4 ms·

The lower TDP is just as significant as speed. I've got a pair of GTX 480 that I can use to heat my office with a light workload. How many 1080s could run in a

The lower TDP is just as significant as speed. I've got a pair of GTX 480 that I can use to heat my office with a light workload. How many 1080s could run in a single workstation?

chx 10y ago
Haswell-E chips have 40 PCIe Lanes. If you give 8 to each then 4 is a go although cooling that will be fun. Now that already exceeds the ATX 7 slots but many cases (especially those that offer SSI EEB compatibility) offers 8 slots. Four such GPUs, a Haswell-E, the motherboard -- it'd be challenging to assemble this below $3K but I think $4k is a reasonable target. Going beyond that is not impossible but requires server grade hardware. For example, the Dell R920/R930 has 10 PCIe slots so does the Supermicro SuperServer 5086B. The barebone for the latter is above $8K. You need to buy Xeon E7 chips for these and those will cost you more than a pretty penny. I do not think $20K is unreasonable to target. Not enough? A single SGI UV 300 chassis (5U) provides 4 Xeon E7 processors, up to 96 DIMMs, and 12 PCIe slots. You can stuff 8 Xeon E7 CPUs into the new HP Integrity MC990 X and have 20 (!) PCIe slots. How much these cost? An arm and two legs. I can't possibly imagine how such a single workstation would be worth it instead of a multitude of cheaper workstations with with just 4 GPUs (you'd likely end up with a magnitude more GPUs in this case -- E7 CPUs and their base systems are hideously expensive) but to each their own.
- marmaduke 10y ago
  Wow thanks for the detailed response on hardware. I was aware of the Supermicro beast. Setting aside this 1080, just on per CUDA core prices, cheaper workstations with pairs of 970s are much better deals, because everything gets cheaper, not just the GPUs.
- chx 10y ago
  I left out something: the Supermicro 6037R-TXRF Server is dual socket and has ten slots and since it's an older dual socket even with CPUs and RAM it can be had for <$3K so together with five GPUs you can have it for less than $6K. It's a whole another question whether almost double the price worths adding another GPU (no).
beezle 10y ago
Not so specific to this new card but wtf are cpus at 65 TDP and gpus at 200+? It just seems crazy that we have all other elements of computing heavily pushing for lower power use for many years now and graphics rips the other way.

The lower TDP is just as significant as speed. I've got a pair of GTX 480 that I can use to heat my office with a light workload. How many 1080s could run in a single workstation?

chx 10y ago

Haswell-E chips have 40 PCIe Lanes. If you give 8 to each then 4 is a go although cooling that will be fun. Now that already exceeds the ATX 7 slots but many cases (especially those that offer SSI EEB compatibility) offers 8 slots. Four such GPUs, a Haswell-E, the motherboard -- it'd be challenging to assemble this below $3K but I think $4k is a reasonable target. Going beyond that is not impossible but requires server grade hardware. For example, the Dell R920/R930 has 10 PCIe slots so does the Supermicro SuperServer 5086B. The barebone for the latter is above $8K. You need to buy Xeon E7 chips for these and those will cost you more than a pretty penny. I do not think $20K is unreasonable to target. Not enough? A single SGI UV 300 chassis (5U) provides 4 Xeon E7 processors, up to 96 DIMMs, and 12 PCIe slots. You can stuff 8 Xeon E7 CPUs into the new HP Integrity MC990 X and have 20 (!) PCIe slots. How much these cost? An arm and two legs. I can't possibly imagine how such a single workstation would be worth it instead of a multitude of cheaper workstations with with just 4 GPUs (you'd likely end up with a magnitude more GPUs in this case -- E7 CPUs and their base systems are hideously expensive) but to each their own.

marmaduke 10y ago
Wow thanks for the detailed response on hardware. I was aware of the Supermicro beast. Setting aside this 1080, just on per CUDA core prices, cheaper workstations with pairs of 970s are much better deals, because everything gets cheaper, not just the GPUs.
chx 10y ago
I left out something: the Supermicro 6037R-TXRF Server is dual socket and has ten slots and since it's an older dual socket even with CPUs and RAM it can be had for <$3K so together with five GPUs you can have it for less than $6K. It's a whole another question whether almost double the price worths adding another GPU (no).

beezle 10y ago

Not so specific to this new card but wtf are cpus at 65 TDP and gpus at 200+? It just seems crazy that we have all other elements of computing heavily pushing for lower power use for many years now and graphics rips the other way.