Is it possible to mount video cards via USB or Thunderbolt or...?

Question

I need to build a (cheap) computer that might serve to:

1. mine digital currency
2. render 3D animations
3. solve SETI problems
4. ...etc

Basically I am just using the GPU's to solve math problems. I need very little live throughput to / from the cards.

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My Question

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Is there a way to:

1. mount video cards through USB or Thunderbolt or some other chain-able protocol
2. without writing custom drivers
3. on a linux variant

There are some motherboards that support up to 6 PCIe connections, but it would be so much nicer if I could mount as many as the system resources could handle.

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Not my question

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1. You would need to power them some other way. Got it. They all need external power.
2. USB (and maybe even Thunderbolt) doesn't have the throughput for high-vector video throughput. Got it. I am not using these as video cards per-se. PCIE to USB/Thunderbolt for Graphics Card

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Other, possibly interesting answers

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1. There is this clustering solution that... (likes gpu's?)
2. There are these other processors that might be better suited... (asic?)

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Discoveries made since asking the q

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1. Cluster of motherboards so cheap as to be irrelevant compared to the price of the GPU's, see this very interesting dissertation project video, alas... Raspberry Pi's and Arduinos don't seem to have PCIe slots. The HummingBoard-Pro does, but it is $55. My number needs to be under $25 each to be cost effective. Here are others: Gateworks Price Unk, Intel Galileo with mPCI, $45 each.

   • Samuel Cozennat gives us a gorgeous (but expensive) example using Intel NUC's. He includes the hardware build and provisioning setup. Very nice, Sam! Thanks.

2. PCI-e can be split somewhat like USB and Thunderbolt... who knew? Here are a couple limited splitters: Amfeltec, C0C0C3. The PCIe spec indicates that it could theoretically support 32 1x devices.

3. Thunderbolt has the capability (especially for low / non-video data-rates), but existing bios / mainboard / driver setups are not generally developed. There are some existing products that target laptops.

Answer 1

What you are considering, although interesting, is likely not realistic without a whole lot of fairly complex low level software and reasonable amount of RAM.

Consider coin mining. The most realistic coins to mine today using a GPU are Ethereum, Dash or Zcash. There are others but these are three of the main ones. They all require a minimum of 2GB RAM to run which is not very commonly found on single board computers. They all require an active network connection so each would need to be connected via WiFi or wired. Linux would be the most likely OS selected due to the limitations and costs of Windows.

Coin mining software rely on the OS drivers and OpenCL or CUDA APIs to run the mining math problems in the GPU's which must be pretty powerful to perform adequately with a minimum cost of $150-250. The drivers and API sofware must be installed and would likely be very difficult to work using a non-standard connection such as mPCIe let alone how you would cable the mPCIe to the 16x PCIe connector on the GPU. Power is another big consideration and all of the GPU cards run on 16X PCIe and consume a minimum of 80-150 watts each depending on the miner and coin being mined. This would require an external power supply for the GPU's that have VGA 12v connections.

The best alternative is to get a multi-PCIe motherboard and PCIe risers. You can run 6 GPUs using standard hardware and software, lots of people have done this. Anything else would be interesting if you have lots of time to play but I believe you will quickly see the roadblocks would be very difficult if not practically impossible to overcome in order to achieve your stated 3 objectives.