Little challenge to the Linus Group

[brunomenezes66]

Ok so here's the thing.I'm new in the forum so I don't really know if this is gonna work or how to do it but I would like the community to support it if they really think this is a good idea.

My idea is the following:I've been looking in many forums and googling and didn't find any answer,is it possible to turn an old pc into an external graphics card?

I know that a CPU and the normal RAM can't really work as fast as a GPU,but for those like me who don't have a modern graphics card but have two old PC's I think it could work.Also you could use a modern desktop PC as an external graphics card to your laptop(I'm not really sure if this one is a good idea but it could be useful for some people).

Well,so I would like that you tell me if you know any way to do it(some Linux OS or something)and if you would like that something like that exist.I await for some support.

Also sorry for my english if I said something wrong

[Nup]

From a layman's point of view it is probably possible to make the Cpu do GPU type of computation, but not in any way that would give meaningful performance. The two work completely differently, I think.

More of a proof of concept type exercise? 

[SpaceTurtle917]

This is not possible, if you're talking about realtime game rendering. You could use them as render farms or what not but nothing for gaming acting like an actual graphics card for gaming use to be attached to another pc.

[ChrisCross]

doesnt sound possible. at least not for any kind of low latency environment. like desktop stuff (not to speak of gaming) 

[brunomenezes66]

I know it's not possible to do it,but there's the challenge XD.

I know that a two core CPU or even four or more has nothing to do against CUDA for example.Also some ddr3 or ddr2 has nothing to do against almos any gddr memory but I still trust it could make something.The thing is that I have 16 GB of ram in my PC and a 4 core xeon but my gpu is an ATI Radeon HD 3450....

With a PC like that you would even believe in fairies to get some better gpu XD.

[LogicalDrm]

3 hours ago, brunomenezes66 said:

I know it's not possible to do it,but there's the challenge XD.

I know that a two core CPU or even four or more has nothing to do against CUDA for example.Also some ddr3 or ddr2 has nothing to do against almos any gddr memory but I still trust it could make something.The thing is that I have 16 GB of ram in my PC and a 4 core xeon but my gpu is an ATI Radeon HD 3450....

With a PC like that you would even believe in fairies to get some better gpu XD.

If you are suggesting Linus doing something like this, forget it. They have trouble getting some servers and raid working by going off with online guides. They aren't nearly technical enough for programming this would require. Wendell is only one who could know if its possible even in theory.

[KE2012]

On top of everything said. The ports on the old computers wouldn't be able to handle the data requirments either.  

[Unhelpful]

4 hours ago, brunomenezes66 said:

 

Their group isn't exactly highly technically skilled... They have trouble getting basic server stuff to work using detailed online guides. Most of their network is prosumer / SMB, which is absolutely fair since it is a very small business. But they don't have mountains of technical knowledge. 

[brunomenezes66]

Not talking about the Linus Media Group.I meant the people like you in the forum.Also,with old computer I'm talking about a computer for home purposes around 2008 or something like that.With ddr2 and gigabit Ethernet.Didn't have in mind to use USB 2 for massive data transfer like that.With gigabit you also have a good latency bit still a problem because CPU and GPU should communicate almost instantaneously.

[Hamosch]

You are not going to do anything like this over network if you want anything other than gpgpu. 

 

I don't think you understand what kind of process would be involved and what kind of latency there would be...

 

PCIe has about 1GB/s per lane transfer speeds so lets say 8 lanes (as most gpu's will run fine with 8x) thats 8GB/s transfer speeds.

Gigabit network has about 125MB/s....

 

Also the process would look something like this, just to give you an idea about the horrible performance and latency.

The client computer sends data via network to the host (slow as hell).

The GPU host computer would need to send the recieved packets via the CPU over the PCIe bus to the GPU.

GPU does the calculation, sends the answer back over the PCIe bus.

The host CPU sends the data back in packets to the client over the network.

The client CPU would need to recieve the data and display it on its screen.

 

In computing terms the kind of latency and throughput you could expect would be close to that of an arctic glacier. That is in case this is even possible and that's a MASSIVE if.

 

Just an FIY when doing any kind of computing on a GPU the first thing you learn is that PCIe transfer speeds are tremendously slow and that you should avoid transfers on it at all costs (maximize the computational intensity compared to data transfers) and you want to replace this with gigabit ethernet....

[brunomenezes66]

I just thought "if USB can do it it may be possible via Ethernet" XD.Anyway thanks for the help to let me know all that.Now I know how crazy I am XD.

 

[Bensemus]

43 minutes ago, brunomenezes66 said:

I just thought "if USB can do it it may be possible via Ethernet" XD.Anyway thanks for the help to let me know all that.Now I know how crazy I am XD.

 

By USB I assume you mean USB 3.1 type C? That is actually using thunderBolt 3 which has a transfer speed of 40Gb/s.

[LiMz]

Repetitive tasks = GPU

Different tasks = CPU

 

I get what you're saying as in is it possible.  I'm not sure if the throughput is enough. The use case for this is also weird. I don't think anyone looked at a car and said, I wonder if it can be welded to another car and be used as a split fair uber. Sure maybe you possibly can.  

 

Just why? lel

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Not feasible in any shape or form, abandon ship!

[MIXFUSED]

I don't think this possible...if you are looking for a second gpu go with an sli configuration