Hi all,

I was going to spend some cash on a GPU and was looking at the NVIDA GTX-980. But then when looking at the price and noticed I could pick up 2x GTX-970s for roughly the same money.
This purely purely for Number Crunching, I don't play games.
I only have an Xeon X3430 4 core/thread system at the moment. I want to upgrade my GPU before I start replacing my Server.

I sold my 650Ti about 6 months ago and used to run 3 threads on this no bother.

2 x 970 GPUs will be more CUDA Cores but then I am restricted as far as trying to fit in a third card down the line until I replace my Server.

So what do you think would be better, 2 GPUs or 1??

cheers

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2 cards are always better than 1 , lol

Keep an eye on prices, as more 10x0s make their appearance, the prices on the 900s series should continue to drop

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That's what I was thinking,

should I be trying to pick up Ti versions of them? Do the have a bit more Grunt?

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If you can pick up the Ti reasonably then yes

As far as cost,

I can't believe how much they have dropped in price. That is the only reason I was going for the 970 or the 980! I could never have considered them a year ago! ;-)

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Yes, I was going to buy some 980Ti hybrids but the 1070s FTW were the same price.

So it comes down to price, speed, heat generation.

Unfortunately the temps on the 1070 are high when put 1 next to the other. But if spread out with PCI gaps between them, then they would run much cooler. In my case, i ended up having to put a large circular fans blowing air across the top of them to keep them cool.

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Some horse-guy collected data from hundreds of users and graphed the results. You might find it helpful.

Hey, really good diagram.

Very handy:-)

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Remmember, it's not just upfront cost to consider, but also 'cost of ownership', which includes power consumption.

>  GTX 970,    145W TDP, $250+
>  GTX 980,    165W TDP, $350+
>  GTX 980 Ti, 250W TDP, $400+

Another option to consider is the new Gen Pascal, specifically the 1060 (120W TDP, $250+).  Take a look at this review.  It has a chart comparing all these cards.

Excerpt:
"GTX 1060 is faster than GTX 980, for just a wee bit more cash than AMD's RX 480"

Two of these cards would cost slightly more than a single 980 Ti, but draw less power than one 980 Ti.

Fullsus,

Keep an eye on how much RAM each GPU has.

More on that later.


Zalster

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Possibly having two graphics cards rather than one does not necessarily make for twice or double result output when it comes to grand totals.

Not totally sure, but I had both cards installed earlier on before pulling one for a Sound Blaster sound card.

My best guess only and even though the use of a FireWire connection between the cards typically is of no benefit when it comes to this project, it probably does not matter or benefit anything when it comes to the rest.

Running multiple GPU`s is not always efficient.
I prefer running just one or two high end cards and push them to the max.
But it always depends on the host itself.

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Keep an eye on how much RAM each GPU has.

Right, the 1060 is available in 6GB & 3GB flavors.

6GB is $250+
3GB is $200+

Running multiple GPU`s is not always efficient.
I prefer running just one or two high end cards and push them to the max.

Interesting, because Shaggie notices better performance on his high end Maxwell (980 I think) when running single instances (with Anon. Platform).

But it always depends on the host itself.

And there you have it.  There are no rules written in stone, only guidelines.  So, what it boils down to is research, research, research.

Keep an eye on how much RAM each GPU has.

Right, the 1060 is available in 6GB & 3GB flavors.

6GB is $250+
3GB is $200+

Running multiple GPU`s is not always efficient.
I prefer running just one or two high end cards and push them to the max.

Interesting, because Shaggie notices better performance on his high end Maxwell (980 I think) when running single instances (with Anon. Platform).

But it always depends on the host itself.

And there you have it.  There are no rules written in stone, only guidelines.  So, what it boils down to is research, research, research.

There are some rules.

Modern GPU`s you also need a modern CPU.
It doesn`t make any sense to put 4 moddern GPU`s like a 1070 or 1080 in a quad core CPU host because the CPU can`t feed the GPU`s properly.
In this case it would make more sense to add only one or 2 GPU`s and run less instances faster.

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Since your last card was 650, I would say you need to add cost of power supply to the cost of the cards.

I don't know off hand what a psu for two 980 would cost. 100 usd? 150 usd?

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Hi,

Sorry for not getting back again

looking at the 1060 or 1070,do you think the 1070 is worth the extra cost, although I would only be able to buy 1 at that price.

Also, I always bought asus or Gigabyte cards, do you know the warranty on these cars and which brand is more reliable?

That is a lot of Power for some of these cards. so running 2 won't be possible for me anyway until I upgrade my server. I was planning on upgrading my Server something like a 10core(20) XEON with a large PSU, so would have tons off overhead there.

I'm sure Multiple GPUs will defiantly be a bonus, it's probably trying to set them up right that might be causing some people issues.

cheers,

Steven

Hi,

to add another view more I'd consider the power draw.

The 10x0 series is much much less power hungry. With the new generation of software coming I'd look at (max) power draw and the number of compute units.

980 has 16 CU.
1080 has 20 CU.
Some titans and Ti's have over 20.

With current sw they are not utilized at parts of the code at all but one. With the coming special SW they are going to be used to the max.

The horsemans graphs will definitely look as nice as they do now, but the order of cards will change.

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