any benefit to SLI or Crossfire?

[Rudi Schuech]

Hi,

I'm interested in using Avizo but will need a new computer to run it and since the video card appears to be the biggest factor, is there any benefit to using two video cards in SLI (Nvidia) or Crossfire (ATI) mode? I would not do this to save money (2 cheaper cards instead of one expensive) but to splurge and get two high end cards for maximum performance.

I would be using Avizo to look at a X-ray tomography dataset and clean up all the noise so that the resulting isosurface could be used in a CFD code. The dataset (a stack of tiff images) is about 2 GB.

Thanks,
Rudi

[ShawnZhang]

Hi Rudi,

The answer is yes.

I have two FX3800. Avizo worked really nicely on two screens. In this case, though, it is the OS that is responsible in coordinating which card render which screen, in a way that is transparent to Avizo. It defintely gives more performance comparing to driving the same two screen with only one card. Note I did not connect them with SLI mode, 'cause I need to run multi-GPU CUDA codes, which SLI mode does not support.

Another way that Avizo can take advantage of multiple GPU is through XScreen module, which you can use multiple cards to drive a tiled display wall. In this case, Avizo explicitly manages the rendering of each tile.

Hope these are helpful.

Best
-Shawn

[ShawnZhang]

Let me add that if you are using one screen, 2 GPU in SLI/Crossfire mode will not help.

-Shawn

[Rudi Schuech]

OK, thanks for the help. I will likely just use one screen, so one card should do it.

Any ideas on how much RAM? The data set is only about 2 GB, and I was planning on 8 GB - I would hope that would be enough!

[ShawnZhang]

8GB should be a very good start.

-Shawn