Hi there,
So far we are successfully running different Mosaic setups on Ubuntu Linux with Quattro A5000 cards.
For Setups up to 8 screens we use the NVLink between 2 Cards, for 3 cards we use a Sync card.
What would be the good way to go with the new RTX 4000 ADA cards?
As far as i see all the new cards are missing the NVLink. Does that mean mosaic with 2 cards always requires a Sync card? Or will the mosaic work without and sync spanning over 2 cards?
Thanks for your help!
Johannes
Hi Johannes, yes, for sync across GPUs, 1-4 xGPUs, it will now need a sync card. Its been a side effect, that the NVlink connector could be used to keep the GPU clocks in sync as well (not the main purpose of the NVlink connectors…).
With PCIe getting faster, the advantage for (limited perf) NVlink between 2 add-in cards (vs. like NVL72 in datacenter configs) is getting lesser, so we decided to omit NVlink and use the space and power budget for more gfx/compute perf instead…
Blackwell Gen5 PCIe P2P is about as fast as Ampere with NVlink…
That is why the ‘nice’ option to sync just 2x cards via NVlink no longer exists, but the QuadroSycnII card (new name RTX PRO Sync card) will provide the sync capability for up to 4x GPUs, technically 2x Sync cards can sync up to 8x GPUs per system/OS, but some OS/buffer limits apply for large Mosaic desktops…
Hope this helps explain why we decided to no longer feature NVlink on the professional workstation GPUs…
regards
-Frank