Enterprise Cracking Rig Advice
#1
Hello all,

We've been running a couple TYAN FT77-B7015 based rigs since 2012-2013 with multiple GPU upgrades along the way and they've been great, but one of them has finally died, and we're looking to modernize as we replace it.

Is there a preferred system in this vein these days? This will run in a data center so noise/power/etc is not a concern, really just trying to ensure it will be reliable and future-proof to the extent reasonably possible. We got 8 years out of the previous one so I'd love to get something similar out of this one.

Other key points.
  • Reliability is more important than absolute cutting edge performance, so things like redundant PSUs are required
  • That said we have been using consumer level GPUs with good effect (since we switched to NVidia in ~2015 anyway) so our intention is to keep that course.
  • On that point, we were burned pretty badly in the past with AMD driver and hardware issues, so we tend to prefer NVidia (I was thinking 4 x 2080Ti's), but if someone has a strong opinion here I'm listening.
  • We're also generally an Intel CPU shop, but I suppose that's flexible as well if we should be rethinking that. Given that CPU would be less in the performance pipeline than the GPUs here, my key consideration would really be reliability and chipset stability.
  • In general I like the idea of having room for 8x cards, although lately we've been running 4x spaced out. This part is flexible, but just in terms of future-proofing I like the idea of having room to grow.
  • We've been very happy with Tyan, so i'm all for continuing that way, but if people have other ideas that's fine too
  • Budget is roughly $10-12k but I'm somewhat flexible if there is justification. I'm also open to spending less if it makes sense. Smile
I see Tyan has an FT83 which looks interesting, but it seems to be 4U with 2U dedicated to storage which really doesn't seem necessary as we don't have huge storage requirements. I would think a mirrored 4-8TB would be more than enough which should be doable with internal drives.

Thoughts, recommendations, and criticisms here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
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#2
Not many people building in this "mid" enterprise range I guess?
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#3
The company I work at is happy with one DIY rig with 4x 2080 Ti, so I cant bring in any practical knowledge wrt this kind of cracking rigs. Tyan seems a good choice, since it is also used by Terahash afaik. You could even go for a Tyan FA77-B7119 which has space for 10 GPUs.
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#4
(08-13-2020, 02:12 PM)NoReply Wrote: The company I work at is happy with one DIY rig with 4x 2080 Ti, so I cant bring in any practical knowledge wrt this kind of cracking rigs. Tyan seems a good choice, since it is also used by Terahash afaik. You could even go for a Tyan FA77-B7119 which has space for 10 GPUs.

Ah thanks for the pointer, that does look like a good board. And yes, i definitely like the room to grow / room to space them out for better airflow and separation approach.
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