I'm putting parts together for another folding rig.
 
My question is:
 
Z270 is limited to 16 PCIe lanes - the i7-7700 ($320) has 16, but so does the much cheaper i5-7400 ($180).
 
If I put 2-3 1080ti in it, how much would I really be limited?
 
There would still be enough cores for each GPU, yes the PCIe lanes suck but the cost to go X99 and 6 cores I feel isn't worth the minuscule drop in points of going to x4.

GPU only Folding ?
 
Your MB will determine how the PCIe lanes are used. Slots, speed, sharing ....
 
PCIe 3.0 and a min of 8x is required for folding with multiple 10 series GPU

Chris21010

Cool GTX
GPU only Folding ?
 
Your MB will determine how the PCIe lanes are used. Slots, speed, sharing ....
 
PCIe 3.0 and a min of 8x is required for folding with multiple 10 series GPU

I wouldnt say required but it is definitely recommended to have 8 lanes on a pcie 3.0 buss. Also i have an i-3 dual core running a 1080ti and 1070 with 1.8 mppd estimated. As long as you are able to keep a core dedicated to nothing but folding then you shouldnt see a perfomance hit. If you want take a look here at my recommended F@H build if you are buying all new parts: https://forums.evga.com/m..aspx?m=2642140&fp=1

OK, Recommended works
 
My X58 MB is PCIe 2.0, x16 in two of the slots & MSI AB displays 50% Bus utilization with only 1 EVGA 1080 FE on air and OC while Folding. 
 
This MB worked very well with two EVGA 980 SC, however when attempting two 10 series GPU - performance, stability & booting issues surfaced
 
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 PCI-Express Scaling     - interesting read

If this is just a folding rig go with free linux mint. An i-3 and 850w is fine for 2x 1080ti but if you want enough for 3 you will need an i-5 and 1000w power supply. As for ram you need 1gb for system and 1gb per work unit, so 4gb is minimum for a 3 card system. I built mine around a two card limit.

Edit: keep in mind though that the 3rd pcie slot could be limited to only x4 or even x1, look at the specs closely.

ya the install process is very simple for linux mint, just need a bootable usb flash drive. so if you want shoot me a PM with some form of contact so we can chat a little more directly about the details and we can get that guide made for all to access.

I've never used Mint, but most major LINUX distributions are supported by FAH - my current LINUX rigs are XUbuntu (Ubuntu with the XFCE windows manager) because Ubuntu is widely supported for distributed projects and cryptocoin mining, but I have previously done folding on Slackware (which isn't nearly as widely supported, very odd as it's THE longest-lived LINUX distribution).
 
 As I recall Mint is part of the "debian" tree with Ubuntu, so anything that runs on Ubuntu should work equally well on Mint and probably can use the same installation instructions.
 
 Ubuntu and Xubuntu still have the option to create a DVD (which is LIVE bootable), but you can use a USB on them if you prefer that option.
 

It should be possible, but I've only done it on USB key installations to date, and you're going to have issues with your work directories going "poof" every time you have to reboot or lose power since you can't store THOSE on a DVD unless you have a HD (USB key acting like a HD) in the system to work with - at which point you might as well install to the HD/USB.
 
 
 

Chris21010
Do yoi know if you can create a bootable version of linux after you install all the F@H software?

Sure, there are a few different ways to do it: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/keep-portable-ubuntu-installation-wherever-go/
 
If you don't need to use it with multiple machines, probably easiest to just install the full OS to a second USB stick from the bootable one.
 

ipkha
You can, but performance will suffer heavily. The themselves are not fast enough for the task. I've done it, but it's not pretty.

 
Just get a faster drive ;) A good USB3 drive will be just as fast as an internal drive, you can even get USB3 mSata/m.2 enclosures and use your own drive.

bill1024
I run the [H]orde folding appliance on a 8gb usb drive, or a 80gb velociraptor drive for a little less lag.
 

 
 
 Link(s)?
 
 Also, why Burn (good song) over Machine Head (great albumn)?
 
 9-)
 

Cool GTX
GPU only Folding ?
 
Your MB will determine how the PCIe lanes are used. Slots, speed, sharing ....
 
PCIe 3.0 and a min of 8x is required for folding with multiple 10 series GPU

 Not required, but 8 lanes at PCI-E 3.0 or 16 at PCI-E 2.0 seem to be needed to get maximum throughput out of a 1070 or higher.
 It's not a HUGE difference though - I stlll see 600k or CLOSE to that on my Gigabyte "ITX" model 1070 cards running on PCI-E 2.0 4-lane slots.
 
 
 I'm pretty well aware of Richie's background (including the early days in Screaming Lord Sutch, the *2* stints in DP, the time in Rainbow between the 2 DP stints, the recent revival of Rainbow, and the time doing Renn music with his GF/Wife after Rainbow's first stint).
 
 Only saw DP once - on the Perfect Strangers tour.
 
 I happen to usually rank Ritchie as #4 on my list of "Guitar Gods" - the Rainbow Live version of "Catch the Rainbow" was probably the best recorded showcase for his work, as he did more styles better on that one song than most guitarists do in a carreer.
 LP JH EC and usually CS are the other 5, more or less in that order.

Hoggle
Not sure if it matters at this point but I would probably do the i5 over the i7 unless you are planning to do some heavy duty gaming though really the i5 can run almost anything and it seems like the GPU is more of the deciding factor.

Even an i5 is overkill for a dedicated folding rig.
G-series Celeron with as many cores as you have GPUs is definitely enough, and you might be able to get away with a dual-core on a 3-card rig.
 
 For a rig you both game AND fold on, I'd go for the i7 - it might be overkill for most CURRENT games, but it does make a difference on some of the newer DX12 titles, especially Ashes of the Singularity:Escalation that seems to like as many cores (but NOT hyperthreaded semi-sorta-cores nearly as much) as you can throw at it up to about 10.
 
 For most games though, the highest CLOCK rate matters a lot more as most games do almost all the work on a single core (which is why Ryzen isn't holding up as well in most games as it does in overall usage, AMD is still lagging Intel somewhat on raw clock rates though they DID finally fix their long-standing lack of IPC competativeness vs the Core-based lines).