Dual 2080Ti vs Single 4070Ti

[rb19]

Hi,

 

If ignoring any price differences, would you recommend a dual 2080 Ti set up or a single 4070 Ti for a productivity workstation? The main use case of the PC is primarily for programming/data analysis (most of the workload is CPU intensive but there may be the occasional deep learning models requiring GPU). The rig would be hooked up to a dual monitor set up (one super ultrawide 49" 5120x1440 & another smaller ultrawide 3440x1440). Not sure if it matters but the GPU(s) would be paired up with a Threadripper 5995WX set up.

 

Thanks in advance!

[191x7]

Opt for more VRAM. 4070 Ti Super at least. 

[rb19]

14 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Opt for more VRAM. 4070 Ti Super at least. 

 

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

[ki8aras]

7 minutes ago, rb19 said:

 

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

it depends on your workload
i would agree with @191x7 but since the 4070 ti only has 1gb more than a single 2080 ti, i'd recommend the dual setup

depending on what you're doing, you will see both better and worse performance than a 4070 ti

just bare in mind that the single gpu setup is easier to upgrade in the future

[freeagent]

12 minutes ago, rb19 said:

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

Nope.

 

I would do the single card all day everyday. 

[Needfuldoer]

If you need the VRAM, I'd go for a used 24 GB 3090 over either of those.

Edited May 7 by Needfuldoer
No it wasn't.

[thekingofmonks]

If they're priced similarly and software support isn't an issue then you should opt for the two 2080Ti's, although that would cost you a lot more in electricity

 

You'd need a PSU with high enough power rating and at least four 8-pin connectors

[191x7]

6 minutes ago, rb19 said:

 

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

I am not sure, I know for games and many applications the VRAM is not combined, like SLI, one buffer - same data on both cards.

[PDifolco]

41 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you need the VRAM, I'd go for a used 24 GB 3080 over either of those.

You mean 3090 ?

[Needfuldoer]

4 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

You mean 3090 ?

That's what I said, 3090.

 

 

[podkall]

51 minutes ago, rb19 said:

 

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

no, they share equal amount of 11GB

 

you might be better off getting a single modern GPU, they're pretty fast:

 

 

 

[podkall]

2 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's what I said, 3090.

 

 

why does 3080ti have only 12GB of VRAM? and 3090 double that amount while being barely faster?

[Needfuldoer]

3 minutes ago, podkall said:

why does 3080ti have only 12GB of VRAM? and 3090 double that amount while being barely faster?

It's the vast expanse of VRAM that makes the difference to machine learning workloads. Some models just plain don't fit on an 8GB or 12GB card, and running two 12 GB cards in tandem doesn't make them into a 24 GB card.

[podkall]

13 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

It's the vast expanse of VRAM that makes the difference to machine learning workloads. Some models just plain don't fit on an 8GB or 12GB card, and running two 12 GB cards in tandem doesn't make them into a 24 GB card.

I know, but why does Nvidia make same speed card and double it's VRAM? I know it probably cost way more than it should too

[igormp]

For the folks saying the GPUs doun't sum up the vram, you're wrong, they do dependig no how you do it.

1 hour ago, rb19 said:

 

Does the VRAM from the dual 2080 Ti set up not scale (2 x 11GB = 22GB)?

Yes, it does, depending on your framework. With tensorflow and pytorch you can easily do either:

- data parallel:small enough model that can fit in a single GPU, so you double up your batch size for twice the speed

- model parallel: if you model doesn't fit in a single GPU, you split its layers across the GPUs. You get bottlenecked in terms of speed by ~80% the speed of a single GPU, but you can run larger models this way.

 

With that said, a single 4070ti is a bit faster than a 2080ti (not world changing tho), but 2x2080ti do better since you have more vram.

 

19 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

and running two 12 GB cards in tandem doesn't make them into a 24 GB card.

For ML they often do.

5 minutes ago, podkall said:

I know, but why does Nvidia make same speed card and double it's VRAM? I know it probably cost way more than it should too

Because some workloads require more VRAM. See their enterprise lineup with slower chips than the geforce lineup, but more vram available.

[podkall]

11 minutes ago, igormp said:

Because some workloads require more VRAM. See their enterprise lineup with slower chips than the geforce lineup, but more vram available.

I can clearly see that Ti Super is just Ti with more VRAM for the 40 series, but costs way more

[igormp]

31 minutes ago, podkall said:

I can clearly see that Ti Super is just Ti with more VRAM for the 40 series, but costs way more

It actually uses the same die as the 4080 (AD103), but with a cut that makes it to sit exactly between the 4070ti (AD104) and the 4080.

 

Here in my country it's outselling the 4080 by a lot since it's way cheaper, was the same amount of vram and the perf isn't that far off.

[podkall]

40 minutes ago, igormp said:

It actually uses the same die as the 4080 (AD103), but with a cut that makes it to sit exactly between the 4070ti (AD104) and the 4080.

 

Here in my country it's outselling the 4080 by a lot since it's way cheaper, was the same amount of vram and the perf isn't that far off.

I guess it isn't "that far off",

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Video Card: *MSI VENTUS 2X OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card  ($739.00 @ MSI)
Video Card: *Zotac GAMING Trinity OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card  ($789.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1528.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-07 11:18 EDT-0400

 

But in new builds where there's limited budget for every part and you can't just dump all assets to GPU it becomes more tricky.

 

the price gets close to 1500$ just with most reasonable to price/performance on AM5 with Ti Super, and that's still with some discounts and crappy SSD:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($189.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($33.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI PRO B650-S WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($87.39 @ Amazon)
Storage: Kingston NV2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($60.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: *Zotac GAMING Trinity OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card  ($789.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Deepcool CC560 V2 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $1450.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-07 11:20 EDT-0400