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Message 48165 - Posted: 13 Nov 2017 | 4:45:06 UTC
Last modified: 13 Nov 2017 | 4:59:07 UTC

I'm researching an upgrade for a few of my older GPU's to something newer and more powerful. I am somewhat stumped on what the best card is today for GPUGrid.

If you review the GPU performance ranking chart on the Performance tab you will see the following in the top few slots

Titan X - Pascal
GTX 1080 Ti
GTX 1080
GTX 980 Ti
GTX 1070
GTX Titan X
Titan Xp

The Titan X - Pascal and the GTX 1080 Ti are very close, but I would have thought the Titan Xp would have been ranked higher. The GTX 1080 seems to still be a decent card.

Now if you review the Top Performers per batch you will most always see the GTX 1080 Ti on top mixed in with a few GTX 1080, GTX 1070's, Titan X - Pascal and occasionally a Quadro P6000 or a GTX 980 Ti.

It seems that the GTX 1080 Ti is the best GPU even though the Titan X -Pascal is listed higher in the bottom chart. Still puzzled why the Titan Xp is not the absolute top card though.

If anyone has better data or a good opinion I would welcome a best practice suggestion. I'm considering getting one top card and then one or two next best cards if that works out.

I am looking for the stock Nvidia Founders Edition or blower style models as those work better in the workstation servers I have.

Also, if anyone can explain how GPUGrid performance relates to the Passmark G3D Mark or the Direct Compute benchmark that would be cool.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/directCompute.html

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Message 48168 - Posted: 13 Nov 2017 | 13:48:01 UTC

see also this Topic:
http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=955

there are quite a few criteria for choosing a new GPU, where my personal focus is on thermal design and efficiency (energy cost), as I run most of my GPU 24/7. From theory the 1080 and 1080ti have the best SP GFLOP/Watt efficiency, but from experience, the 1070 is also very good. Whereas the Titans seem to be prestigous objects to me, as there is little difference to the 1080ti (in regard to efficiency and performance) aside from price.

Not sure if there is any Benchmark Software that really reflects the performance at GPUGRID. It seems that GPUGRID doesn't utilize the faster GDDR5X, so the (GDDR5) 1070 is closer to the 1080 in crunching than it should be. See also this topic on the new 1070ti:

http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=4648#48143

Frankly, the 1080ti would be my recommendation as a powerful SP crunching card, if we leave the new Quadros and Teslas aside. There are many 1080ti "Blowers" available from different brands ... and they go like hell without any OC anyway. One level down, the 1070 has the best cost-benefit ratio in my opinion.

1080ti first, 1070 second ... but that is matter of taste I guess...

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Message 48178 - Posted: 13 Nov 2017 | 17:39:14 UTC

Can never go wrong with a 1080ti

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Message 48182 - Posted: 13 Nov 2017 | 20:08:42 UTC - in response to Message 48165.

The Titan X - Pascal and the GTX 1080 Ti are very close, but I would have thought the Titan Xp would have been ranked higher.
...
It seems that the GTX 1080 Ti is the best GPU even though the Titan X -Pascal is listed higher in the bottom chart. Still puzzled why the Titan Xp is not the absolute top card though.
There are other system optimizations which could eliminate the the tiny performance difference between the 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp. These are:
- Overclocked GPU (and CPU)
- No (or 1) simultaneous CPU tasks
- WDDM-less OS
- No multiple GPUs in the same system to achieve PCIe3.0x16.

My suggestion is the GTX 1080Ti, or wait for Volta GPUs.
If you have unlimited money you can go for the Titan Xp, but under these circumstances I still would buy two GTX 1080 Ti for the same amount.

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Message 48200 - Posted: 16 Nov 2017 | 20:26:19 UTC

With the current Pascal lineup performance and power consumption scale rather linearly, so you can choose whatever fits your budget and power delivery + cooling capabilities.

Performance wise it's OK to simply compare the TFlops ratings, especially for the biggest WUs. I don't think there's any free and simple benchmark which better reflects the performance. GPU memory bandwidth and type will have some influence, but the Pascals are all balanced rather similarly, and GPU-Grid does not particularly depend on GPU memory bandwidth.

Additional concerns:
- bigger GPUs will be able to get the bonus credits for longer (and thus help the project more)
- bigger GPUs are more difficult to keep fed with data, i.e. running a WDDM-less OS, freeing the CPU from other tasks etc. will benefit them more
- never buy a Titan, unless it helps your job significantly, as the Geforce version is always so much better value

I agree with the recommendation of the 1080Ti as your very powerful card (although it's really pushing the limits of a blower style cooler). And I agree with the 1070 as the balanced choice (running one myself). Buying any lower specifically for GPU-Grid is not worth it.

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Message 48206 - Posted: 17 Nov 2017 | 20:01:08 UTC

I have decided to take a step back from the single best card and go for a few of the 1080's. In particular I am working on replacing three Quadro K5200's and a 1080 should be a 2x boost in compute power for each one.

I found a few of the Gigabyte blower style cards in the 300-400 range depending on how the bidding goes on ebay. I will be planning to sell the Quadro's to offset the cost.

If anyone could use a Q K5200 here is the listing for one I pulled already on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/272902180124?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649&autorefresh=true

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