Three way SLI

[firstborn]

On a 3-way SLI mobo (EVGA 780i) - do the do the graphics cards all have to be the same?

I want to build a workstation for CUDA and was thinking of using 2 GTX 280 cards for CUDA apps and a lesser card for video output. Can I do this??

Cheers.

 

[MooMoo444]

Don't think it can be done. I think the only way you can mix and match cards is if you have one or two fast cards as your main, and then another (most likely older/slower) one as a PhysX card.

I'm not sure though so feel free to correct me someone !

 

[Boogle]

With CUDA you can use any GPU you like. As long as they're all NV, you're good to go. You don't need SLI either, can use any mobo you like.

 

[Chimerical]

With CUDA you can use any GPU you like. As long as they're all NV, you're good to go. You don't need SLI either, can use any mobo you like.

Yeah, buy a motherboard with four PCI-E slots and slot in 4 GTX280's.

 

[firstborn]

Ah, well that sounds spanky then!

Cheers

 

[Adrianr]

Just out of interest, have you found a big increase when using SLI with CUDA? I was curious because of the new GPU acceleration in photoshop (I know it's not CUDA), but perhaps the same principle applies. What sort of advantages are you expecting?

 

[Boogle]

Just out of interest, have you found a big increase when using SLI with CUDA? I was curious because of the new GPU acceleration in photoshop (I know it's not CUDA), but perhaps the same principle applies. What sort of advantages are you expecting?

Photoshop will most likely be limited to a single GPU. SLI is for improving game performance only. Multiple GPUs with CUDA is just like multiple CPUs, if you want to use more than one, you need to have more than one task. Very similiar to multithreading, although I would assume it'll be more like multiple processes than threads.

 

[Adrianr]

Photoshop will most likely be limited to a single GPU. SLI is for improving game performance only. Multiple GPUs with CUDA is just like multiple CPUs, if you want to use more than one, you need to have more than one task. Very similiar to multithreading, although I would assume it'll be more like multiple processes than threads.

Ahh fair enough. Cheers for that

 

[LoadsaMoney]

You can't use 2x cards in SLi + a 3rd as a PhysX yet, thats going to be Nvidia's SLi2, all you can do is have 1x card for gfx, 1x card for PhyX, but not in SLi, or have 2x cards in SLi doing both.

 

[sarge78]

As boogle said, CUDA doesn't support SLI. You'll need to disable it for the cuda drivers to find each individual device. So your free to get a decent intel mobo
The best workstation config will depend on the software you plan to run/develop. More than one device might be ott.
________
Marijuana Vaporizer

 

[fross]

There's no reason why Photoshop's GPU usage wouldn't use more than one graphics card to improve things. Obviously not in the way SLi works, but then again they're not using the GPU in the way it normally gets used either But I think as it's early days it's unlikely they support it yet. No reason why they couldn't make it happen, though.