Questions regarding Threadripper and GPU platform for virtual production

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1

Hello fellow nerds :slight_smile:

Like the title states, I have a few questions about the Threadripper platform and I was wondering if any of you wonderful people had any thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, the use case for this system will be virtual production at a university. Unreal Engine (UE5) will be the primary load on the CPU.

Here are my CPU questions:

  • In regards to UE5, what is the real world difference between Pro and non-Pro?
  • What the hell is the deal with chipset vs non-chipset and what that has to do with the socket type
  • Does Threadripper still like at least 256gb of memory in 8 channels?
  • Registered? Unregistered? ECC?

Here are my GPU questions:

  • I’m having a hard time understanding genlocking GPUs, if someone has a good grasp on the topology and hardware I would be forever grateful
  • How do multiple GPUs work with ada 6000 and Blackwell series GPUs
  • Anyone happen to know when the MAX-Q variant of the Blackwell card will come out?

If there’s anything else that I’m missing please let me know! Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

2

Pro, yes.
non-Pro is 4 channel.
AFAIK 96GB modules are on some QVLs for Threadripper 7000-non-pro.

Threadripper supports ECC

You need a Syncronization Module, which comes with cables to connect to the GPUs.
If you are running clusters, the RJ45-ports can be used to sync multiple modules up
:warning: While it is RJ45, these cards do not take kindly to being connected to Ethernet! :warning:

Sync port:

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You need your software to be able to distribute work among the available GPU resources.

3

Thank you very much for the reply!

I’m not running clusters at this point, but might do so in the future. Do you happen to have a link to more information about the Ethernet problems?

Makes sense, is there any hardware required? Is NVLink still a thing?

4

Even running two cards, you may want to sync their outputs.

It is not ethernet :wink:

User guide:

Just the PCIe-Slot.

5

Interesting, could you explain this a bit more?

Ahhhhh so RJ45 but doesn’t use any tcp/ip protocols. I love it when they do that lol. Thank you very much for linking the user guide

Brilliant!

6

Genlock means all GPUs (or Cameras, or other video equipment) is synchronized. Cameras grab a frame, switchers update, monitors display, all to the beat of this electronic pulse.

When you have multiple monitors on multiple GPUs forming one video wall, having them slowly drift, 59.5 FPS here, 60.2 FPS there (or all 60, but spread over the 16.6ms frame time), would potentially look strange (rolling artifacts). So you hang some precision clock-source in the mix to keep the tempo.

7

That all makes sense to me, I guess I’m just confused on how the RJ45 ports would be used in a system where there would be 2 GPUs and one sync card. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant though

8
  • You have one Sync-Card per 1-4 GPUs
  • If you have two (or more) Sync-Cards, you sync the cards using the RJ45