yet? How many of the components are new, used, or spare? It'd be interesting to know what the $:RAC ratio for the system will be.
Also, don't skimp on the RAM - that can influence the RAC too, HDD's to a much lesser extent. It's not the amount of RAM that matters, but the speed. 1300Mhz+ is good - DDR3 is a plus.

I built a gaming rig that cost me $3550, and I get 3500 RAC. LOL. Perhaps that's because it runs roughly 14 hours a week, instead of a full 168.

I used a Core i7 920 (running an OC to 3.72GHz), and a single EVGA GTX260 Core 216 SSC, and it uses dual HD monitors.

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- Luke.