The HGX A100 solves this problem: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/introducing-hgx-a100-most-...
Basically we need to move away from slots!
We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
51–60 of 362 posts
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#521. While I agree we're beginning to reach absurd proportions, lets really analyze the situation and think about it. 2. Are there any GPUs that actually have performed physical damage on a motherboard slot? 3. GPUs are already 2-wide by default, and some are 3-wide. 4-wide GPUs will have more support from the chassis. This seems like the simpler solution, especially since most people rarely have a 2nd add in card at a…
I’m not sure how the author, who programs GPUs, doesn’t comprehend the cooling is part of market segmentation. A 3090 Turbo is a two slot solution, but NVIDIA forced vendors to discontinue it to prevent creep into datacenters.
And I’m sure the licensing bros will come out and shout about licensing or something irrelevant. My dudes, I operate 3090s in the data center, it saves boatloads of money for both upfront, licensing, power and therefore TCO, and fuck NVIDIA.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#53I wonder whether pcie cabling (like oculink) will scale/work with newer pcie specs.
I have long thought the bitcoin miners were onto something, with pcie risers galore. In my head I know pcb is cheap and connectors - cables arent but it always seemed so tempting anyways; very small boards, cpu & memory (or onchip memory) & vrm, and then just pipes to peripherals & network (and with specs like CXL 3.0, we kind of could be getting both at once).
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#54Turn the tower on its side so the motherboard is parallel with the ground and the weight of the GPU keeps it in the PCI-e slot. It is my understanding that GPUs are able to still properly dissipate their heat in this configuration. Great article!
That is what I started doing. I build my desktop pc's in 4u server chassis[1] I had it vertical in a tower config until a couple months ago when I thought about the dynamics of the situation a bit and moved it to the flat orientation, as you would find it in an actual rack. 1. the cases(even the cheap ones) are better built and have better airflow than most tower cases, as a bonus, no rgb or windows.
Can you link to the case you use?
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#551. While I agree we're beginning to reach absurd proportions, lets really analyze the situation and think about it. 2. Are there any GPUs that actually have performed physical damage on a motherboard slot? 3. GPUs are already 2-wide by default, and some are 3-wide. 4-wide GPUs will have more support from the chassis. This seems like the simpler solution, especially since most people rarely have a 2nd add in card at a…
> PCIe extenders need to become a thing again PCIe extenders are a thing already. Current PC case fashion trends have already influenced the inclusion of extenders and a place to vertically mount the GPU to the case off the motherboard. GPU sag is also a bit of a silly problem for the motherboard to handle when $10 universal GPU support brackets already exist.
I have one of these for a much smaller card, mostly so that cold airflow from the floor intake fans actually has a path to get up to the RAM and VRMs. This is a workaround for a case that doesn't have front intake, which is preferable in my opinion.
It does look a little cool, but I always worry a little about the reliability of the cable itself. Does it REALLY meet the signal integrity specifications for PCI-E? Probably not. But, no unexplained crashes or glitches so far and this build is over 2 years old.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#56How about we move to external only GPUs with huge connectors? If GPUs are half the size, power consumption and price of a PC now, they might as well be a separate device. As a bonus the rest of the motherboard & PCs actually get much smaller. A PC without any spinning disks could conceivably just be the size of a NUC by default, something you can travel with when you don't need the beefy GPU.
I wonder how far that connection could be before it stops working. Probably not much!
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#57This specific problem can be solved by rotating motherboard 90 degrees (there are a few Silverstone cases that are laid out like this, they also tend to have excellent air cooling performance).
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#58What if we just have blocks of quartz and use laser arrays to build photonic switching junctions, no more cooling problems because it's just photons ¯\(°_o)/¯
Seriously though, I imagine it's only a matter of time before these engineering decisions are themselves handed off to machines.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#59I always thought it interesting how most tech companies prioritize shrinking the hardware but GPU's seem to be an exception.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#60From now on, we mount the motherboard on the GPU.