Build Log: Spotswood Custom GPU Bench

[BWG]

Hey guys, I thought I'd go ahead and start a new thread to keep you updated on my progress with my folding/mining operation. My wood bench was only temporary until I was able to get a custom bench. I purchased 2 custom benches from@Spotswood to sit beside my PC's, and I'm utilizing 2 x16 ribbons + x1 to x16 risers to hopefully fill out each bench over time so I can beat @Avacadoand @Bastiaan_NLin our foldathons .

 

Rick customized the project and configured it to adapt to the ribbons/risers combination. He was able to build custom brackets to hold the ribbons as they're not typical mining bench protocol, but important for folding@home, or any gaming I'd like to do from the bench GPU's. It's these types of customizations that led me to Spotswood because he has fabrication he can do, and everything can be custom. For years, he's given our folders free tech benches in our folding events over on OCN, and may do the same here for us soon, so please consider him before you buy a pre-fab you have to jerry-rig to comply, or wood.  Also, look at his finished work. He built actual drum cases that are out of this world!

 

Here are the renderings of the benches he sent to me. I believe this is a common practice on custom benches from him.

The plan is to have 1 bench populated with 2x 1080ti's (ribbons so I can SLI for some titles too) and 2x 1070's (risers) + the independent cooling loop. I will be moving the 3070 to the Lanboy. The 2nd bench will sit for a bit as I work to obtain more GPU's to fill it.

 

Some things I did consider were asking him to add attachments for my custom cooling, but I nixed that because I feel like my cooling needs will grow as I go, and there's not a real need to attach these to the bench. I also considered asking him to enclose the bench like a case, and cut a hole in the wall of my garage office to exhaust the heat, but I'm just going to get a split ac unit because I like the idea of not running my heater in the Fall/Winter, nor dealing with that big hole. Most of my months are cooler months in Ohio, and opening the door is enough to keep it cooled.

 

So, when I receive the benches in the mail, I'll update the OP with my progress, parts used, etc. Should be a ton of fun.

 

Here are some pics from the building of the bench on Spotswoods end of things. Pretty cool! 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by BWG

[Avacado]

1 hour ago, BWG said:

Hey guys, I thought I'd go ahead and start a new thread to keep you updated on my progress with my folding/mining operation. My wood bench was only temporary until I was able to get a custom bench. I purchased 2 custom benches from@Spotswood to sit beside my PC's, and I'm utilizing 2 x16 ribbons + x1 to x16 risers to hopefully fill out each bench over time so I can beat @Avacadoand @Bastiaan_NLin our foldathons .

 

Rick customized the project and configured it to adapt to the ribbons/risers combination. He was able to build custom brackets to hold the ribbons as they're not typical mining bench protocol, but important for folding@home, or any gaming I'd like to do from the bench GPU's. It's these types of customizations that led me to Spotswood because he has fabrication he can do, and everything can be custom. For years, he's given our folders free tech benches in our folding events over on OCN, and may do the same here for us soon, so please consider him before you buy a pre-fab you have to jerry-rig to comply, or wood.  Also, look at his finished work. He built actual drum cases that are out of this world!

 

Here are the renderings of the benches he sent to me. I believe this is a common practice on custom benches from him.

 

The plan is to have 1 bench populated with 2x 1080ti's (ribbons so I can SLI for some titles too) and 2x 1070's (risers) + the independent cooling loop. I will be moving the 3070 to the Lanboy. The 2nd bench will sit for a bit as I work to obtain more GPU's to fill it.

 

Some things I did consider were asking him to add attachments for my custom cooling, but I nixed that because I feel like my cooling needs will grow as I go, and there's not a real need to attach these to the bench. I also considered asking him to enclose the bench like a case, and cut a hole in the wall of my garage office to exhaust the heat, but I'm just going to get a split ac unit because I like the idea of not running my heater in the Fall/Winter, nor dealing with that big hole. Most of my months are cooler months in Ohio, and opening the door is enough to keep it cooled.

 

So, when I receive the benches in the mail, I'll update the OP with my progress, parts used, etc. Should be a ton of fun.

Well its a bit late now for me don't you think? I wish I would have known sooner, I would have gladly sent my money his way for custom enclosures. Damn. 

 

Your going to need 30million + PPD to beat us in the comps.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Avacado

[BWG]

24 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Well its a bit late now for me don't you think? I wish I would have known sooner, I would have gladly sent my money his way for custom enclosures. Damn. 

 

Your going to need 30million + PPD to beat us in the comps.

 

 

 

Roger that, but I do need some additional cooling. Looking at a few split ac options. 

 

Yeah, he's a great fellow, and it's been a long time he's been at this now. It's so awesome to see him get some really cool things finished over the years. It's actually my first thing of any kind from him, But every person who I've ever talked to who won a tech bench really liked them.

Edited May 21, 2021 by BWG

[Bastiaan_NL]

Subbed!

His work looks great, and the profiles look a lot like the ones I used. 

 

4 hours ago, BWG said:

so I can beat @Avacadoand @Bastiaan_NLin our foldathons

Finally, I was waiting for you to take up the baton! 
It's been hard work

[EHW Ai]

FWIW, I'd vouch for Rick's offerings even though I've never bought anything from him. From my pov he obviously knows what he's doing and his prices are very reasonable.

 

Anyay, I did come close to doing business with him a few years back when I tried to order one of his tech platforms during the height of the previous spate of bitcoin madness. Unfortunately, he just didn't have the resources to work on anything but items geared toward mining at that time. As a small shop, I could appreciate that and understood the why's behind his decision, which motivated me enough to develop my own solution (e.g., muffler bearings).

 

 

[BWG]

USPS says they will arrive Friday. I was able to add my pics from Spotswood into the OP.

Edited May 25, 2021 by BWG

[BWG]

Look at how spot on these custom fabbed ribbon holders are. I didn't even have to adjust them @Spotswood. Lined right up.

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by BWG

[EHW Ai]

^That really is nice work!

[Bastiaan_NL]

I'm starting to really like aluminium frame chassis! You can do whatever you want with them, and have all the airflow

[BWG]

Getting the rest of the air out. 

[BWG]

Finalish...

 

 

[Avacado]

4 hours ago, BWG said:

Finalish...

 

 

Looks sick bro. Very happy for you, congrats on all the hard work!

[BWG]

I have m.2 x16 riser plugs coming to use on the 1070's. I can only use 1 x1 pci-e plug when all 3 x16 slots are occupied. So, 1 is down right now, but I think these will work better than x1 riser boards anyway. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08X2JGDXH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I have 3 m.2 slots that are occupied, but I'll sacrifice some drive speed if it folds better with them.

[Avacado]

14 minutes ago, BWG said:

I have m.2 x16 riser plugs coming to use on the 1070's. I can only use 1 x1 pci-e plug when all 3 x16 slots are occupied. So, 1 is down right now, but I think these will work better than x1 riser boards anyway. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08X2JGDXH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I have 3 m.2 slots that are occupied, but I'll sacrifice some drive speed if it folds better with them.

If you are going to go that route, get 4x out of them. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/NGFF-Extension-Cable-90°Right-Angle/dp/B08B3KGNHC/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=m.2+to+PCI-e+4x&qid=1622416279&s=electronics&sr=1-5

 

Or

 

https://www.amazon.com/XT-XINTE-Adapter-Converter-Multiplier-Mining/dp/B07C79YLD9/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=m.2+to+PCI-e+4x&qid=1622416345&s=electronics&sr=1-6\

 

Having a few of these helps too.

 

https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Extender-Converter-Motherboard-Replacement/dp/B08R5R6KH2/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=16x+to+4x&qid=1622416431&s=electronics&sr=1-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFPTkVMOVdWVEJXMDkmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA2Mjc4MjRWWE5IRVBRS01DSEomZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDQ1NzI5MzIyUUVXWUZISDI1VEYmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Avacado

[Bastiaan_NL]

Looks really cool! @BWG

How are the temps with that rad? (360x45?)

[BWG]

1080tis are 40 and 41 C but the active 1070 is at 50C and before them in the loop. Little strange. I'll have the 1st 1070 up tomorrow when my m.2 riser plug arrives to compare. It was low 40's in my lanboy loop. That Lanboy has the 3070 on the wood bench because it won't fit in the case lol. 2x 240 for only the 1700x right now. I'm going to just ditch that case and put it on the other Spotswood bench eventually. 

[BWG]

Bench #2 is in progress.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by BWG

[BWG]

Alright, so I better start updating this again. I have the 2 benches stacked now. Ordered a 2nd motherboard and cpu. 3 GPU's are in route to me to put on it so far. Going to update the OP as I progress. Here's where it stands currently in it's stacked state: 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by BWG

[Avacado]

Seriously though, what is your outlet capacity in that room?

[BWG]

14 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Seriously though, what is your outlet capacity in that room?

 

2x 120v @ 20 amps

1x 240v @ 20 amps

 

Moar! I better stay at 777 posts today for luck.

 

Here's what I was pulling with everything folding. Each of these is a psu.

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by BWG

[BWG]

Double post for more GPUs.

 

 

[tictoc]

A little late to the show here, and I can't tell if all of your adapters are powered or passive.  I would be careful running more than 2 (maybe 3 GPUs) with passive cables/adapters.  I toasted a 2P Xeon board that didn't have supplementary PCIe power, running 4 GPUs at max OC 24/7.  Took out the 24-pin header, and fried some of the 12v traces on the board.

 

Other than that, awesome job on the bench and it's great to @Spotswood gear in action  

[BWG]

The m.2 risers use a sata to 4 pin, so I have only 1 per sata power plug just to be as safe as I can.  I've swapped 2 of 6 ribbons with linkup 4.0's so far.

 

Everything is full speed though. It's really quite impressive. I can't even think about me having this 10 years ago. I never even had a 80 series anything until February. I decided to mine it all for a bit before FAT. Ordered a 2nd 1300 G+ PSU to get everything folding ready for this month.

[Bastiaan_NL]

I love tech like this, looks great @BWG!

What's that red thing mid right? Pwr button? 

 

@tictoc you scare me with stories like that.. Currently looking for the max combined PCIe powerdraw on my x299 sage and black 30cm PCIe 3.0 x16 powered riser cables...

And I already know the EVGA 3090's are really power hungry on the PCIe side, drawing much more than the common maximum of 75W through the slot. (I've seen up to 88W already)

Edited July 11, 2021 by Bastiaan_NL

[BWG]

43 minutes ago, Bastiaan_NL said:

I love tech like this, looks great @BWG!

What's that red thing mid right? Pwr button? 

 

@tictoc you scare me with stories like that.. Currently looking for the max combined PCIe powerdraw on my x299 sage and black 30cm PCIe 3.0 x16 powered riser cables...

And I already know the EVGA 3090's are really power hungry on the PCIe side, drawing much more than the common maximum of 75W through the slot. (I've seen up to 88W already)

 

Hex screwdriver that came with it/power button to jump header lol.