37
How to use GPUs over multiple computers for local AI? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 week ago by marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
64 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world -3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I assume you're talking about a CUDA implementation here. There's ways to do this with that system, and even sub-projects that expand on that. I'm mostly pointing how pointless it is for you to do this. What a waste of time and money.

Edit: others are also pointing this out, but I'm still being downvoted. Mkay.

[-] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

Used 3090s go for $800. I was planning to wait for the ARC B580s to go down in price to buy a few. The reason for the networked setup is because I didn't find there to be enough PCIe lanes in any of the used computers I was looking at. If there's either an affordable card with good performance and 48GB of VRAM, or there's an affordable motherboard + CPU combo with a lot of PCIe lanes under $200, then I'll gladly drop the idea of the distributed AI. I just need lots of VRAM and this is the only way I could think of.

Thanks

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago

PLEASE look back at the crypto mining rush of a decade ago. I implore you.

You're buying into something that doesn't exist.

this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
37 points (80.3% liked)

Selfhosted

46149 readers
286 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz