Finally - having worked out the voodoo magick required to get all 5 PCIe slots on the P8Z68-V logic board working with GPUs installed - I've upgraded Frame Rigs mk1 and mk2 so ALL available PCIe slots have a GPU card fitted, and upped the capacity of the PSUs so all GPUs can be reasonably powerful cards. The two rigs contain, in order of hash-rate achieved (i.e. how far each card in each class will overclock... some are a LOT better than others!):
1x Sapphire 'old' 5850 (awesome card - fastest in the Catfish farm and runs cool (67˚C) whilst whipping the rest for hashrate)
1x Sapphire 'extreme' 5850 (not so 'extreme' - I hate that word, overused to the point of meaninglessness - but clock up between 370 and 390 MH/s)
2x XFX 'Black Edition' 5850 (very disappointed with these - clocked at 765 MHz with a 775 recommended upper limit!!!)
3x 'Value' 5830 (from overclock.co.uk - all have broken fan shroud flanges but are perfectly functional, overclock from 800 MHz to 990...)
2x 'Value' 5830 (as above, second purchase, cards look identical but recommended upper limits are different, one can't sustain 990 MHz, one can)
2x Sapphire 'old' 5770 (dual-slot retail cards, clocked at 850 MHz but go all the way to 1000 - 236 MH/s with only one PCIe power cable)
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/slots-full-above.jpg
My first mining card ever purchased was the 'old' retail Sapphire 5850 - £175 from PC World (yeah, I know) - but it's a monster and no other card I've bought since can match it for hash rate. Weirdly enough, rotating the second rig 90 degrees has hugely improved airflow - all cards are overclocked but all but 3 are running stably below 70˚C. The ones above 70˚C are 70.5, 71 and 71... not bad for 2kW of space heater!
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/line-of-radeons-1.jpg
Nice to get rid of those anaemic single-slot 5770s at last - they will be going in a 'final' rig - assuming I can kick this damn mining-hardware addiction
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/line-of-radeons-2.jpg
This entire 5-card rig runs each card between 57˚C and 70.5˚C, and doesn't seem to be overstressing the CoolerMaster SilentPro 1000W PSU. The word 'Silent' is laughable, since 11 GPU fans running flat out makes a HUGE amount of noise
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/snakepit-1.jpg
Apart from the voodoo on the 5-card logic board, all other cards are connected to their logic boards using unpowered x1->x16 PCIe extender cables. It's hard to make this sort of thing tidy, but I'm convinced that my choice to use x1 thickness ribbon cables (as opposed to full-width x16->x16 PCIe extenders where possible) improves airflow, and hence cooling performance.
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/snakepit-2.jpg
Yup... need to use my Nikon and proper macro lens
1x Sapphire 'old' 5850 (awesome card - fastest in the Catfish farm and runs cool (67˚C) whilst whipping the rest for hashrate)
1x Sapphire 'extreme' 5850 (not so 'extreme' - I hate that word, overused to the point of meaninglessness - but clock up between 370 and 390 MH/s)
2x XFX 'Black Edition' 5850 (very disappointed with these - clocked at 765 MHz with a 775 recommended upper limit!!!)
3x 'Value' 5830 (from overclock.co.uk - all have broken fan shroud flanges but are perfectly functional, overclock from 800 MHz to 990...)
2x 'Value' 5830 (as above, second purchase, cards look identical but recommended upper limits are different, one can't sustain 990 MHz, one can)
2x Sapphire 'old' 5770 (dual-slot retail cards, clocked at 850 MHz but go all the way to 1000 - 236 MH/s with only one PCIe power cable)
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/slots-full-above.jpg
My first mining card ever purchased was the 'old' retail Sapphire 5850 - £175 from PC World (yeah, I know) - but it's a monster and no other card I've bought since can match it for hash rate. Weirdly enough, rotating the second rig 90 degrees has hugely improved airflow - all cards are overclocked but all but 3 are running stably below 70˚C. The ones above 70˚C are 70.5, 71 and 71... not bad for 2kW of space heater!
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/line-of-radeons-1.jpg
Nice to get rid of those anaemic single-slot 5770s at last - they will be going in a 'final' rig - assuming I can kick this damn mining-hardware addiction
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/line-of-radeons-2.jpg
This entire 5-card rig runs each card between 57˚C and 70.5˚C, and doesn't seem to be overstressing the CoolerMaster SilentPro 1000W PSU. The word 'Silent' is laughable, since 11 GPU fans running flat out makes a HUGE amount of noise
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/snakepit-1.jpg
Apart from the voodoo on the 5-card logic board, all other cards are connected to their logic boards using unpowered x1->x16 PCIe extender cables. It's hard to make this sort of thing tidy, but I'm convinced that my choice to use x1 thickness ribbon cables (as opposed to full-width x16->x16 PCIe extenders where possible) improves airflow, and hence cooling performance.
http://www.catfsh.com/bitcoin/open-frame-mk3/snakepit-2.jpg
Yup... need to use my Nikon and proper macro lens