Re: Faster CUDA performance ??

On Mon, 31 May 2010 19:27:27 +0000 (UTC), "Smarty" <>
wrote:

>I am using an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT video card purchased about 2 years
>ago and have several programs which speed up rendering and filtering by
>using the CUDA GPU.
>
>I am wondering if a new video card would significantly improve my CUDA
>performance? Since many of the rendering and filtering jobs I do take a
>long time (several hours per job) on this Intel Extreme QX9650 quadcore
>machine, I am trying to find a way to significantly shorten the renders
>and filtering.
>
>I have 1 PCIe X16 slot on this Dell XPS420 mainboard, so this may limit
>my choices as to which, if any, nVidia card could be used as an update.
>
>I very much appreciate any suggestions / comments.
>

Yes, a new top of the line card will give you better performance for
sure but you are looking at spending over $500.00 to get it. If your
mb has SLI I would just put in a second 8800GT instead and that will
give you better performance for less cost. But that depends on if you
have a motherboard with dual PCI-E slots or not and if it supports
Nvidia SLI and not ATI Crossfire.

Smarty wrote:
> poky patrol wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 31 May 2010 19:27:27 +0000 (UTC), "Smarty" <>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I am using an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT video card purchased about 2
>>> years ago and have several programs which speed up rendering and
>>> filtering by using the CUDA GPU.
>>>
>>> I am wondering if a new video card would significantly improve my
>>> CUDA performance? Since many of the rendering and filtering jobs I
>>> do take a long time (several hours per job) on this Intel Extreme
>>> QX9650 quadcore machine, I am trying to find a way to significantly
>>> shorten the renders and filtering.
>>>
>>> I have 1 PCIe X16 slot on this Dell XPS420 mainboard, so this may
>>> limit my choices as to which, if any, nVidia card could be used as
>>> an update.
>>>
>>> I very much appreciate any suggestions / comments.
>>>
>> Yes, a new top of the line card will give you better performance for
>> sure but you are looking at spending over $500.00 to get it. If your
>> mb has SLI I would just put in a second 8800GT instead and that will
>> give you better performance for less cost. But that depends on if you
>> have a motherboard with dual PCI-E slots or not and if it supports
>> Nvidia SLI and not ATI Crossfire.
>
> Thanks for your reply!
>
> My Dell motherboard does not support SLI, and only has a single 16X
> PCI-E slot. I guess this means I am left with only an expensive single
> card replacement? Is the $400 upgrade the "ONLY" way to get a GPU
> improvement for CUDA, and if so, what type of speed improvement am I
> likely to see compared to my older 8800GT?
>
> Thanks once again.
>

I'd want to see some benchmarks first, before spending one thin dime on
new hardware.

Not very many algorithms are "perfect scaling", able to use as many
computing elements as you can give them.

The best place to get this kind of information, is from the company
that sold you the software. And that is one of my pet peeves, that
such information is virtually non-existent. How are end-users supposed
to know how to get the best from their software ? The companies
writing the software, sure aren't helping...

It would be pretty sad, if you bought a GTX480, ran the algorithm,
and it didn't run any faster than it did on your 8800GT.

Paul

On 6/1/2010 2:53 PM, Smarty wrote:
<snip>
>
> Thanks Paul and Jim for your insightful comments. I share Paul's
> concern about making a steep investment with no assurance of a
> productivity pay-off. My ONLY motive for replacing this video card with
> an expensive alternative is to get a big boost in rendering speed, and
> I would be extremely unhappy if that did not pan out.
>
> I also have the issue which Jim raises to deal with. My power supply is
> the smaller "standard" supply Dell offered in this XPS420. They had an
> optional 750 watt supply (I think it was 750) but the smaller supply I
> purchased which is either 400 or 500 watts does not have a lot of spare
> capacity left. I have 3 hard drives, 2 optical drives, a couple PCI and
> PCI-E cards, along with the QX9650, RAM, etc. I suspect I have a
> hundred watts to spare at most, but had not considered the extra power
> supply load and inevitable heating at all.
>
> I'm going to do a bit more research and see what if any info I can get
> from Pegasys, the authors of TMPGExpress, the program I most often used
> to transcode, render, and filter.
>
> Thanks once again.
>
> Smarty

The age of the PSU makes a difference as well as they lose some capacity
over time.
I started with a new 550W 3 years ago. It was fine in my system with
E6600, 2Gb RAM, 2 HDD's and 2 optical with 8800GTS.
3 years later with upgrades to a E8500, 4Gb RAM. 4 HDD's. Now the PSU
starts the Insta-shutoff "feature" when running 3D games.
700W PSU fixed that issue.

J
--
Jethro[AGHL] aka Phat_Jethro
Reply Email: jethro86 (at) gmail (dot) com

Smarty wrote:
> Phat_Jethro wrote:
>
>> On 6/1/2010 2:53 PM, Smarty wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Thanks Paul and Jim for your insightful comments. I share Paul's
>>> concern about making a steep investment with no assurance of a
>>> productivity pay-off. My ONLY motive for replacing this video card
>>> with an expensive alternative is to get a big boost in rendering
>>> speed, and I would be extremely unhappy if that did not pan out.
>>>
>>> I also have the issue which Jim raises to deal with. My power
>>> supply is the smaller "standard" supply Dell offered in this
>>> XPS420. They had an optional 750 watt supply (I think it was 750)
>>> but the smaller supply I purchased which is either 400 or 500 watts
>>> does not have a lot of spare capacity left. I have 3 hard drives, 2
>>> optical drives, a couple PCI and PCI-E cards, along with the
>>> QX9650, RAM, etc. I suspect I have a hundred watts to spare at
>>> most, but had not considered the extra power supply load and
>>> inevitable heating at all.
>>>
>>> I'm going to do a bit more research and see what if any info I can
>>> get from Pegasys, the authors of TMPGExpress, the program I most
>>> often used to transcode, render, and filter.
>>>
>>> Thanks once again.
>>>
>>> Smarty
>> The age of the PSU makes a difference as well as they lose some
>> capacity over time. I started with a new 550W 3 years ago. It was
>> fine in my system with E6600, 2Gb RAM, 2 HDD's and 2 optical with
>> 8800GTS. 3 years later with upgrades to a E8500, 4Gb RAM. 4 HDD's.
>> Now the PSU starts the Insta-shutoff "feature" when running 3D games.
>> 700W PSU fixed that issue.
>>
>> J
>
> Not entirely surprising. Electrolytic caps used for filtering lose some
> of their capacitance. Heat sinks and diode bridges and other components
> get loaded with dust and dirt, raising their temperatures, and then
> causing some thermal safeguards to kick in sooner.
>
> Thanks for the warning!
>

"Utilize NVIDIA CUDA For Filtering and Decoding"

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/pr..._new.html#cuda

It would appear the main advantage comes from some "sharpen" operations
done in CUDA. Otherwise, it is hard to say what exactly CUDA buys.

And the word Encoding is not associated with CUDA.

They do have a SPURS plugin, which would use a Cell based accelerator
card, for encoding.

*******

On another encoder software page for a different product, they claimed to
be doing encoding with CUDA, but the only performance metric was something like

"Up to 50% better performance"

with no references to hardware used at all (i.e. indicating which processor
and which video card are being compared).

I guess you're supposed to fill your computer with various odds
and ends, to get acceleration :-)

Paul