I have an ASUS Z87-WS which supports 4-way SLI and am wondering if I was able to use 4 GPUs that support CUDA processing without using SLI. Would I be able to install four, GT-100s (or equivalent "low cost" GPUs) into this computer and take advantage of their CUDA cores?
CUDA Core Processing
- Thread starter dkoc1627
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Iron124
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- Jun 1, 2014
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I think you're a bit confused as to what a CUDA core actually is, and what SLI does. A CUDA core is a computing platform developed and used by NVIDIA. Pretty complicated, I don't fully understand it, but you can read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA
SLI is NVIDIA's Multi-GPU functionality. By using SLI, your GPU's function in unison to give you improved performance in certain applications, such as gaming. Without SLI, the graphics cards will not work together, even if you have multiple installed, and therefore you cannot take advantage of their "CUDA Cores".
SLI is NVIDIA's Multi-GPU functionality. By using SLI, your GPU's function in unison to give you improved performance in certain applications, such as gaming. Without SLI, the graphics cards will not work together, even if you have multiple installed, and therefore you cannot take advantage of their "CUDA Cores".
TechyInAZ
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Actually you can use cuda cores without SLI. GPU mining is a perfect example, you can set the software to use certain or all gpus to mine bitcoin, litcoin etc.
hunter315
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- May 12, 2009
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There seems to be some confusion of terms here.
CUDA - nVidia's language for performing GPGPU tasks on their GPUs, similar to OpenCL
CUDA Core - A GPU shader core, they are often called stream processors
SLI - nVidia's way of merging the power of multiple GPUs together to perform a single task, equivalent to Crossfire
SLI is just so that you can have multiple GPUs work on exactly the same data set, you can use multiple GPUs in a system without having SLI/CF enabled but they perform independently so some overarching software has to split the primary tasks into subtasks that it can hand out to the individual GPUs, like in mining each GPU is working on a specific block, having them share resources with SLI won't speed up the process at all.
CUDA - nVidia's language for performing GPGPU tasks on their GPUs, similar to OpenCL
CUDA Core - A GPU shader core, they are often called stream processors
SLI - nVidia's way of merging the power of multiple GPUs together to perform a single task, equivalent to Crossfire
SLI is just so that you can have multiple GPUs work on exactly the same data set, you can use multiple GPUs in a system without having SLI/CF enabled but they perform independently so some overarching software has to split the primary tasks into subtasks that it can hand out to the individual GPUs, like in mining each GPU is working on a specific block, having them share resources with SLI won't speed up the process at all.
Thank you hunter315,
I am using this system to work with BOINC projects. For this, it is okay to have the 4 GPUs working independently on tasks given by the project. I wasn't 100 percent sure if I would need to get SLI compatible videocards in order to make them work or if I need to hookup the SLI bridge that came with the motherboard. But it sounds as if I am able put four GPUs that support CUDA processing into the system and have it work regardless whether they suppose SLI or not.
Thank you to all those who have contributed.
I am using this system to work with BOINC projects. For this, it is okay to have the 4 GPUs working independently on tasks given by the project. I wasn't 100 percent sure if I would need to get SLI compatible videocards in order to make them work or if I need to hookup the SLI bridge that came with the motherboard. But it sounds as if I am able put four GPUs that support CUDA processing into the system and have it work regardless whether they suppose SLI or not.
Thank you to all those who have contributed.
hunter315
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- May 12, 2009
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BOINC appears to be compatible with running multiple different GPUs, it may take a bit of fiddling in the BOINC settings to get it to work. They definitely don't need to be SLI compatible since it is willing to work with multiple different GPUs while SLI does its best to make the GPUs look like a single GPU.
One thing to consider though, in your first post you mentioned using low cost GPUs like GT-100, you will get the most bang for your buck out of a mid tier GPU, generally a midtier like a GTX 650 Ti is about twice as expensive as a GT 630 but is four times as powerful so multiple low end cards is only the best bet if you want to do a little bit of four different tasks.
One thing to consider though, in your first post you mentioned using low cost GPUs like GT-100, you will get the most bang for your buck out of a mid tier GPU, generally a midtier like a GTX 650 Ti is about twice as expensive as a GT 630 but is four times as powerful so multiple low end cards is only the best bet if you want to do a little bit of four different tasks.
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