Building an affordable 4K post-production system for under $1500

[Subhadip Sen]

Originally Posted by David Birdy

Great thread let's keep it going!

I am warming to the idea of two 460's in SLI...anyone try that yet?

The mother board and power supply need to be SLI approved, Nvidia has a list on the web site....
I also found this overclocked 460 from Galaxy I'm considering...link:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...vfDLmKLHM6G8Gg

That is a pretty incredible overclock. 810 MHz does sound good, and I would wager at such clock speeds it would be giving the GTX 480 a run for its money. Certainly, it will edge past the GTX 470. It's good value too. Thanks for the find! Will try to check up some reviews on the Galaxy 460.

As for SLI, it is good value for gaming. However, for CUDA applications, SLI hasn't yet scaled well. Perhaps it will in future drivers, I don't know. It is best to just buy one for now. The good news is that all (at least most) Intel 5 series motherboards with multiple PCI-e are both SLI and Crossfire capable. AMD boards, however, are CF only. And power supply doesn't require the "SLI badge". Just make sure it has enough power and power connectors.

Let's hope Adobe start using a more common/open standard than CUDA soon. It is a shame those AMD GPUs are unsupported right now.

[Elsie N]

Originally Posted by Subhadip Sen

AMD boards, however, are CF only.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-236-_-Product

EDIT: The following is a better link... I chose the one above because it has triple SLI capability.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...D-Motherboards

[Subhadip Sen]

Originally Posted by Elsie N

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-236-_-Product

EDIT: The following is a better link... I chose the one above because it has triple SLI capability.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...D-Motherboards

Ah, those might be some of the surplus stock Nforce motherboards. Nvidia stopped making motherboard chipsets a year or more back. For Intel, they hand out SLI licenses and a NF200 chip, for AMD, well, they have nothing. I am not sure how the Nforce chipsets supporting AMD processors hold up to the 2010 generation AMD 800 series chipsets. Do note 980a are chipsets based on 780a, which are from way back in 2008. Something tells me they aren't really up to scratch with the latest AMD 800 chipsets. Pretty sure they don't officially support Phenom II X6 either, though maybe it is possible with a firmware update. Same goes for modern technologies like SATA III, eSATA or USB 3.0 - I don't think you will find them on this motherboard with a southbridge from 2008.

If you are going for the GTX 460 - unlike the other GTX 400 cards, it only supports up to 2-way SLI.

[Elsie N]

Originally Posted by Subhadip Sen

Ah, those might be some of the surplus stock Nforce motherboards. Nvidia stopped making motherboard chipsets a year or more back. For Intel, they hand out SLI licenses and a NF200 chip, for AMD, well, they have nothing. I am not sure how the Nforce chipsets supporting AMD processors hold up to the 2010 generation AMD 800 series chipsets. Do note 980a are chipsets based on 780a, which are from way back in 2008. Something tells me they aren't really up to scratch with the latest AMD 800 chipsets. Pretty sure they don't officially support Phenom II X6 either, though maybe it is possible with a firmware update. Same goes for modern technologies like SATA III, eSATA or USB 3.0 - I don't think you will find them on this motherboard with a southbridge from 2008.

If you are going for the GTX 460 - unlike the other GTX 400 cards, it only supports up to 2-way SLI.

Yeah, only did a search for AMD and SLI and this board came up. But on further investigation, it seems the board is still a hot seller. The reviewers do complain about having to flash the BIOS to make it Hex-core ready, but most of those complaints were from early June backwards, so it's possible the boards are shipping with the updated BIOS now. I think I remember reading that one reviewer was running two '460s in SLI and seemed pleased. As you suggest, the best solution would be a dual SLI instead of the triple, due to the option of assigning 12 x, 12 x, then 0 x to the three
12 lane slots. To run the triple SLI the assignment would have to be carved up into 12 x, 8 x, 8x. Don't know how the 460 card would perform on the 8 x lanes, but I'm guessing it might be o.k. One of the reviewers was actually running three cards... can't remember which ones.

But it sounds like MSI is getting all the mileage it can out of this last licensed-for-AMD Nvidia chipset board.

Like you, I hope soon that Open Cl will be somehow compatible with Adobe. It doesn't seem that ATI is going to move to CUDA.

On the other hand, aren't single CUDA cards installable in AMD machines? Just use a powerful CUDA card and forget the SLI.

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

I woldn't trust a PC running RAID 0 with important projects on it.

A RAID 5 of at least three 2TB disks would be a better solution than a RAID 1 configuration.

[Subhadip Sen]

Originally Posted by Elsie N

Yeah, just did a search for AMD and SLI and this board came up. But on further investigation, it seems the board is still a hot seller. The reviewers do complain about having to flash the BIOS to make it Hex-core ready, but most of those complaints were from early June backwards, so it's possible the boards are shipping with the updated BIOS now. I think I remember reading that one reviewer was running two '460s in SLI and seemed pleased. As you suggest, the best solution would be a dual SLI instead of the triple, due to the option of assigning 12 x, 12 x, then 0 x to the three
12 lane slots. To run the triple SLI the assignment would have to be carved up into 12 x, 8 x, 8x. Don't know how the 460 card would perform on the 8 x lanes, but I'm guessing it might be o.k. One of the reviewers was actually running three cards... can't remember which ones.

But it sounds like MSI is getting all the mileage it can out of this last licensed-for-AMD Nvidia chipset board.

Like you, I hope soon that Open GL will be somehow compatible with Adobe. It doesn't seem that ATI is going to move to CUDA.

On the other hand, aren't single CUDA cards installable in AMD machines? Just use a powerful CUDA card and forget the SLI.

I see, if the reviews say it runs OK and you really need SLI on an AMD board, then its the only option I guess. Can't be the GTX 460 in tri-SLI as it has only one SLI connector, I think. So, that is a max of two GTX 460s in SLI possible.

Don't be too caught up with the lanes. There are many reviews that have shown that the bandwidth difference between 16x and 8x doesn't really affect much, until you hit the highest resolutions (2560x1600) and heavy AA and other IQ. I am still unsure as to whether CUDA really accelerates in SLI for CS5.

ATI can't move to CUDA - it is proprietary. Unless Nvidia sells a license, which they probably won't, considering CUDA (along with workstation graphics) is one of Nvidia's last strongholds. ATI have their own alternative, Stream but they promote open standards. Eventually, of course, we are going to move to more common standards, whether it be OpenCL, DirectCompute or something else. CUDA is only a temporary solution. But, yes, Adobe will surely support ATI in the future. It's a matter of when.

Single card CUDA will run just fine on an AMD machine, no probs there. Nvidia also disables using Nvidia + ATI cards on the same machine. A lot of people started doing just that - use an ATI card for gaming, a cheap Nvidia card for CUDA/PhysX. But they disabled it on the driver level. However, there's a recent beta out there in which they made the "mistake" of allowing an Nvidia + ATI combination. They have since "fixed" their "error". I just wish Nvidia would stop playing around.

I agree with Pietro. With hard drives so cheap these days, 3 2TB HDDs in RAID5 is a good option. If you get a good deal, they will cost as less as $300.