Any Improvements using Dual RTX 4000 GPUs

[Gilbert B]

I have a Lenovo P620, AMD ThreadRipper 12-Core Workstation with 128GB of Ram and one RTX 4000 GPU.   I was looking into adding a second however, it concerns me that while Adobe has a publication about setting up a dual GPU enabled system they don't show any spec's listing improvements in rendering, or effects which they mention.

Has anyone tested dual GPU systems and is it worth it - considering a second card is a non trivial purchase.

[R Neil Haugen]

As noted in your other thread, check with Puget Systems.

I know a lot of Resolve users that can get help with mulitple GPUs. I'm not aware of much benefit to PrPro users though would love additional data from anyone that has.

Neil

[Gilbert B]

Data is good!

[Andy 1968]

I am not sure what the best Quadro series GPU would be but I think Premiere Pro can get a benefit from dual GPUs for rendering. That being said I am using a single RTX 2070 and an i9 9900K. The performance is great. I myself don't see the need to support dual GPUs. You could get dual RTX 2070 GPUs or one RTX 2080 Ti. A single RTX 3090 should be a performance beast. That being said what kind of performance are you getting? 

[Gilbert B]

Hum, so sounds like mixed thoughts on dual GPUs but data still hard to come by.

I get the IBM discount through Lenovo...so would have to view the list of available GPUs but have the RTX 4000 and the entire system is brand new - so new that I yet to use on a project and still need to get two SSDs for audio and video scratch discs.

Tks.

[Gilbert B]

Further, it might be more useful to upgrade from 128 to 256MB of Ram?

[R Neil Haugen]

Going from 32GB of RAM to 128 was ... a joy.  From what I've seen, there's not as much differnce from 64 to 128 for many things in projects with simple effects. BUT ... for some projects with Warp and other heavy effects, that additional RAM is a major improvement both in playback and encoding.

As PrPro is such a heavy CPU user, more RAM is more better ...

Neil

[Andy 1968]

R3D, BRAW and PRO RES files will use more RAM than H.264/265 for obvious reasons but 64 GB should be more than adequate for most people. That being said you need to benchmark your system to find the weakest link (as seen in the video below). No need to run dual GPUs if you GPU is at 50% and your CPU is peggad at 100%. You don't need more than one M.2 SSD for the OS, media cache, scratch disk and programs. That being said it might be wise to store your content on a RAID  0 setup if ecomomics are a concern. If not getting a second M.2 for content might work best for your needs. An inexpesive mechanical hard drive can usually work for editing H.264/265. 

[Andy 1968]

This benchmark video might be helpful. 

[Gilbert B]

Appreciate the video, will review.

Ran User Benchmarks, attached and still have to install second 64MB Ram chip.  It did say: ensure that an XMP BIOS profile is enabled - need to read more about that.

I had configured with three 1TB M.2 Gen 3 PCIe SSD, OPALs in a RAID 5 for my working drive and a 512 GB M.2 Gen 4 PCIe SSD, OPAL Boot drive.  I also plan to install an IronWolf 10TB in the Flex/Hot swap bay for Acronis backups - so I can pull and put into a fire safe when away.

Lastly, I had planned to get a Synology NAS

I had read from Adobe that they recommend two seperate SSDs for audio and then video scratch discs, or at least one seperate from Boot/OS/Apps.

[Andy 1968]

I know when  the AMD X570 mobos launched there were some BIOS issues. Sometime I recommend a BIOS upadate to people. As far as needing 3 different hard drives what are you hoping to accomplish? Are you hoping for better perfomcnace? If so you can test it out for yourself but I highly doubt your will see a perfomance gain. Why would you? 

[Gilbert B]

Per Adobe

In terms of performance, it's best to dedicate a different disk to each asset type, but you can also specify folders on the same disk. You can specify unique scratch disk locations for each of the following types of files:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/setting-system.html#specify_scratch_disks_to_improve_syst... 

[Andy 1968]

What Adobe has posted does not reflect reality in 2021.

In 1998 a sustained data rate of 6MBP was average. That is not fast enough to play two layer of the DV-25 codec not to mention MJPEG at 3:1 compression. 

Keep in mind I posted a video demonstrating how different hard drive setups will work in the real world of video editing with different video codecs.  As I stated you can do you own test. Simply use one M.2 drive for everything and then use three M.2 drives and post the perfomance gains. I bet there will not be any. The only way the three drives would have a performance gain is if you maxed out the one single M.2 drive. You could in thoery do that if you were playing back five 10 layers or 8K Pro Res or 8K R3D files. If you are editing H.264/265 a single M.2 drive will have no advantage over a mechanical hard drive. I used to edit 4K H.264/645 of an old mechanical hard drive until I built my internal  RAID system. I did not need the RAID setup for editing H.264/265. I built it just for fun. In fact I used to put my video files, media cahce files and peak files on the old mechanical hard drive. I could hot swap the hard drive between computer systems. If you have a video codec that required 1800 Megabytes Per Second (not megabits) then multiple M.2 drvies might be helpful when playing multiple layers but no video codec requires than kind of  throughput as of now.  If editing H.264/265 I could use one single 4 TB mechanical hard drive for everything. I could put my CC programs, media cache files, scratch disk and OS on one single 4TB mechanical hard drrive and edit the same as if it was on one M.2 drive. I could not do that with BRAW, Pro Res or R3D files becuase of the throughput thar is needed. My video demonstraes BRAW, Pro Res, and R3D files maxing out a mechanical hard drive. 

Let me put it this way. If your CPU is pegged at 100% percent but the GPU is only at 20% getting a better GPU will not help. If your GPU is pegged at 100% but the hard drive is only at 5% getting a sceond hard drive will not help. If your hard drive is pegged at 100% but the RAM is only at 20% getting more RAM will not help. It is easy to find the weakest link. That being said I look forward to you not taking my words 100% as fact but actually do some testing of your own. Keep in mind my video demonstrated Premiere Pro cannot redraw thumbnails for H.264/265 any faster using an M.2 drive Vs a mechanical hard drive. I thought getting an M.2 drive would make the redraws much faster but after I starting using my M.2 drive I noticed the redraws were still slow. I checked my stats to see that the CPU was the weakest link. Keep in mind almost everyone in these forums is using a M.2 drive but they all have to wait for thumb nail redraws as well. The CPU is the weakest link not the hard drive.  Forget what Adobe has posted and check your own stats becuase at this point in time I am not sure if anyone at  Adobe even knows how to use the AJA Kona 4K card or the Blackmajc Design Intenisty Shuttle. Do you kind of see my point?  Last but not least if having three M.2 drive woud allow me to playback more layer of 4K Pro Res, BRAW, R3D or H.264 I would have bought them by now. That being said perhaps your system will benefit from three M.2 drives and sway me to change my mind. I am looing fowanrd to your benchmarks and findings. 

[Gilbert B]

Thank you for the detailed reply.  I don't have any data to comment or refute your statements and will see what results I obtain once I am operating day-to-day.

I did decided to add a 1TB NVME SSD for both the audio and video scratch disc, just from what I have read about improved transfer and it was not expensive and my platter drives are all five years old by now.

So main editing via the -3- 1TB RAIDed SSDs and one 10TB hotswap Ironwolf Pro for Acronis backup with a Synology NAS to following in a couple of months.

Interestingly, Puget video said there is no improvement going from one GPU to two and given Adobe has not provided any data to support that position one RTX4000 will be more then enough with 128GB RAM.

"I thought getting an M.2 drive would make the redraws much faster but after I starting using my M.2 drive I noticed the redraws were still slow."  From what I had read, M.2 NVME's were faster but to your point you did not see any improvements.

"The CPU is the weakest link not the hard drive. Forget what Adobe has posted and check your own stats becuase at this point in time I am not sure if anyone at Adobe even knows how to use the AJA Kona 4K card or the Blackmajc Design Intenisty Shuttle. Do you kind of see my point?"

From what I had researched, again only on paper and not in use, a CPU above 12-Cores would not see a significant improvement using Premiere.

As I begin to use the machine and accumulate data will be sharing those results with the community, thanks..

[Gilbert B]

As mentioned I have 128 and yet to use the machine (Lenovo P620 ThreadRipper 12-Core) so I can wait on Ram for now.  That said, your point is well noted, thanks.

Gilbert

[Andy 1968]

I am looking forward to seeing some benchmarks in the not so distant future. Like I said you can find the weakest link pretty easy. My video demonstrated if I edit H.264/265 there is no difference if I use a SATA SSD, M.2 SSD or a mechanical SATA hard drive. Pro Res, BRAW and R3D files require a faster drive to playback mutliple layers.