cfp ExtremeHW Community Folding Project 2.0

[ENTERPRISE]

 

                     

 

Hello all, 

 

So we originally had the Community Folding Project Thread which tracked a build of what was initially going to be the CFP for EHW, however upon sitting back and evaluating the build, it would not be able to perform at its best in its mining like rig configuration due to the fact that the PCIe bandwidth would be limited to 1x, which thanks to some very helpful individuals here were able to point out that there would be a fairly hefty performance hit. With this in mind, it was time to re-hash the CFP and do a rebuild best suited to Folding@Home overall. 

 

This thread will serve as a build log/CFP information centre. 

 

Firstly I wish to thank Corsair for sponsoring this project. They have been kind enough to support this project by sending us over the Corsair HX1000 Platinum PSU and a whopping 6x Corsair Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable 300mm riser cables. Corsair have been kind enough to support our folding events, so it is great to see that continued effort here as well!

 

Community Folding Project Specifications 

 

CPU:  Intel i9 10900x

CPU Cooler: EK AIO Basic 360

Motherboard: Asus WS X299 SAGE
RAM:  Corsair Dominator 3200Mhz (64Gb)
Case: XCase Minestation 1

PSU 1: Corsair HX1000 Platinum

PSU 2: Silverstone ST1500-Ti

Riser Cables: 6x Corsair Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable 300mm

Controller GPU: Nvidia GT710

Folding GPU's:  6x Nvidia Tesla M40

Storage: WD Blue 500GB SSD

 

Due to the cost of GPU's at this point in time, thanks to the silicon shortage, buying gaming GPU's for folding would be prohibitively expensive. As such, thanks to @Avacado , I learned about the Nvidia Tesla M40 cards which are meant for GPU learning but serve Folding@Home very well. The Tesla M40 has the same/approximate folding power of the GTX1070 at about 1 Million PPD+ per GPU.  I was able to get 6x Tesla M40's from the USA for approx £500. If I were to get 6x GTX 1070's, we would be looking at approximately £2100, again this is due to the silicon shortage and mining craze. The maths was easy, it was time to buy the Tesla M40's.

 

Some of you may be wondering why I have such a powerful CPU for what will essentially be a GPU only folding rig. Well the answer is simple, it is all about PCIe lanes. In order to make sure that each GPU was running 4-8x bandwidth, it was essential to get a CPU that could deal out enough PCIe lanes to make that happen. The Intel i9 10900x has a total of 48 lanes which means that it will be able to host the 6x Tesla M40 GPU's without a detrimental performance hit.

 

At the time of buying the XCase Minestation 1 chassis, the manufacturer were out of stock. I managed to find one on Ebay, but of course due to the mining craze and lack of stock, there was some bidding competition to be had. This case was the perfect setup, and without making my own case, there was no other "off the shelf" product like this. So what happened ? I ended up paying through the teeth for it. RRP for the Minestation 1 is £118 (Inc Vat), I paid a healthy £270 for it. 

 

When initially looking at the motherboard and CPU combo to make this project happen, I found a rather nice bundle on Ebay which included the Asus WS X299 SAGE, Corsair Dominator 64GB RAM & an Intel i7 9800x. I managed to nab this at what I think was a good deal at £697. You will notice that I am not using the i7 9800x in this build, the simple reason is that it did not have enough PCIe lanes to make this project a success, hence the upgrade to the i9 10900x. At least I can sell the i7 9800x now. Oh and yes I know 64Gb RAM is overkill for this project, but it came with the board, so what can I say lol.

 

Product Pictures & Bits Required 

 

A build log cannot be complete without pictures of the products being used as well as those little bits and bobs you have to get.

 

 

The XCase Minestation 1 in its flatpack form.

 

 

The Corsair HX1000 PSU and riser cables that were very kindly provided by Corsair.

 

 

The Corsair ST1500-TI PSU that was very kindly provided by Silverstone.

 

 

Due to clearance issues that would likely arise with going air, I decided to go AIO for this project.

 

 

 

 

[ENTERPRISE]

I am now just waiting on the following items to complete the project, at least so far as hardware config: 

 

1x Set of fan extensions 

1x Fan controller so I can best set fan speeds. 

1x Fan filters/covers 

1x New thermal pads and Thermal Grizzly for M40 make over.

6x Nvidia Tesla M40 GPU's (These are being tested by my good man @mllrkllr88 in the states before shipping to me)

 

More to come soon !

[ENTERPRISE]

Release.

[Avacado]

+Subbed. Thanks for the shout out. Can't wait to see what you come up with.  Wanna share some of that Corsair sponsor love?  Tell them i'm short on ML120's. I only have about 30 of them. 

 

P.S. I freed up 5 of the custom coolers for the M40's as they will be going under water (I think I have 7 laying around). Let me know if you want them and i'll ship them to you. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Avacado

[BWG]

Wow, this one's going to be neat! Also, thanks Corsair! 

[Bastiaan_NL]

Just what I needed to make my day even better, an update on the CFP!!

Nice writeup E, must be a pleasure to work with all that cool hardware. Did you feel the weight of that motherboard?

 

3 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Firstly I wish to thank Corsair for sponsoring this project.

Thanks a lot for sponsoring this project Corsair! 

 

3 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

RRP for the Minestation 1 is £118 (Inc Vat), I paid a healthy £270 for it.

That's a lot of money, but at least you have the perfect case now. Looks like a good quality case with all the features you need for this project to work.

 

37 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Let me know if you want them and I'll ship them to you.

I'm sure they will be needed with 6 M40's in there! 

[ENTERPRISE]

Lamptron fan controller arrived yesterday, so I can finally cable management the large array of fan cables haha. Then all we need is the second PSU and GPU's and we are complete.

 

More pics to come soon.

[ENTERPRISE]

So I did a little cable management today after getting the lamptron fan controller installed.

 

[Avacado]

Looking good E I am hoping to get mine running by the end of this weekend as well. Installing 5 GPU waterblocks is a PITA.

 

You want those fans for the Tesla's?

Edited April 5, 2021 by Avacado

[ENTERPRISE]

2 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Looking good E I am hoping to get mine running by the end of this weekend as well. Installing 5 GPU waterblocks is a PITA.

 

You want those fans for the Tesla's?

 

Yeah water blocks add in another factor that is for sure, I don't envy you. 

 

Sorry, I did see you say about fans, what did they look like again ?

[Avacado]

2 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

Yeah water blocks add in another factor that is for sure, I don't envy you. 

 

Sorry, I did see you say about fans, what did they look like again ?

 

[BWG]

1 hour ago, ENTERPRISE said:

So I did a little cable management today after getting the lamptron fan controller installed.

 

 

Looks great. Does that Lampron have any software control? 

 

 

[ENTERPRISE]

3 hours ago, Avacado said:

 

Oh nice. Will pm you about those.

2 hours ago, BWG said:

 

Looks great. Does that Lampron have any software control? 

 

 

 

No, hardware only which is how I wanted it. As I may switch to Linux sometime down the line, I wanted something OS independent.

[BWG]

6 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Oh nice. Will pm you about those.

 

No, hardware only which is how I wanted it. As I may switch to Linux sometime down the line, I wanted something OS independent.

 

Would be kinda cool to mount the controller internal, then have the knob external. Little hot glue probably to hold it. 

[ENTERPRISE]

1 minute ago, BWG said:

 

Would be kinda cool to mount the controller internal, then have the knob external. Little hot glue probably to hold it. 

It was a thought but lifting the lid to mess with the controller will not be too much bother. Plus I will set the fabs to their optimal speed for cooling and leave it.

[Supercrumpet]

Good stuff, and thanks to Corsair indeed. Looking forward to seeing this up and running!

[ENTERPRISE]

 

Well we had a test the other day. System seems all well and good. I was testing @Sgt_Swanny new Gigabyte 6900XT to make sure all was well before taking it to him.

 

The CFP was a perfect test bed, plus I got to do a full system test...2 birds one stone and all that.

 

The Tesla M40's are officially on their way to me now. Purchased new thermal pads and Thermal Grizzly for a re-paste, will get onto that once there here. 

 

Also expecting some cooling fans for the M40's soon from @Avacado

[Avacado]

57 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Well we had a test the other day. System seems all well and good. I was testing @Sgt_Swanny new Gigabyte 6900XT to make sure all was well before taking it to him.

 

The CFP was a perfect test bed, plus I got to do a full system test...2 birds one stone and all that.

 

The Tesla M40's are officially on their way to me now. Purchased new thermal pads and Thermal Grizzly for a re-paste, will get onto that once there here. 

 

Also expecting some cooling fans for the M40's soon from @Avacado

[Bastiaan_NL]

Not sure what you guys think, but I love the way that 6900XT looks! 

[ENTERPRISE]

4 hours ago, Bastiaan_NL said:

Not sure what you guys think, but I love the way that 6900XT looks! 

 

It is not bad, it is a solid card so far as the build and the backplate is nice. Pumps out some heat when folding, I can tell you that much lol.

[Sgt_Swanny]

8 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Well we had a test the other day. System seems all well and good. I was testing @Sgt_Swanny new Gigabyte 6900XT to make sure all was well before taking it to him.

 

The CFP was a perfect test bed, plus I got to do a full system test...2 birds one stone and all that.

 

The Tesla M40's are officially on their way to me now. Purchased new thermal pads and Thermal Grizzly for a re-paste, will get onto that once there here. 

 

Also expecting some cooling fans for the M40's soon from @Avacado

Little nervous with an AMD GPU, this will be my frist. AMD have always been the under dogs when it comes to GPUS. However this range has made Nvidia nervous so hopefully the 6900XT will do me well.

[ENTERPRISE]

1 hour ago, Sgt_Swanny said:

Little nervous with an AMD GPU, this will be my frist. AMD have always been the under dogs when it comes to GPUS. However this range has made Nvidia nervous so hopefully the 6900XT will do me well.

I think you will be happy bud. Makes fair more budgetary sense than Nvidia, especially with the scalping. Plus 3080 with 11GB VRAM is shameful, then the 3090 with 24GB is nuts and as we know the 3090 was Nvidia's panic attack at RDNA2.

[Avacado]

@ENTERPRISE Can you confirm delivery of the Tesla Fans? I was so worried I effed up the address. 

[ENTERPRISE]

On 4/16/2021 at 4:04 PM, Avacado said:

@ENTERPRISE Can you confirm delivery of the Tesla Fans? I was so worried I effed up the address. 

 

It is why I sent a PM, like to inform people stuff has arrived safely

 

So I received my Tesla M40's along with 12 packs worth of new thermal pads.

 

I am pleased to report that initial testing on each M40 GPU has gone well, so after some new thermal paste, new thermal pads and replacement brackets, these will be good to go.

 

 

Annoyingly however my second PSU is still delayed. All high wattage PSU's above 1000Watts are gold dust over here right now. Unfortunately without the second PSU it holds the build process back for cable management reasons etc... not to mention having enough power.

 

So this will be on hold until then, though will re-work GPU'S in the meantime.

[Cerberus]

8 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

It is why I sent a PM, like to inform people stuff has arrived safely

 

So I received my Tesla M40's along with 12 packs worth of new thermal pads.

 

I am pleased to report that initial testing on each M40 GPU has gone well, so after some new thermal paste, new thermal pads and replacement brackets, these will be good to go.

 

 

 

Annoyingly however my second PSU is still delayed. All high wattage PSU's above 1000Watts are gold dust over here right now. Unfortunately without the second PSU it holds the build process back for cable management reasons etc... not to mention having enough power.

 

So this will be on hold until then, though will re-work GPU'S in the meantime.

 

YHPM