Buy two 2070 video cards or one 2080 ti

[Neofilm]

I'm building a new system. I could easily buy two 2070 cards for around $300 less than one 2080 ti. And the two 2070 cards would give me 16GB VRAM instead of 11. Do you think Premiere and other adobe programs would run better with the one 2080 ti or the two 2070 cards?

The 2080 ti has

• Boostable to 1650 MHz
• 4352 CUDA Cores
• Turing Architecture
• 11GB of GDDR6 VRAM
• 14 Gb/s Memory Speed
• 352-Bit Memory Interface
• DisplayPort | HDMI | USB Type-C
• 7680 x 4320 Max Digital Resolution
• Dual-Fan Cooler | RGB Lighting
• VirtualLink Ready

The 2070 has

• 1410 MHz Core - Boostable to 1710 MHz
• 2304 CUDA Cores
• Turing Architecture
• 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM
• 14 Gb/s Memory Speed
• 256-Bit Memory Interface
• DisplayPort | HDMI | USB Type-C
• 7680 x 4320 Max Digital Resolution
• iCX2 Cooler | RGB Lighting
• VirtualLink Ready

The system I was about to buy/build is:

• ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Intel Core i9-9900K Coffee Lake 8-Core, 16-Thread, 3.6 GHz (5.0 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151 (300 Series) 95W BX80684I99900K
  • Noctua NH-D15 SSO2 D-Type Premium CPU Cooler, NF-A15 x 2 PWM Fans
• CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro 64GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) Desktop Memory Model
• GIGABYTE RTX 2080 TI 11GB GDDR6 GV-N208TWF3-11GC PCI Express 3.0 x16 Video Card
  • or two EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC GAMING Graphics Cards
• EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 220-G2-0850-XR 80+ GOLD 850W Fully Modular EVGA ECO Mode Includes FREE Power On Self Tester Power
• Fractal Design Meshify C Black ATX High-Airflow Compact Light Tint Tempered Glass Mid Tower Computer Case3

Any other suggestions?

[Jim_Simon]

The two most important specs are CUDA cores and Memory Bus.

The Ti would likely give better performance.

[Neofilm]

With two 2070 cards I would have 256 more cuda cores though?

I'm not sure what memory bus is, are you referring to the bit memory interface? If so, would having two 256 bit cards be better than one 352 bit card?

[RjL190365]

With two cards used simultaneously, you NEVER add up the two amounts of VRAM. Never. The way the cards work, half of the total amount of VRAM only serves as a mirror to the first half and is COMPLETELY unavailable. Thus, if you have two 8 GB cards, you'll still have only 8 GB of total available VRAM.

[Neofilm]

According to this site "Systems with multiple GPU will benefit from the increased performance" and "Use of multiple GPU in a high-performance video editing system will be quite heavy on I/O throughput so moving up to the 44 PCIe lanes of the i9-9820X or the i9-9920X will bring performance increments."Systems utilising more than one graphics card don’t need to have the cards linked with an SLI bridge. Don’t install more than two cards if you are using Nvidia GTX cards." https://www.punchtechnology.co.uk/choosing-a-graphics-card-for-a-video-editing-pc/

It seems that NVIDIA is now using NVLink instead of SLI. And, this only seems available for 2080 and 2080 ti, not the 2070.

However, I wonder now if it's even necessary considering the comment "Systems utilising more than one graphics card don’t need to have the cards linked with an SLI bridge". This just seems weird to me though...

This site makes it appear to be all about the software as to whether it will https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/NVLink-on-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2080-2080-Ti-in-Windows-10-1...

Do GeForce RTX Cards Support Memory Pooling in Windows?

Not directly. While NVLink can be enabled and peer-to-peer communication is functional, accessing memory across video cards depends on software support. If an application is written to be aware of NVLink and take advantage of that feature, then two GeForce RTX cards (or any others that support NVLink) could work together on a larger data set than they could individually.

What Benefits Does NVLink on GeForce RTX Cards Provide?

While memory pooling may not 'just work' automatically, it can be utilized if software developers choose to do so. Support is not widespread currently, but Chaos Group has it functioning in their V-Ray rendering engine. Just like the new RT and Tensor cores in the RTX cards, we will have to wait and see how developers utilize NVLink.

So, right now I'm shifting back to getting 2080ti since it seems to be the safest bet. And, in a year I can always get a second one with NVLink if Adobe appears to make that a possibility.

This is a bit over my head. I really just want to be creative more and build less... lol.

[RjL190365]

Well, Adobe does not currently support memory pooling in Premiere or any of its other CC apps, and has no current plans to add such support.

[Jim_Simon]

256 more cores isn't enough to make any noticeable difference.

I believe the larger bus will.

[Neofilm]

It's more CUDA cores for less money. So, if cuda cores matter does bridging two cards count?

Does bridging two cards count as more bus?

[Neofilm]

Also maybe worth mentioning, I do a lot of multi-track long form 4K h.264 video editing. I would like to get into more high resolution photo editing, like stitching 36 high res photos into 360 panos and creating high resolution vr tours. I would also like to dabble with getting to learn other adobe programs like after affects maybe. I've been inhibited to learning new things in the past because of my system performance. My current system is outdated; i980x, gtx 680, 24GB ram... solid state drives and m.2

[Ann Bens]

Moved to Hardware Forum​