GPU Advice for rendering workstation / 2 x RTX A5000 (nvlink) vs. 1 x RTX A5000 + 1 x RTX A6000

Hi there,

i have to make decision to buy for my team new workstations (5x) we need for rendering and research and development. we have to work together with a specific vendor only allowing certain gfx cards to use for their high end workstations.

i can give you more infos if needed but my main question would be if i should go for

a) 2 x RTX A5000 (with nvlink)

b) 1 x RTX A5000 + 1 x RTX A6000

As far as i know i can’t use nvlink when using not the same card models. RTX A6000 already got huge amount of VRAM (48GB) so i wonder if i need nvlink at all. 2 x A5000 with nvlink would have same VRAM as single A6000. Any other advantage nvlink would give me? What setup would you prefer? Btw. price should not be considered here.

Thank you,

mmh

You can not use Different GPUs with NVLINK, so if you know you benefit from that with things such as pooled memory i would personally just get the 1x A6000, as a ex owner of an A6000 its a damn powerful card and also helps just mitigate any issues that could occur with NVLink for eg apps not taking advantage of it and or having a chance of creating more issues than solving.

You can mix and match GPUs for rendering/compute tho if that’s all you care about, as we don’t know your work loads we can’t judge fully, but in the past I’ve ran an RTX A6000 + NVIDIA A100 in my workstation for compute and rendering simulations and it worked like a charm with no NVlink needed.

Thanks F1N for your answer. We are going to render scenes with large scanned textures. I don’t know how much VRAM these scenes will eat. I’ve read that when you render with mixed setup it always takes the VRAM of the weaker GPU hence when using A6000+A5000 it would take the 24GB of the A5000 instead of 48GB - is that true?

I personally never ran into issues with the 48gb on my A6000 with the 40gb on the A100, but I guess since both cards have a high amount of VRAM anyway I wouldn’t of noticed it all too much. But I can do some testing for you today if you let me know what programs you use? since I have a 2gb and 12gb card on my desk atm and do some quick tests if wanted

Thanks F1N, that would be great. We are mainly using Blender and a bit of Modo. Interesting would be if it takes the 2 GB or 12 GB when using both cards together.


so tested 2 GPUs 1 with 12gb and 1 with 2gb and it seems blender doesn’t seem to mind.
same experience I had in the past with my A6000 and A100. it just gets on and works what’s nice

ok but it looks like it doesnt take the 2GB GPU at all as it is on 1%!??

Which GPU was your working GPU? Which GPU had the monitors attached? So you used it for your everyday work and the other for the workhorse task?

Do you plan on water-cooling the GPUs? From dealing with multiple GPUs in the same setup. I finalized on water-cooling the professional PNY graphics card with the EKWB pro watercooler. This allowed me to keep all my GPUs in single-slot locations. When the GPU is in the factory fan hosing, the single GPU is taking up 2 plus PCI slots. So I pulled out some extra 3090, which took up three PCI slots to regain my motherboard. I plan on getting a couple more GPU, but they will only be professionals, running single slot. Plus I do not have to deal with the heat that comes out of those factory fans.

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