Apparently not that much. At least for Seti project. Other projects can and do have an issue with low PCIe bandwidth connections.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Is there any noticeable performance hit for the GPU when using the single lane instead of x16?

See if you can spot which of these 5 very similar 1070s are using the standard x1 USB cables. This is a Hackintosh, on an ASUS Z170 WS board, running Two 1070s mounted on the board in x16 slots, Two 1070s connected by the standard x1 USB cable, and One 1070 connected via a x4 ribbon cable, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=6796479&offset=1200

Is there any noticeable performance hit for the GPU when using the single lane instead of x16?

See if you can spot which of these 5 very similar 1070s are using the standard x1 USB cables. This is a Hackintosh, on an ASUS Z170 WS board, running Two 1070s mounted on the board in x16 slots, Two 1070s connected by the standard x1 USB cable, and One 1070 connected via a x4 ribbon cable, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=6796479&offset=1200

100 samples from Host 6796479

Device 5: 0.744 credit/sec
Device 4: 0.730 credit/sec
Device 2: 0.715 credit/sec
Device 1: 0.706 credit/sec
Device 3: 0.689 credit/sec

Only a ~7% delta across a small sample size, but is there any correlation?

I had a nice graph, but the site wouldn't let me post it.

Tony

The correlation seems inverted.
Device 2 & 4 are the x1 USB cables, Device 5 is the x4 cable connected to a PCIe Gen 2 slot.

This one?


BTW.....
Here is a single 1050Ti, most likely mounted to a board, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=8137677&offset=140
There is a 1050Ti running on My $33 board using a x1 USB cable in this group, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=6906726&offset=1240 It's the fastest of the group, and appears just as fast as that Single 1050Ti in the other link ;-)

That's the one. I tried putting it up on a couple of image hosting sites to get this board to take the link, but it would not. Most likely just user error.

The correlation inversion is probably well within the margin of error. Your point was well made with the exercise, and I appreciate the input. I'll pick up some of those USB risers for a build I'm working on...and I'll also get some potting compound to help secure those horrendous connections.

I can see my new MB getting closer. (Thanks Tbar) but the cpu's I thought I saw for $100 are probably not there.

I do see some Engineering samples with run 4c/8t but they are significantly slower even in turbo than the new/used regular ones.

Given that I am not likely to crunch any cpu tasks, would a slower 8 thread cpu still likely be up to the trick of pushing 12 gpus?

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

I think the Slowest Gen 6 i7 is the 6700-non-K, I have one of those. It will work fine using the Default Settings and using -nobs. It will be very similar to the Machine that at this hour, is #2.
Even an i5-6600K should work well enough using -nobs. It may be slower with the Top end cards, but should be OK with 1070s & "60s. The 6700K will be a little over $200, the 6700 a little under, and the i5s are a little over $100.

I got tried of waiting for the connection kit that will be here Thursday, and used one of the suspect 90º connectors to run an eighth GPU on the new board. So far it's working fine in the new board, I think what is suspect is that Gigabyte Z270 board, I never could get it to work quite right with 7 GPUs, so, now it is playing Hackintosh with 3 GPUs mounted to the board... it seems to work OK like that. I should get another 1070 on Wednesday, so maybe a 1060 for the BioStar then. I tried the BioStar board with MacOS, as with the other Mining boards, still no luck running a Hackintosh Mining board....oh well.

WoW, it's still at $33. How many of those Badly Boxed boards did they have? https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813138454R
The prospects, Gen 6 & 7 Intels at eBay

I just received my ASUS B250 mining board today, but haven't finished the build because I've yet to decide on a disappointing CPU. Based on some of my testing so far, I'm starting to wonder if it's better to be tied to these mining boards and the limited CPUs available for the 1151 sockets but have loads of x1 slots, or to use any standard board and just split/break out each x4, x8, and x16 slot into numerous x1 slots and have my choice of CPUs. From what I can tell, both options support more GPUs than realistic, but the latter allows for much more capable CPUs.

Do as you wish, However, I suggest you take a headcount on how many people have gotten those "split/break out" attempts to work. I've had a 1x4 switch for over a year, gave up on it about a year ago unable to have it work even for a Day. Tom M has been trying to get his to work for around 6 months, I think he's finally had enough. Someone else tried it and it looks as though he is back to six GPUs as well, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=8757016&state=6. I only know of one person here that says it works for him. Maybe try the more Expensive types, those Might work, I dunno. I've had good success with the cheap ASUS board, just make sure you read the manual about how to setup the Power arrangements... it's critical. The only problem I've had is with the Gigabyte boards, and even the non-mining Gigabyte board I have seems troublesome. I'm going with the $33 board for now, it seems to be working out well.

I just received my ASUS B250 mining board today, but haven't finished the build because I've yet to decide on a disappointing CPU. Based on some of my testing so far, I'm starting to wonder if it's better to be tied to these mining boards and the limited CPUs available for the 1151 sockets but have loads of x1 slots, or to use any standard board and just split/break out each x4, x8, and x16 slot into numerous x1 slots and have my choice of CPUs. From what I can tell, both options support more GPUs than realistic, but the latter allows for much more capable CPUs.

the only choice in my opinion is the 8-thread i7s, for that generation that means only about 4 skus to choose from 6700/6700k/7700/7700k. the CPU doesn't need to do anything other than feed data to the GPUs. Don't get hung up on CPU speeds too much, not processing CPU work isnt a huge loss since you will more than make up for it running more GPUs.

but splitting out a larger slot is not the same as having many native 1x slots.

first, with the standard cheap splitters, you are only splitting out the 1st lane of the slot. so if you stick a 4-in-1 splitter in a 16x slot, you're really cramming 4 GPUs down a single 1x lane.

if you want to actually split the individual lanes out of a whole slot, it gets more complicated and requires not only hardware support for PCIe bifurcation, but also it needs to be supported in the BIOS as a feature (its no help when the hardware supports it, if the software doesn't support/implement it). Very very few consumer motherboards will support this kind of thing, and it's more common in the server space. AsRock does support and implement it on some of their consumer boards though. and then you need the right kind of splitter, which will be much more expensive.

give this thread a read through on the subject: https://hardforum.com/threads/pcie-bifurcation.1870298/

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

Do as you wish, However, I suggest you take a headcount on how many people have gotten those "split/break out" attempts to work. I've had a 1x4 switch for over a year, gave up on it about a year ago unable to have it work even for a Day. Tom M has been trying to get his to work for around 6 months, I think he's finally had enough. Someone else tried it and it looks as though he is back to six GPUs as well, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=8757016&state=6. I only know of one person here that says it works for him. Maybe try the more Expense types, those Might work, I dunno. I've had good success with the cheap ASUS board, just make sure you read the manual about how to setup the Power arrangements... it's critical. The only problem I've had is with the Gigabyte boards, and even the non-mining Gigabyte board I have seems troublesome. I'm going with the $33 board for now, it seems to be working out well.

Always good to learn from the experiences of others. Thanks for the input. I'll keep directing my time and money towards the mining board build as planned, just now regretting not getting a biostar. And in the mean time I'll try to get more educated on how the PCI busses, GPUs, CPUs and the SETI apps are all interfacing with/through each other. Interesting stuff trying to figure all of this out.

I just received my ASUS B250 mining board today, but haven't finished the build because I've yet to decide on a disappointing CPU. Based on some of my testing so far, I'm starting to wonder if it's better to be tied to these mining boards and the limited CPUs available for the 1151 sockets but have loads of x1 slots, or to use any standard board and just split/break out each x4, x8, and x16 slot into numerous x1 slots and have my choice of CPUs. From what I can tell, both options support more GPUs than realistic, but the latter allows for much more capable CPUs.

the only choice in my opinion is the 8-thread i7s, for that generation that means only about 4 skus to choose from 6700/6700k/7700/7700k. the CPU doesn't need to do anything other than feed data to the GPUs. Don't get hung up on CPU speeds too much, not processing CPU work isnt a huge loss since you will more than make up for it running more GPUs.

but splitting out a larger slot is not the same as having many native 1x slots.

first, with the standard cheap splitters, you are only splitting out the 1st lane of the slot. so if you stick a 4-in-1 splitter in a 16x slot, you're really cramming 4 GPUs down a single 1x lane.

if you want to actually split the individual lanes out of a whole slot, it gets more complicated and requires not only hardware support for PCIe bifurcation, but also it needs to be supported in the BIOS as a feature (its no help when the hardware supports it, if the software doesn't support/implement it). Very very few consumer motherboards will support this kind of thing, and it's more common in the server space. AsRock does support and implement it on some of their consumer boards though. and then you need the right kind of splitter, which will be much more expensive.

give this thread a read through on the subject: https://hardforum.com/threads/pcie-bifurcation.1870298/

Thank you for the info. It was actually poking around in some older Dell servers (410s and 420s) that got me giving significant thought to the viability of splitting out the slots, and how it could apply to PCs. I'll read more up on it, but will also take the sound advice from you and TBar to avoid that path.

I think the Slowest Gen 6 i7 is the 6700-non-K, I have one of those. It will work fine using the Default Settings and using -nobs. It will be very similar to the Machine that at this hour, is #2.
Even an i5-6600K should work well enough using -nobs. It may be slower with the Top end cards, but should be OK with 1070s & "60s. The 6700K will be a little over $200, the 6700 a little under, and the i5s are a little over $100.
----edit----
WoW, it's still at $33. How many of those Badly Boxed boards did they have? https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813138454R
The prospects, Gen 6 & 7 Intels at eBay

Here is what I have been pondering as ES i7-6700k's https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=i7+6700k&_sacat=175673&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Here is what I have been pondering as ES i7-6700k's https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=i7+6700k&_sacat=175673&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

Tom

It's a gamble, some motherboards don't support ES chips. You wont know unless you try. Maybe do some googling and see if anyone has successfully run ES chips in your board.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

When I bought my ES chip off Ebay, the vendor would not let the transaction proceed until I told him the motherboard model number and revision and the installed BIOS version. Only when both the motherboard and BIOS were verified by the vendor to be a known working combination did he finalize the transaction. That vendor knew what he was doing so he didn't get any returns flak from a "dud" chip when he knew the cpu was totally fine but was tried in a non-verified installation. That commitment is rare among Ebay vendors I think.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I think the Slowest Gen 6 i7 is the 6700-non-K, I have one of those. It will work fine using the Default Settings and using -nobs. It will be very similar to the Machine that at this hour, is #2.
Even an i5-6600K should work well enough using -nobs. It may be slower with the Top end cards, but should be OK with 1070s & "60s. The 6700K will be a little over $200, the 6700 a little under, and the i5s are a little over $100.
----edit----
WoW, it's still at $33. How many of those Badly Boxed boards did they have? https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813138454R
The prospects, Gen 6 & 7 Intels at eBay

Here is what I have been pondering as ES i7-6700k's https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=i7+6700k&_sacat=175673&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

Tom

I wouldn't touch an Engineering Sample CPU. If it were me I'd get this, Now;
Intel Core i7-6700K 4GHz 8MB Socket LGA1151 Sky Lake Processor
Or,
Intel I7-6700 3.40 ghz Quad Core Desktop processor
Or,
Intel i7-6700K 4GHz 8MB Quad Core i7 Desktop Processor Unlocked LGA 1151
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-6th-Gen-4-0-GHz-8MB-cache-Processor-SR2BR-Skylake/123871449196?hash=item1cd750506c:g:MiIAAOSwLo9dUD42
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-7700-Kaby-Lake-Quad-Core-3-6-GHz-CPU-Processor-LGA-1151/123873094494?epid=9024800202&hash=item1cd7696b5e:g:W3gAAOSw9rtdUkbx
Or something similar...

I wouldn't touch an Engineering Sample CPU. If it were me I'd get this, Now;
Intel Core i7-6700K 4GHz 8MB Socket LGA1151 Sky Lake Processor
Or,
Intel I7-6700 3.40 ghz Quad Core Desktop processor
Or,
Intel i7-6700K 4GHz 8MB Quad Core i7 Desktop Processor Unlocked LGA 1151
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-6th-Gen-4-0-GHz-8MB-cache-Processor-SR2BR-Skylake/123871449196?hash=item1cd750506c:g:MiIAAOSwLo9dUD42
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-7700-Kaby-Lake-Quad-Core-3-6-GHz-CPU-Processor-LGA-1151/123873094494?epid=9024800202&hash=item1cd7696b5e:g:W3gAAOSw9rtdUkbx
Or something similar...

TBar & Ian,
Thank you for the input. Tbar, thank you for the shopping and urls!

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

My ex-miner. should take 2nd place soon. =)=)=) with only 6 GPUs.
keep an eye on it : https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8608164




no probs with the right angle USB connectors on this system, been running these almost a year now. Of course I've replaced the USB cables with quality ones.


Specs:
Rosewill L4500 case modded to hold the GPUs
Asus Z270 Prime-P motherboard
Intel i7-7700k, downclocked to 4.0GHz
6x EVGA RTX 2070 Black (one Black "Gaming" with the RGB)
3x Noctua iPPC 2000 rpm fans up front
2x HP server 750W PSUs
120W picoPSU running the motherboard

I used to run a short card driving the monitor, and had a fan wall with another 3 fans between the motherboard and front cards, but I just took it out to fit all full length cards. the motherboard can do 8 GPUs without any expanders (when using the m.2 slots), but I don't really need to run more than 6 (75% CPU use) and the platform as a whole is incredibly stable. pulls about 1100W average from the wall. should land around 650-675k RAC.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

[quote]My ex-miner. should take 2nd place soon. =)=)=) with only 6 GPUs.
keep an eye on it : https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8608164
[quote]

A new rig has also popped up into 2nd place. But I think he is running 4 gpus.... So you may still manage to pass him.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

He's not new, that's Kevvy. He has his hosts hidden for Wow. he has 4xRTX 2080ti + CPU. He fluctuates on the leaderboard because he restricts his SETI reporting to off-peak times due to ISP policies. but yeah he's the true current 2nd place system. He and Tod used to trade blows for 2nd, but Tod has been having network outages at his location due to other work going on. He'll be back up there when he gets more reliable access. both of their systems were around 600-610k at peak. So I should overtake eventually. maybe a couple weeks.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours