Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

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joe12south

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Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 8:59 pm

Building a workstation dedicated for Resolve. Will be working with P4K footage. (cDNG unless BRAW becomes available soon-ish.) Feature film work. RCM, 24P timelines, a few nodes, a few windows, NR here and there.

As this is a Ryzen build, the graphics card will need to drive the workspace monitor.

Budget <$2K.

Am I likely to do better with two RX580's or one GTX1080?
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Carsten Sellberg

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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 9:19 pm

Hi.

X470 motherboards is not recommended for DaVinchi Resolve as it only have PCIe lanes for one M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD. AMD have reduced the price of last years 12 cores 24 threads Threadripper 1920X CPU to around the half and it have 60 PCIe lanes. Will recommend you to look at it and I have made a small guide for a recommended build. Here is a copy and paste of it to you:

'Carsten's hardware guide for DaVinchi Resolve. Version from 27. September 2018.

In Resolve the CPU is used to run the app, disk I/O and compression and decompression of codecs.
Resolve does all its image processing in the GPU on the graphics card. More CUDA/OpenCL Cores are better.

nVidea have just introduced the new nVidea RTX 2080/Ti Graphics Card series. For 4K choose one with 8-11 GB of vRAM. And more CUDA cores is better.

Recently there have been some price drops on the previous generations GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti, but the new RTX Generation have much higher CUDA performance.

There is a maximum of one graphics card in the free version of Resolve. If you want to use Noise Reduction etc. then you probably will need 2 GPUs with 11 GB vRam each and the paid Studie version of Resolve.

In the DaVinci Resolve 15 configuration guide is one of the suggestion on page 18 the AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU.

https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/ ... _Guide.pdf

All AMD CPU's loves fast memory, and on page 36 under GIGABYTE Motherboard:

16GB (4x4GB RAM) DDR4-3200 SDRAM minimum
64GB or 128GB or more recommend for FUSION

Back in August AMD launched AMD Threadripper next generation with a little cheaper CPU's. For 4K work look at the new 16 cores 32 threads 2950X that get much better reviews than expected.

When I try to check prices don't I yet see any big price drops on the previous 16 core 32 threads Threadripper 1950X CPU's. So far for 16 core 32 threads CPU will I recommend the new 2950X.
While I currently see some large price drops on the 12 core 24 threads 1920X CPU's. It will be good as a entry level CPU for Rersolve.

Both the old and new Threadrippers CPU use a TR4 socket and a X399 motherboards. Suggest you to buy one with nice reviews. If you later want to upgrade to a faster CPU will I suggest you to buy a Asus motherboard, as they can be upgraded to a TDP of 250 Watt by buying the X399 cooling enhancement kit coming later.
Make sure you inspect the Motherboards TR4 socket carefully for bent pins, before your insert the CPU into it. And for CPU's with more than 20 cores will I look for a motherboard with a 16+3 VRM circuit.

Look here for a Free NVMe RAID upgrade for AMD X399 chipset:

https://community.amd.com/community/gam ... 99-chipset

All motherboard have a QVL List you can find on the manufactures homepage. Here you can see what DDR4-Ram they have tested in that particular motherboard. The Configuration Guide recommend to use minimum DDR4-3200.

The cheapest recommended RAM is many times the G.Skill Flare X DDR4. The Flare X series is made special for AMD CPU's

The Threadripper CPU's have a 4 channel memory design. You will get the fastest system by using 4 DIMM's only, and leave the last 4 sockets empty.

Do you still have some questens you are free to ask.'

Regards Carsten.
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joe12south

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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 9:49 pm

Thanks for that info, Carsten.

I understand that I will need the Pro version of Resolve (comes with Pocket 4K.)

I also understand that a sub $2K Ryzen 7 build is far from optimal, but it is what I have to work with. Given that, the question remains, which configuration of graphics cards is likely to perform best for my intended workload?

PS. I currently edit/grade on a MBPr, so either option is going to offer a serious performance improvement.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostTue Oct 02, 2018 10:31 pm

joe12south wrote:Building a workstation dedicated for Resolve. Will be working with P4K footage. (cDNG unless BRAW becomes available soon-ish.) Feature film work. RCM, 24P timelines, a few nodes, a few windows, NR here and there.

As this is a Ryzen build, the graphics card will need to drive the workspace monitor.

Budget <$2K.

Am I likely to do better with two RX580's or one GTX1080?


Try to get 1 RX VEGA 64 or 56 (depending on your budget).

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2080-2080-Ti-Performance-1238/

and

https://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Test/Auf-Augenhoehe-mit--Ti-tanen---AMD-Vega-56-unter-DaVinci-Resolve-14--Was-bringts--63--Vega56-unter-Resolve-14.html#Was_b

Vega 56 sell for $ 400 and vega 64 for $ 500

Vega has a lot more memory bandwidth than GTX1080 and RX580 and low latency (one of the reasons why they are so fast in Resolve).

Vega won't saturated 8 PCIe-3 lanes(same is true for GTX1080ti) so a Ryzen 7 2700x should be fast enough to handle 4k workloads. Spend your money on fast RAM 2x16 GB DDR4-3200 CL14 and a NVMe scratch drive.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostWed Oct 03, 2018 6:17 pm

Thanks, Misha.

At the point I'm paying for a Vega 64, shouldn't I simply stretch and get a GTX 1080 TI?
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostWed Oct 03, 2018 7:05 pm

joe12south wrote:Thanks, Misha.

At the point I'm paying for a Vega 64, shouldn't I simply stretch and get a GTX 1080 TI?


No, Vega is not so good in gaming but very good in compute tasks like Davinci Resolve.
Other advantage is that you won't run out of memory with the Vega, because it can swap to the system memory.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:06 am

MishaEngel wrote:
joe12south wrote:Thanks, Misha.

At the point I'm paying for a Vega 64, shouldn't I simply stretch and get a GTX 1080 TI?


No, Vega is not so good in gaming but very good in compute tasks like Davinci Resolve.
Other advantage is that you won't run out of memory with the Vega, because it can swap to the system memory.
I'm facing the similar upgrade, and I thinking about VEGA 64 vs 1080ti

Seems like VEGA may be better option for DaVinci?

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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:54 am

Benchmarking by Puget Systems and others (
) seem to give the GTX 1080 TI the edge, so I'm curious as to why the Vega 64 would be recommended over it.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 5:49 am

MishaEngel wrote: Other advantage is that you won't run out of memory with the Vega, because it can swap to the system memory.


Hi

I tried to look into the idea that VEGA don't gives GPU memory is full errors. But as I see it, is it not the right way to solve the GPU memory is full problems. The VEGA 64 have a nice memory bandwidth of 484GB/sec, but if it try to swap Graphics vRam to system RAM must it use the PCIe connector, that only have a bandwidth of 16 GB/sec. That is 30 times slower. I don't think it is the way to solve the GPU memory is full problems.

What do other members of this forum think?

For a 'Cheap' Graphics card for Resolve don't forget the RTX 2070 with 8GB. It is expected to be Released on from 17 October to a price of $499 - $599. According to nVidea do it have a memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s. Here is a link with more information:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13395/ge ... tober-17th


One of the reasons I will recommend the RTX 2070 is this blog from nVidea, with the heading 'World’s Top Graphics Software Companies Are Already Adopting NVIDIA RTX Capabilities.'

Quote: 'Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve: World’s most popular color-grading application, using Turing Tensor Cores in Resolve 15 to accelerate AI inferencing for graphics enhancement.'

From: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/08/1 ... y-support/

As I see it look for a Graphics Card with the needed amount of vRam, on the Graphics Card ifself. If you have to save some money, look at what will be most important for you on the GTX 2070 8GB vs GTX 1070 TI 11GB.
If you need both the RTX and 11GB then consider the RTX 2080 TI, which for the moment is overpriced, but lets hope that the prices will come down in a couple of months.

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 7:52 am

In terms of GPU memory, does it help to have two GPU cards? In other words, if I have two cards with 8GB RAM, does Resolve see 16GB, or are there some limitations?
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 8:08 am

joe12south wrote:Building a workstation dedicated for Resolve. Will be working with P4K footage. (cDNG unless BRAW becomes available soon-ish.) Feature film work. RCM, 24P timelines, a few nodes, a few windows, NR here and there.

As this is a Ryzen build, the graphics card will need to drive the workspace monitor.

Budget <$2K.

Am I likely to do better with two RX580's or one GTX1080?


I would go with a single fast GPU with lots of VRAM vs two GPUs which are slower and lesser RAM. You get lots of efficiencies by running the display and compute on a single GPU, especially for editing.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 12:02 pm

Rohit Gupta wrote:I would go with a single fast GPU with lots of VRAM vs two GPUs which are slower and lesser RAM. You get lots of efficiencies by running the display and compute on a single GPU, especially for editing.

Thanks, Rohit.

The old advice was to keep your display off of your computer card. I know this advice has changed, but can you elaborate on what "efficiencies" are gained?
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 12:21 pm

joe12south wrote:
Rohit Gupta wrote:I would go with a single fast GPU with lots of VRAM vs two GPUs which are slower and lesser RAM. You get lots of efficiencies by running the display and compute on a single GPU, especially for editing.

Thanks, Rohit.

The old advice was to keep your display off of your computer card. I know this advice has changed, but can you elaborate on what "efficiencies" are gained?


Basically you don’t have to do down the PCIe bus to reach the display GPU. It adds some latency to the responsiveness and takes away from performance somewhat. This is especially bad if you use a very weak GUI GPU like the GT120 which was popular on old Mac Pro.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 12:27 pm

Thanks!

Decisions, decisions... ;)
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 1:15 pm

joe12south wrote: Decisions, decisions... ;)


Hi.

I don't know what your time schedule is?

But we all expect Intel to Launch new main line CPU's here in October. It will include the Intel 8 cores 16 threads i9-9900K CPU. It is expected to be run on excising Z370 motherboards after a BIOS update or on one of the coming Z390 motherboards.

You previous wrote that you want to make a Ryzen build, but if you accept to pay 100 USD more, can you get a Threadripper 12 cores 24 threadripper 1920X Cpu. OK, I know that a Threadripper X399 motherboard also are more expensive. I hope that you can see all the advantages of the 60 PCIe lanes on the Threadripper system. But all the rest of you new build will cost the same. It will just be the CPU and motherboard that will be more expensive.

For some time it have been known that Intel will introduce new TOP desktop 28 cores 56 threads CPU's before the end of this year. And today come the respond from AMD in form of a CES Press Release. AMD CEO, Lisa Su, will be delivering the keynote for their CES 2019 presentation in Las Vegas on 9th January 2019:

Quote: 'In 2019, AMD will catapult computing, gaming, and visualization technologies forward with the world’s first 7nm high-performance CPUs and GPUs, providing the power required to reach technology’s next horizon.'

From: https://www.ces.tech/News/Press-Release ... 65a2652e47

So what will be the right time to buy?

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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 1:57 pm

I'm currently editing on a 15" MBPr (touchbar) and while it works for FCPX, it is painful to try to do anything meaningful in Resolve. I've debated getting an eGPU and an UltraStudio 4K, but at that price point, it seems like I'd might as well build a dedicated workstation. (Intensity Pro 4K = $200; UltraStudio 4K = $1,000)

I have a Pocket 4K on backorder. I'll be shooting a feature before the end of the year, so I need to edit/grade a fairly large, decently complex project.

All that said, I guess I could wait until January to begin editing, but I'd rather not as it seems like the current generation of hardware is up to the task.

Given the type of work I will be doing, is there a meaningful advantage to a Threadripper system? I just need smooth cDNG 24P playback with a few nodes and to know that my renders won't crap out.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:01 pm

For a smooth cDNG 24 fps you need a fast scratch drive like the Samsung 960 or 970 pro of atleast 1 TB.
The system drive can be of a slower type of NVMe (just a cheap one that is big enough ~ 500 GB).
The Ryzen 7 2700X is more than capable to handle a 4k workload, even with redcodeRAW 4k.

The easiest way to calculate your system is at https://pcpartpicker.com/

Just a list

1x Ryzen 7 2700x
1x cheap NVMe drive 500 GB (system drive with OS and programs)
1x fast NVMe scratch drive Samsung 960 or 970 pro atleast 1 TB
1x Vega 56 or 64 or GTX1080ti (depending on you budget)
1x 2x16 GByte DDR4-3200 CL14 (or CL15,16 when you have a lower budget)
1x PSU 850 Watt with at least gold qualification
1x editing monitor (atleast 2560x1440)
1x DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K(minimum for color grading)
1x Calibrated monitor or tv (buy a x-rite, calman, etc.. to calibrate your monitor/tv from time to time)
at least full-HD.
1x computer case.
some spinning big drives to store your projects, when you put 4 drives in raid 10 you will get r/w speeds of around 300..400 MBytes/s (4096 x 2160 CinemaDNG RAW - 272 MB/s at 30 fps) and when a drive fails, you won't loose all you data.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:14 pm

+ a motherboard, and that's pretty much where I'm at. The graphics card is the only part that keeps me spinning.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:51 pm

joe12south wrote:+ a motherboard, and that's pretty much where I'm at. The graphics card is the only part that keeps me spinning.


All the mentioned GPU's are fast enough for realtime playback and all are to slow for multiple effects with TNR in real-time with 4k(even the $10,000 GV100 is to slow for this). So it will come down to preferences and budget.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 3:59 pm

Realtime NR isn't an expectation, but a few adjustment nodes including qualifiers/windows is.

I can stretch my budget to include the Vega 64 or the GTX 1080 TI or the RTX 2080, but not the RTX 2080 TI.

But if the Vega 56 or the GTX 1080 will do the job, I'd prefer to invest the savings into something with more legs, like better lighting, etc.

And, yes, I know I can buy the lesser card and return it if it doesn't do the job...just thought someone here might have first hand experience.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 5:42 pm

Just to further confuse everything, I pulled the trigger on a VEGA FE for $500. If it doesn't perform well, it's got good resale value with crypto miners.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 6:25 pm

joe12south wrote:Just to further confuse everything, I pulled the trigger on a VEGA FE for $500. If it doesn't perform well, it's got good resale value with crypto miners.



We have 3 VEGA FE's, 1 standard air in a i7-3960x workstation (GTX970 was dead) and 2 modified with EKWB waterblocks(overclocked to 1600 MHz, 1100 MHz HBM2 and undervolted to 1.05/1.05 +50%) in a 1950x workstation https://www.ekwb.com/blog/can-water-block-really-boost-gpu-performance/.

We paid € 999/each new. Best card for the money for our purposes (16 GB HBM2 VRAM, HBC-for bigger data sets than 16 GB, Professionel drivers same as WX9100, single slot with waterblocks, 10 bits color support in OpenCL).

They are not really good for gaming (Gtx1080 speed, because the lack pixelshaders) but are blazing fast in 4k to 8k workflows. About the same speed as the $5,000 NVidia quadro P6000.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Nov 08, 2018 9:52 am

Do you have any benchmark to assess that?

With the upcoming RX590, I was wondering if a crossfire of RX590 would help solve the "memory full" error message on fusion.
But I guess resolve won't magically merge the two vrams...

I'm planning on using heavily fusion with 4K compressed footage.
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Re: Two RX580's vs one GTX1080

PostThu Nov 08, 2018 10:47 am

Resolve never adds the VRAM.
If you need more than 8 GB, every card needs to be bigger, since you'll only get the least VRAM size of the cards in use.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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