New Guy Advice

[wmfiske]

I have been researching this board for some time as I have been building a new GPU system.

I currently have a Chenbro RM41300-FS81 4u case along with 3 AMD 280x cards. I upgraded fans to Delta (the ones people listed in their posts) to help to maximum airflow. I am running Ubuntu Server 12.4 and followed the instructions on Ubuntu Server + AMD Catalyst + oclHashcat HOWTO.

Since my cards are older, I learned that I had to use amdconfig to configure the cards. I first compiled and tried od6config, but when that failed I researched the board until I knew why it failed.

This has been a learning project and I started by trying to use four 280x cards. I quickly learned that the tweaks and airflow could not keep the cards cool enough before hashcat would abort.

I am currently running my cards at 850,1275 with 100% on each fan.

QUESTIONS:

Is there anything I should be doing or configuring the cards differently?

If I used 290x cards instead, are they any better at cooling or would I still be stuck at 3 cards?

My next system will be a larger chasis so it can support more cards. But before I do that, I want to make sure I have this system nailed down.

TIA

[epixoip]

you seem to have followed all of the advice on these forums, except for the most important advice -- never buy oem design cards, always buy reference design cards.

280X are all oem design cards, and oem design cards really only work well if there is only one card in the system.

sell your 280X's and pick up some reference design cards.

[wmfiske]

Thanks for the follow-up. I am getting rid of the 280x cards (they were donated to me anyway).

I reviewed your post on the 290x card in the large chassis. They seemed to work well for you, but they would not fit the definition of the reference design card.

Is there a card that you would recommend instead of the 290x card?

[coolbry95]

The 290x cards are reference. A reference card is one with a single fan in the back.

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/10/R9-290X-3_4.jpg

is a reference design.

[epixoip]

I reviewed your post on the 290x card in the large chassis. They seemed to work well for you, but they would not fit the definition of the reference design card.

you are mistaken, the cards used in that post were most certainly reference design cards.

[wmfiske]

I am now educated.

When I looked at Sapphire 290x cards, I saw cards with 3 fans. I now see that Sapphire does offer a model with a single fan.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to explain it.

[rickm]

Yeah, I also have a reference card (290X) as the one on the picture above, and it works very well and temp is very low in comparison to what I expected. I never reach the 80 Celsius degree.