I have an interesting workload type for this build. This is for a TV station where they have two editors that are currently using RDP to remote in to two different users on a 20 core Xeon machine initially intended for playout. That machine needs put to it’s intended task now, so I have been tasked with building a new editing workstation. One editor works on site, but the other strictly remotes in to edit via a remote connection. The current server is runing Windows Server 2016.
My question is, should I be running dual RTX 3060 TI graphics cards, or would a single RTX 3080TI work better? I realize that separate edit and render machines could work better, but I have yet to figure out how to fit that within the limited but decent budget.
I may be speaking out of ignorance, but if they are going to be concurrently editing things at the same time and using GPU to process that workload, then you would need SR-IOV so that they could use the GPU at the same time. Otherwise, yes, you would need two GPUs and make sure that one is assigned to one user while the other is assigned to the other user.
Do what Linus did with 7 editors, 1 PC and use unRAID Pro. Only you really only need 2 VMs and 1 management GPU like a GT 710 for the actual unRAID OS.
I would get 2 LHR 3070s as there’s more supply of LHR GPUs, don’t use a single GPU unless you’re buying a (formerly called) Tesla accelerator GPU with GRID.
I have considered running a SR-IOV type setup, but haven’t made up my mind yet. It looks like I probably need two GPU’s regardless of the setup though so I will probably give it a try. The drawback of SR-IOV is the increased special knowledge required to maintain it and the need for additional USB PCIe cards hogging the PCIe slots.
I ended up just using multiple RDP sessions for now as much of the work does not require a physical user terminal. Adobe seems to split the work fairly evenly across the two 3080ti GPU’s I ended up including in this build. The multiple GPU’s make little difference with a single user session though.
Just a warning for everyone. We are now having issues with choppy playback from RDP sessions. Local playback is butter smooth, so I would caution anyone else trying that solution for multiple users.
We have less editing staff now, so I think we will just ditch RDP and enjoy faster render times. I was running windows 10 with rdp wrapper and even when it was working the best, I could tell a difference. Our editors were used to poor performing machines, and that has changed now.