this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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How to use GPUs over multiple computers for local AI? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago by marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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The problem is simple: consumer motherboards don't have that many PCIe slots, and consumer CPUs don't have enough lanes to run 3+ GPUs at full PCIe gen 3 or gen 4 speeds.

My idea was to buy 3-4 computers for cheap, slot a GPU into each of them and use 4 of them in tandem. I imagine this will require some sort of agent running on each node which will be connected through a 10Gbe network. I can get a 10Gbe network running for this project.

Does Ollama or any other local AI project support this? Getting a server motherboard with CPU is going to get expensive very quickly, but this would be a great alternative.

Thanks

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[–] Overspark@feddit.nl 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A 10 Gbps network is MUCH slower than even the smallest oldest PCIe slot you have. So cramming the GPUs in any old slot that'll fit is a much better option than distributing it over multiple PCs.

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree with the idea of not using a 10 Gbps network for GPU work. Just one small nitpick: PCIe Gen 1 in an x1 slot is only capable of 2.5 GTransfers/sec, which translates to about 2 GBits/sec, making it about 5x slower than a 10 Gbps line-rate network.

I sincerely hope OP is not running modern AI work on a mobo with only Gen 1...

[–] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the comment. I don't want to use a networked distributed cluster for AI if I can help it. I'm looking at other options and maybe I'll find something

[–] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Your point is valid. Originally I was looking for deals on cheap CPU + Motherboard combos that will offer me a lot of PCIe and won't be very expensive, but I couldn't find anything good for EPYC. I am now looking for used supermicro motherboards and maybe I can get something I like. I don't want to do networking for this project either but it was the only idea I could think of a few hours back