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Can I fit 4x GTX 1050 ti?

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archfenix

Commendable
Dec 13, 2016
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First time posting, I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything with an upgrade I want to perform.

I want to pack 4x 1050 ti's into my machine for GPU rendering using octane. The 1050 ti pulls the power it needs from the motherboard, which is fantastic. I've done the PSU calcs on outervision which says I only need 600w for 4 cards.

Can the mother board actually power 4 gpus directly? Space looks fine, motherboard says it supports 4 way SLI, full size tower has the space... am I good to go?

Case: Corsair Graphite 600T
Mother board: Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 -- 4x PCI-E 2.0 x16
PSU: 650 Watt NZXT HALE82N-SI
Current GPU: GTX 680 4gb

I can provide other system info if needed, but I figured this is all the relevant info. I just want to make sure i'm not missing a small detail; I've never added this many cards to a machine before. Really appreciate it!

edit: I didn't know that 1050 ti can't sli... thank you for the info! But I don't actually need it to SLI... the octane render software I use can scale with multiple gpus without any sli (actually prefers it disabled). Anything else I missed?

edit 2: I want to thank everyone to contributing to such a strange question! I learned a few things. The four cards is just my best current solution with the budget I have to work with, as I can increase my cores $150 at a time. The computer is a repurposed gaming computer built almost 4 years ago and now used as a rendering workhorse. Had I known I would want to expand the GPU capability like this, I would have probably built it with a higher quality PSU. I still might!

 
Solution
ko888
OctaneRender doesn't use SLI in any way. It will utilize more than one NVIDIA graphics card if you have them installed.

Four NVIDIA Reference Design GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB GDDR5 cards would be no problem with your existing PSU and the GIGABYTE GA-X79-UP4.
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Nv's sli limitations only count for games, where the load is split between the cards.

so if the rendering is done in sli "like" mode, then you need 1070/80..
if not (which is normally the case for rendering), you can run 4 cards of the same type, no matter if 1050/60/70/80.

i still recommend getting cards with power connector to put less stress/load on your motherboard.


if you plan on running anything but one 1050, i would invest in a better psu.
at least gold, i prefer platinum, since they have much better quality components/tighter Volt regulation/less ripple etc.

the psu is the most important part, without it, NO machine will boot.
 
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can't say i have ever tried to answer such a question. you'd be pulling max power from every slot at the same time and i can't say i have ever seen anyone address this anywhere.

need the mobo guru to come in and see what he thinks. maybe tom's reviewer can shed some light on this topic. will send out an sos as i got no clue if the mobo can supply all the slots all the time. i'm guessing it can but that is only a guess.
 
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OctaneRender doesn't use SLI in any way. It will utilize more than one NVIDIA graphics card if you have them installed.

Four NVIDIA Reference Design GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB GDDR5 cards would be no problem with your existing PSU and the GIGABYTE GA-X79-UP4.
 
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Solution
Why would you want to use 4 GPU's instead of one. For the money you are spending on 4 1050 Ti's, you could get a 1080 which would save you power, a motherboard, a PSU and would give similar if not better results.
Can anyone explain why 4 x 1050Ti are better than 1x1080?
 
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I would say there should be no problem, the reality is those GPUs won't draw the full 75w from the GPU slot anyway. If I were you I would use a better quality PSU, gold efficency, and I'd go 700-750w for a solid cushion. Something like the EVGA 750G2.
 
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I might be mistaken on all of this, but 2 part answer. I can scale this way with say 2 cards now, then 3 to 4 if I need it and they go down further in price. The other part of the answer is I need the cores to render. (gtx1050 ti) 4x768=3072 cores vs (gtx1080) 2560 cores. This is my current understanding anyway. I will take a closer look at the gtx 1080 solution however, as they are close when you consider price to core ratios.



 
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going with the 1060 would be better. 2 already have almost same core count as 3 1050s, not even talking about higher clocks and more vram.
if you still want the smaller ones, just make sure to get a card that has a 6pin connector, so its main power comes from psu.

i recommend getting a new one, unless the unit is less than 1y old.
look into the platinum rated so to save on power bill.
a 650-750w from seasonic/evga etc, but i prefer a corsair 760w Ax (non i) which goes for around 90$ refurb at MC.
tick better than the seasonic 760w, but that still goes for ~150$.
 
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can't find any reason to think the motherboard swon't handle the power needs of 4 x 1050 ti's been looking and asked others and no one really thinks it's gonna be an issue. mobo has the 4 slots so it should be engineered to power them all.

as for a single 1080 vs 4x 1050 ti, no idea there. don't know how the program works and if the extra cores would be better or not. would have to do some research into how that program uses resources. but your logic makes sense to me overall. more cores should = more performance if the program uses the cores to their fullest. no idea about things like ipc or other topics and if they even matter for gpu's.

might be possible that the extra cores of a 1050ti are somehow slower than the cores for a 1080 card. so might do less work anyway. again don't know for sure but this is true for cpu's. is why the 8 core amd fx cpu's are still worse than 4 core intel ones right now. ipc is so much better for intel that the extra cores have a hard time keeping up. just a thought anyway. more research is needed to see if that is even an issue that translates to gpu's.
 
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mhz is not exactly the same as ipc. remember the fx chips have crazy high clock speed yet still loses to much lower clocked intel chips.

as others have noted, thermals may be the biggest issue as 4 cards crammed together can get very hot. blower style cards are best for this type of use, to get the hot air out of the box directly. i believe the mobo will handle it if the psu is up to the task. only wondering about ipc. never actually seen it tested nor even spoken of. just know it is a consideration when comparing cpu's. looking about to see if all cuda cores are made equal or not. in reviews they always add the numbers up the same to get tflops so i assume they are the same or they would make note of it when computing tflops to talk about. if so, then you're on the money about more cores = more work done
 
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@Rogue Leader
in reality they WILL draw that much.
and why wouldnt they? almost all ti reviews show about 70-75w under full load.
he/she is rendering, so the cards WILL run at full speed, and then of course consume max power.

we're not talking about gaming here, where scene changes/loading screens and other things will affect clocks and power.


@lakimens
same arch means same IPC, not matter the chip, so one (single) core (at the same clock) will perform the same, no matter if from a 1050/60/70/80.
and for his/her purpose, they higher core count of the 1050s will outperform the single 1080 (~500 cores less).

and you cant just multiply cores with clock speed, maybe to guess some unkown (unreleased) chip performance, but not
in a vs comparison where you need the real-world numbers to be able to compare what will actually be faster.

the main reasons he wants to buy the 1050, is the higher core count (vs 1080) and so he can add cards over time, and doesnt need to shell out 800$ at once (for a 1080).


@mathgeek
300w at max load just for the cards. plus about 130w for cpu. not looking at ram/fans or anything else powered thru the board, you're already running 450w thru connectors, designed to do 560w.
and im not sure what you would gain from running a lot of current/voltage thru the board (to feed the gpu's), instead of getting cards with a pcx-plug so they get power straight from the psu.


@archfenix
besides the above, i wouldnt run a render/gaming rig off a "low quality" psu.
your not running low end cpu and board, so why skimp out on the psu?

i would never use anything below gold rated, and for a socket 2011 cpu/gaming/encoding/rendering rig, not even below platinum.
any possible probs caused by a "failing" psu will most like cost way more than just the (psu) replacement.
went "cheap" once and killed a 300$ Nv card and a 150$ asus board, because i wanted to save 50$ when i bought the psu...

back to card selection: see if u can get 1060s. they almost have double cores, so one 1060 will almost perform as two 1050s, doing quad layout with those would give you double the cores a 1080 has.
1050ti starts at 140$, a 1060 (3gb) goes for 50$ more, a 6gb 1060 for about 240$.
 
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@Fry..
I don't think you understood me. The cores are the same, yes, they have the same IPC, but the 1080 is clocked at 1607 and the 1050ti is clocked at 1290.
Yes, 4 x 1050ti has more cores, but the 1080's cores are faster, because they have a higher clock speed. Isn't that true?
 
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yes, but for his purpose/use not relevant.
he wont be playing games with it, so clock speed isnt as important as the (total) amount of cores.

building a house with 4 bodybuilders will still take longer than having 20 "normal" ppl doin it. 🙂
 
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my previous rig (8320) was clocked higher than my intel, the intel has better ipc, but i still see almost no difference for the things i encode etc.
but can tell that the 8 cores are way faster than my 6 core amd i had before that.

i jumped from needing 2-5s per pic (sharpening), to now 1-2s, despite the fact that resolution almost doubled for most pics.


maybe easier: who do think is faster to finish 400mls running. 10 marathon runners (40mls each) or 800 "unfit" ppl that only need to run half a mile?
 
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I had the same question as the OP...

For anyone who wants to know, turns out for Blender Cycles Engine (3D rendering like Octane), 2- 1050 Ti's might be better than a 1080 Ti for some things. On Blenchmark.com, the GPU benchmarks show 2x 1050 Ti rendering the scene in 49 seconds whereas a single 1080 Ti is rendering in 53 seconds. 4 1050's would be almost twice as fast and they're definitely cheaper than one 1080 Ti right now. These are great little cards for rendering animations.

One of the scenes I'm rendering on my GTX 970 will take it 15 minutes. My 1050 Ti will do it in 22 minutes. Processing the same scene, the pair can do it in under 9 minutes.
 
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