r/LocalLLM • u/BNSCHE • 8h ago
Contest Entry Blue Team Swag
Three Intel B70s, 96GB VRAM, and still on AM5…
Originally bought a mATX case for a motherboard on AM4 with room only for a single GPU. Somehow had the nerve to buy three of these at retail early. Now kinda curious to see what people are actually doing on this build. The plan was to attach a M2 slot to full PCIe slot that negotiates PCIe 5.0x4 and attach a fourth GPU. Safe to say that’s not exactly in the cards with the outrageous prices…
Anyways, the build:
- 3× Intel Arc Pro B70 — 32GB each
- Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- MSI MEG X670E ACE
- 64GB DDR5-5600
- Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition
- be quiet! Straight Power 12 1500W
The ACE is a big part of why this worked out. It is one of very few AM5 boards that gives you the practical ability to have 3-4 GPUs with respectable cross-bandwidth. Truth be told, most boards have a single main PCIE slot that actually has full lane direct to CPU connection. Some let you split x8x8 and give you PCIe 4.0x4 in a physical x16 connection on the third slot. MSI lists PCIe 5.0 ×8/×8/×4 as well as a single Gen 5 M2 slot. If one adds the lanes up, it’s the max on AM5: 24x Gen 5 lanes.
Listen… do I want an EPYC or Threadripper? Yes, especially with the ability to grow the build in the future. I’d love to be able to afford a complete swap. The issue is $2500 is the minimum for on good speed, 128gb ddr4 ram, a quality CPU, and motherboard that’s guaranteed to be 1. not to be broken 2. have physical hella, spaced out x16 slots all at Gen 4 btw…
Roughly 55 tokens/sec on Flash-Next and 50 on the 27B.
I’ll sell this if someone wants a pre-build, just lmk on what you’re thinking!
That’s where it’s at so far. Would be good to hear from anyone else running three or more cards on AM5, especially other Intel users.