How to modify a Nvidia A100 GPU to work in a regular desktop?

Hello. I’m attempting to build a desktop geared towards scientific computation. I need as much VRAM as possible on 1 GPU as the program I’m using to perform the calculation can only use 1 GPU for the type of calculations I’m doing.

I’ve already selected the motherboard and other parts to build this desktop. Additionally, I’ve found a water block manufacture for the A100

I have two concerns remaining. How to power the A100, and what drivers to use. I found someone online claimed they used GeForce drivers on A100. Is that optimal though? I really don’t know.

As for the power, do the correct outputs typically come on an off-the-self PSU? If anyone has done this with success, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you need vram and a desktop card, why not look at the A6000? it has 48gb vram + a blower cooler meant for desktops. I have an A100 and its sitting in my Thinkstation p920 with 2 fans strapped to it and it still reaches a toasty 75c so if you are worried about temps/watercooling it may not be the best card to look at for desktop usage.

Powering the card needs a 8 Pin cpu connector to get it working, although not looked into the whole converting a PSU connector to get it working (Although it maybe possible)

It uses an 8-pin CPU power connector. So worst you case you will need a PCIe 8-pin GPU to CPU adapter. You can check the brief for the PCIe variant in this link below for more details.

As for the driver, if you’re using linux, and I assume you would be for compute, then the standard drivers are made available right from nvidia:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/161771/en-us

I would expect the GeForce drivers to work, but probably be feature incomplete for compute. Depending on what you need to do, it may or may not make a difference.

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Thank you so much for your reply. I absolutely need the 80GB of ram and it’s double precision performance, otherwise I would have gotten the A6000. In fact I would have purchased 2 of them except matlab doesn’t work well with multi-gpu for applications that aren’t deep learning. You can’t pool the memory.

Thank you so much for your response!

Understandable, well like i said, i have 2 fans atm on my A100 40gb PCI in my thinkstation and its around 75-80c under load, so it is possible to have in a desktop albiet a bit toasty, so I mean thats always an option to attach some fans or see if you can find some waterblocks, i believe someone on the fourm made a thread a few moths back saying they were selling A100 blocks, so maybe try contact them if its a idea that interests you!

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Any chance you use it with MATLAB?

I personally don’t use MATLAB but I can try do some tests this weekend if you want?

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That would be super awesome! Is there any way you can PM me?

Sent a PM!

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