4x non-blower 1080 Ti in a Cerberus X

benr

Minimal Tinkerer
Original poster
New User
Dec 10, 2016
3
2
Hi all, please talk me out of something stupid.

After some adventures with eGPUs, I've ended up owning four 1080 Ti cards (all EVGA multi-fan, non-blower designs): 2x GTX 1080 Ti SC2, 1x GTX 1080 Ti SC Black, and 1x GTX 1080 Ti FTW3.

I'd like to see what happens if I put them all in a case with a modest Cascade Lake i9, or a Threadripper CPU. It would be primarily for GPU rendering, so the CPU isn't the star.

I've been looking at the Cerberus X case, with an ATX or EATX motherboard, a Corsair 1600W ATX PSU and wondering what happens if I just load the case with exhaust fans all around.

Will that allow the 4x GPUs to perform at all? I don't mind a little thermal throttling, there's four of them, and as I said I already own them, so that's a sunk cost.

I suspect it's a bad idea, although I'm hoping maybe not. Any thoughts appreciated.
 

petricor

Airflow Optimizer
Bronze Supporter
May 12, 2018
336
1,820
Hi all, please talk me out of something stupid.

After some adventures with eGPUs, I've ended up owning four 1080 Ti cards (all EVGA multi-fan, non-blower designs): 2x GTX 1080 Ti SC2, 1x GTX 1080 Ti SC Black, and 1x GTX 1080 Ti FTW3.

I'd like to see what happens if I put them all in a case with a modest Cascade Lake i9, or a Threadripper CPU. It would be primarily for GPU rendering, so the CPU isn't the star.

I've been looking at the Cerberus X case, with an ATX or EATX motherboard, a Corsair 1600W ATX PSU and wondering what happens if I just load the case with exhaust fans all around.

Will that allow the 4x GPUs to perform at all? I don't mind a little thermal throttling, there's four of them, and as I said I already own them, so that's a sunk cost.

I suspect it's a bad idea, although I'm hoping maybe not. Any thoughts appreciated.
I think this sounds like a *great* idea - pushing boundaries is what it's all about!
 
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fedder

Caliper Novice
Feb 8, 2020
29
18
Its a bad idea all the cards will end up thermal throttling by sucking in each others hot air. But theres no reason not to try it if you feel like it, just dont expect it to work well if at all.
 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
2,338
Maybe you can try it first with an open bench?
I bet, even so, the first 3 cards will still have thermal throttling.
But if you have nothing else to do, this could be a 'fun' project.
Pushing the Corsair 1600W to its limit could be a huge part of the 'fun'.
 

ignsvn

By Toutatis!
SFFn Staff
Apr 4, 2016
1,710
1,649


(But do it anw. For science)
 

SiKiaTriK

Cable-Tie Ninja
Mar 28, 2019
166
146


I concour with @fedder here. The 4 cards will suffer against each other. Maybe you could think of any type of "shroud" or "air box" that embrace 1/2 or 3/4 of the length of the 4 cards alltogether with the inferior front 120mm fan one to try and push all the possible fresh air between them.

For reference, that's how 4 GPU's look on a Cerberus X. The picture speaks for herself.



Best of lucks with your adventure!
 

thelaughingman

SFF Guru
Jul 14, 2018
1,413
1,566
Hi all, please talk me out of something stupid.

After some adventures with eGPUs, I've ended up owning four 1080 Ti cards (all EVGA multi-fan, non-blower designs): 2x GTX 1080 Ti SC2, 1x GTX 1080 Ti SC Black, and 1x GTX 1080 Ti FTW3.

I'd like to see what happens if I put them all in a case with a modest Cascade Lake i9, or a Threadripper CPU. It would be primarily for GPU rendering, so the CPU isn't the star.

I've been looking at the Cerberus X case, with an ATX or EATX motherboard, a Corsair 1600W ATX PSU and wondering what happens if I just load the case with exhaust fans all around.

Will that allow the 4x GPUs to perform at all? I don't mind a little thermal throttling, there's four of them, and as I said I already own them, so that's a sunk cost.

I suspect it's a bad idea, although I'm hoping maybe not. Any thoughts appreciated.
how did this go? would love to see photos and more details on this. FOR SCIENCE!