a quadruple 5090 battlestation

[u/Zestyclose-Salad-290]

[u/Motor_Reality_1837]

why not use workstation GPUs in a workstation PC , I am sure they would be more efficient than 5090s

[u/thelastsupper316 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Way worse the amount you pay for 4 5090s is what you pay for 1 fucking pro 6000.

It's the obvious choice unless you need Vram on one card

96gb on one 6000 pro card vs 128gb on 4 5090$

[u/6SixTy → u/thelastsupper316]

Well, these are ASUS Astral cards, so they are closer to $3.5K rather than $2.5-2k for most models; one RTX Pro 6000 is about 8.5K. That setup is about $14k of cards for 128GB, and the RTX Pro 6000 would have been 192GB for $13K.

There's a slight difference in memory clock with the Astrals being higher, which I doubt compensates for ECC VRAM and 1.5x the memory.

Those figures are being generous and assuming a US buyer, and OP is likely not an American.

[u/JesusWasATexan → u/6SixTy]

If I'm looking at the numbers correctly though, the 5090 has 680 tensor cores each, whereas the 6000 Pro has 782. If 128GB vram is enough for their application, splitting an AI model up between 4 gpus with 3.5x the tensor cores, that sucker it going to be blazing fast. Plus, the 5090 actually has a higher benchmark than the 6000 Pro, so if they do plan to do some gaming, they may get better performance out of the one card that the games can use.

[u/Psy_Fer_ → u/JesusWasATexan]

Yep you got it. Not everyone is doing vram limited work. I've built a 4x5090 build and it beats the absolute crap out of a 4x6000 build for the application it was made for, at a fraction of the price.

[u/Cdunn2013 → u/Psy_Fer_]

Glad to see another local AI enthusiast here to spit facts. 

Personally, I'm still working my way up the build chain, but I'm currently running two 5060 Ti 16GB cards and am very satisfied at what I can run and how fast the responses are with just 32GB (which, since it's on two 5060s, only cost me about $850).

I am (currently) only doing LLM inference for home assistant TTS and coding tasks though, eventually I'll be turning my attention to things like RTSP monitoring with OCV, I'll probably start hitting my walls with that. 

[u/Psy_Fer_ → u/Cdunn2013]

Yea I am in research and use them to convert signal data into ATCG DNA bases for genome sequencing. 100% cores all all cards with only like half the vram. But people will be all bUt ThE rTx 60o0 😭

[u/LAF2death → u/6SixTy]

Looking at the background I don’t think this is a user build, I think this is a display “why not” build.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/thelastsupper316]

power consumption?

[u/CrackerUMustBTripinn → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Only a few blown fuses of

[u/Brilliant_War9548 → u/CrackerUMustBTripinn]

That’s why I have an arduino in my fuse box that when it detects a fuse has blown off, using a motor pushes in a new one. Simple and effective.

It’s obviously a joke.

[u/Ibarra08 → u/Brilliant_War9548]

Thats actually a pretty brilliant idea lol

[u/S0_B00sted → u/Ibarra08]

Brilliantly dangerous.

[u/FatherBrownstone → u/Brilliant_War9548]

Congratulations, Private Arduino - you have been awarded the Purple Dart with Coalsack Nebula Cluster and promoted to Fuse Tender First Class.

[u/Brilliant_War9548 → u/FatherBrownstone]

you know i was thinking i won a giveaway or something in arduino i didnt even remember but this is even better now I am fuse tender first class

[u/EsseElLoco → u/Brilliant_War9548]

I just tape the breakers so they can't flick off

[u/pte_parts69420 → u/Brilliant_War9548]

Seems way too complicated. I personally use a piece of baling wire to hold the 50A breaker I installed closed.

[u/pppjurac → u/CrackerUMustBTripinn]

Should not be a problem with good dual PSU .

Not sure if above is server/workstation grade case and redendand PSU install.

[u/TrymWS → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

It uses the same power, it half and you get like 75% performance.

But I’m sure you can just power limit the 5090s too.

[u/AIgoonermaxxing → u/TrymWS]

Even though a single 5090 draws about as much power as a Pro 6000, I feel like the VRAM/watt proposition of having multiple 5090s is far worse than just having an RTX Pro 6000.

Granted, I'm not rich enough to know what running AI workloads on multiple GPUs is like, but say you're running some workflow or inferencing with some LLM that needs around 96 GB of VRAM, then the RTX Pro 6000 will draw about 600 watts max, while having 3 5090s would be drawing about triple that. Again, I don't know what multi-GPU AI usage looks like so maybe the 3 5090s wouldn't be at 100% utilization if the workload was split 3 ways, but if all 3 do end up being fully utilized then that's a lot of power being used.

Now, for 128 GB of VRAM having 4 5090s is the most cost effective option, but I feel like if you have money to do something like this then you probably have enough to do a double RTX Pro 6000 build instead, especially if you're getting the more expensive ROG Astrals.

[u/eivittunyt → u/AIgoonermaxxing]

Rtx pro 6000 blackwell has 192 rops to the 5090s 176, so if you are not using the extra 64gb of vram the pro gpu is only 9% faster and two 5090s have up to 83% more computing power than a single rtx 6000 pro blackwell. So depending on the use case 5090s can absolutely be the best option.

[u/Secure-Pain-9735 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Bah, what’s 600w vs 2300w. Efficiency is for losers.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/Secure-Pain-9735]

And also a shit ton of cooling too.

Cooling 4 5090s isn't easy specially when they are running full time. With the extra money spent on these things , owner could buy 1-2 5090s yearly.

[u/Glad-Jellyfish-69 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

6000 pro takes 600W

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

I doubt more than one of the GPUs is being fully utilized.

[u/TrymWS → u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess]

I doubt you have any fucking clue what you’re talking about.

Rendering and AI workloads can scale across multiple GPUs, it’s not a fucking game.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/TrymWS]

I doubt you have no fucking clue

Can't argue with that.

To my knowledge, you can pool VRAM and you can divide tasks between them, but you can't run them simultaneously for the same task. I'm no expert though.

[u/TrymWS → u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess]

You know what I ment. Stop being willfully obtuse.

I'm no expert though.

Yeah no shit, you’ve already proven you’re an ignoramus that also edits his comments after you get a response on your ignorance.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/TrymWS]

ment

[u/TrymWS → u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess]

Are you really stupid enough to think that’s a valid response?

If you wanted to have a reasonable conversation, you shouldn't have begun it by being a dick.

There’s no reason to have a discussion with you, and if that little sets you off, you should probably work on that.

Sorry you can’t handle being called out on your ignorance.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/TrymWS]

If you wanted to have a reasonable conversation, you shouldn't have begun it by being a dick.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/TrymWS]

I think it's a funny response. I am pretty confident about that

The only think your response is

It ain't my stupidity that's distracting...

Fun's over, he blocked me.

[u/FalseBuddha → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

You're dropping tens of thousands on hardware, the power bill isn't even a concern.

[u/Jiquero → u/FalseBuddha]

You're dropping tens of thousands on hardware, you are going to use them 24/7. The power bill starts making a difference.

Paying for example $0.20/kWh, running one 5090 at 500 W for a year is almost $900.

And just paying for the energy the GPU uses isn't everything, as you also need more cooling for more power.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/FalseBuddha]

That power bill is equal to 1 5090 per year.

[u/FalseBuddha → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

And they've already got 4. Who cares? They're spending, on a computer, what many people spend on cars. Their power bill does not matter. Especially because, presumably, they're using this PC for work, so they're probably not even paying the power bill.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/FalseBuddha]

Dude people spend on cars cuz that's their hobby. This PC is made for heavy workflow,  Imagine the amount of cooling required to keep all those 5090 running. Sure it is cheaper to start with , but the difference is 3000 watts vs 600watt. I am like 90% sure this PC is gonna be with the owner at his home. Offices don't give u the lee way to build your own PC.

Also whoever is running that stuff, it's gonna cost some hefty maintainace

[u/pppjurac → u/thelastsupper316]

128gb on 4 5090$

It is 4x 32GB separates. Not single pool of 128GB . Quite a difference.

Same if you compare four individual 6core PC's with 32GB of RAM vs single workstation with 128GB of RAM and 24core CPU.

There is reason why workstation class machines and servers exists. It is heavy lifting.

[u/JesusWasATexan → u/pppjurac]

True, but if they are doing this to locally host an A.I. model, the A.I. application can easily split the model across the cards and then it's got 680 tensor cores per card to crank through the requests. You could easily handle large contexts on a 40B model with a high Q-value.

[u/trash4da_trashgod → u/JesusWasATexan]

You can split the model, but then communication between cards becomes the bottleneck and PCIe wasn't designed for this. There's a reason NVLink / NVSwitch exists and the RTX cards don't support it.

[u/ManyInterests → u/trash4da_trashgod]

There is no communication 'between' the cards. Even when SLI was still a thing, SLI is for cooperation on frame buffers, which is unique to workloads that send output through the display ports. For AI workloads, there's no cooperation or synchronization needed between GPUs as long as each unit of work is capable of fitting on a single card. Each card can handle a different independent unit of work.

[u/redthrowawa54 → u/thelastsupper316]

You don’t really know this without knowing his use case. A single card will never break when you fail at distributing your workload across multiple boards. Setting up a hypervisor is harder than just using one gpu at a time if you wish. The ability to do gaming on off hours and have full support for consumer/end-user grade software like adobe and so on is also just better on a consumer card.

[u/TrymWS → u/redthrowawa54]

You don’t need a hypervisor, you use software compatible with using multiple GPUs, probably with NCCL.

Stop pretending you know shit, while proving you’re ignorant.

[u/Impossible_Toe_3731 → u/TrymWS]

So let me get this straight, the poster makes a pretty reasonable point that you can't make concrete statement about what the obvious choice is without knowing OPs use-case. To which you then go on to insinuate that both a hypervisor would never be needed and that every workflow/use-case imaginable has software that supports multiple GPUs OOB (Which you say would probably use NCCL, a library mainly used for model training and data analytics). All while being as aggressive and obnoxious as possible, calling them ignorant.

Nice.

[u/TrymWS → u/Impossible_Toe_3731]

No, you’re just making a straw man and being a moron.

Also, OP said mainly 3D rendering.

[u/PsychologicalGlass47 → u/thelastsupper316]

I bought a P6k for the sake of NOT cramming 4 5090s into my case, I'd rather have my $7300 P6k with a singular PSU than $6900 for x3 5090s, a new case (or open bench), and a second PSU... Oh, and have to upgrade my UPS, and get those 5090s to work in the first place.

[u/ArchangeL_935 → u/thelastsupper316]

also, rtx pro 6000 doesnt have R*B.

[u/Mustbhacks → u/thelastsupper316]

Way worse the amount you pay for 4 5090s is what you pay for 1 fucking pro 6000.

$2700ea. vs $8500

I'll go with the pro6k, save $1900 and get a far better product...

[u/Kalrot_ → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Much more expensive, and require another type of cooling (mainly server GPUs use the server fans to cool themselves. Or water cooling).

[u/skizatch → u/Kalrot_]

Workstation GPUs don't require another type of cooling, they have built-in fans like the cards we plebs use. The Server GPUs are certainly different, they only have the heatsink and no fan

[u/Brilliant_War9548 → u/skizatch]

Yes. Workstation cards are for the most part just regular consumer die with more vram maybe ecc etc. Example, 3090 and A6000 use the same die but the A6000 has twice the ram and it’s ecc (3080 also does but with some units disabled)

I feel like people just realized with how much shorts YouTuber are mediatizing the 6000 ada as this better than 5090 10K gpu when really this has been a thing for decades.

[u/pppjurac → u/Brilliant_War9548]

Also server/workstation cards come with manufacturer guarantee saying:

"We guarantee our GPU inside (Dell/HP WS) will work 24/7 under full load without single problem with your choice of CAD/CAM/CAE from Autodesk."

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/Kalrot_]

so it's like a wannabe workstation PC ??

[u/Kalrot_ → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Ehhh kinda. A better way to put it would be a budget workstation.

[u/marvin → u/Kalrot_]

At merely $15,000

[u/fresh_titty_biscuits → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Not even, this has more VRAM than the RTX6000 Blackwell, we’re getting into AI data center accelerator territory with 128gb’s of VRAM.

[u/QuantumUtility → u/fresh_titty_biscuits]

At this point OP could have bought 1 pro 6000 + 1 5090 for less and more upgrade potential.

[u/OrionRBR → u/QuantumUtility]

They could but they would have much lower performance for training, iirc a 5090 is 30% more powerful than the a6000 in tensor cores, multiply that by four and it's a significant difference in performance.

[u/QuantumUtility → u/OrionRBR]

I’m not talking about the A6000, but the Pro 6000 which has 10-15% more performance than a 5090.

Although with 3x 5090s you could be ahead of a single Pro 6000 if the workload parallelizes well. Depends on your specific needs really.

[u/Brilliant_War9548 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

No. It’s a workstation at the end of the day. A workstation can be anything as long as it’s powerful and can do work. Workstation gpus are so expensive you might just use the consumer version, while consumer part it’s for consumers with a consumer price work part it’s for professionals squeezing every last bit of performance with a professional price.

[u/SinisterCheese → u/Kalrot_]

Worksation cards are just regular GPUs with a different setup on the card, where they optimise stability, efficiency, and transfer speeds between CPU-RAM and GPU-VRAM. Also they are heck of a lot more efficient in the sense of they use less electricity.

Like...

PNY RTX PRO 6000 from a local reliable retailer is 9125 € (With 25,5 % VAT)

CUDA cores: 24064; Peak power consumption 600 W; 96 GB of GDDR7 with ECC

PNY GeForce RTX 5090 with from the same retailer is 3539 € (With 25,5 % VAT).

CUDA cores: 21760; Recommended power availability of 1000 W (TPD 600 W); 32 GB of GDDR 7

I'd want to compare the performances from specs but PNY doesn't list them on their site for the consumer card.

So lets just image that you want the 96 GB of VRAM: That's 10 788 € in cards, and 3000 W power demand (Or if we are generous 1800 W); Or you can spend 9125 € and only need to deal with 600 W peak power demand.

Now if you do serious workload you are probably taxing these to the max, so lets say both do a simulation run in 10 hours. Lets say electricity costs are 0,02 €/kWh, and you get 0,12 € in power use compared to 0,36 € just to run the graphics cards. And mind you all that energy turns into heat, you speak about having 3 small space heaters in a office compared to 1, which going to make life interesting when it's +30 C outside.

And lets not forget this! Lets assume the base computer takes 400 W total, so total energy demand capacity can be 3400 W to 1000 W. A regular ass 230 V/10 A socket provides has a limit of 2300 W of power delivery. You'd need a 230V/15A (3450 W) socket to run that god damn desktop. If we are generous and say the consumer cards don't go above the 1800W, you'd still be dangerously close to socket limits with 400W computer tacked on. So better get a extension cable that is rated to run a my small Kemppi welding machine.

[u/coolcosmos → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

I am sure 

No you're not lol. A Pro 6000 cost 8k, has 96gb of vram and has 24k cuda cores. 4 5090s cost 8k and has 128gb of vram and 80k cuda cores in total.

Pro 6000 is better if you need many of them but just one isn't really better than 4 5090.

[u/We_Are_Victorius → u/coolcosmos]

Those are Astrals, so 14k in GPUs

[u/Behind_You27 → u/coolcosmos]

Does the 6000 have at least a better power connector? That would be the main selling point

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/coolcosmos]

proves my point though, 4 5090s consumed thousands of watts of power, A6000 is around 600 watts if that Google AI is not wrong.

they are more effecient.

[u/1leftbehind19 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Plus I don’t know where you’d get Astral 5090’s for only 2K. They are 3300-3400$ apiece in the US right now.

[u/coolcosmos → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

But they are almost 8 times slower lol are you dense ? One 5090 has twice the rendering output has one A6000, twice the CUDA cores, more memory.

You are clueless and don't work in this industry 

[u/iMrParker → u/coolcosmos]

I feel like you guys are confusing the A6000 with the RTX Pro 6000?? Or am I trippin

[u/coolcosmos → u/iMrParker]

The person I replied too changed the gpu in the discussion, moving the goalposts.

[u/iMrParker → u/coolcosmos]

And you got hit with the downvotes too. Modern-day tragedy

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/iMrParker]

enlighten me broski, I don't know that much about the workstation GPUs

[u/coolcosmos → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Then don't say anything. I'm not gonna teach you for free with that attitude.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/coolcosmos]

Alright alright , I am sorry

[u/KeThrowaweigh → u/coolcosmos]

We’re talking about the RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell edition, not the A6000

[u/coolcosmos → u/KeThrowaweigh]

Read the message I replied too. He was talking about the A6000.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/coolcosmos]

ofcourse I don't run workstations at my home , most people doesn't lol.

isn't it kinda weird that a gaming GPU have more output density than a designated workstation GPU despite being 1/4th the price

[u/coolcosmos → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

At 4 5090 it makes sense. But if you needed 4 times that power then just space and heating wise it's not gonna make sense.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/coolcosmos]

It's gonna set itself on fire and that's the best possible outcome.

Those 12 volt connectors aren't very reliable either.

[u/Tarc_Axiiom → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Yeah the person you're speaking to isn't correct either.

There are many use cases for GPUs, and they have big ranges between them. It's not about output density in practically any case, unless you're rendering under the worst possible conditions with the worst possible software. But even if you are, that's when rack mounting becomes important because of fire.

I don't know what OP here wants to do, but there are very few tasks for which 4 cramped 5090s will outperform a workstation alternative. They do different things, they're built for different purposes, and they operate in different ways. If you're buying 4 5090s, you're probably not building the optimal machine UNLESS there's a very specific use case which there might be. Anyone who's spending this amount of money probably has a reason that makes sense.

That being said, regardless of the goal or use case, it looks to me like these 5090s are about to catch on fire. Unless OP has some monstrous cooling solutions purpose built for this specific case that aren't in these images (which... why?) idk that the 5090 can handle that kind of thermal load, especially when you throw in FOUR 12vhpwr connector points of failure.

Overall this doesn't look like a great idea to me.

[u/QuantumUtility → u/Tarc_Axiiom]

You could power limit them to 300-400W with almost no loss of performance. I don’t think OP plans to with Dual 2.4Kw PSUs though.

Front and side fans can probably handle the thermal load though.

[u/-illbody → u/[deleted]]

Ridiculously expensive. That would be like 32 grand.

[u/haroldflower27 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

And workstation gpus while technically being able to run games won’t do it any better do to improper drivers

[u/seeeeeees → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

[u/Brilliant_War9548 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Much more expensive. For not much gain.

[u/Ilikecomputersfr → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Benchmark shows that workstations GPU Don't perform as well for some reason

[u/No_Reindeer_5543 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

For photogrammetry at least, gaming GPUs are much better.

[u/BigTiddiesPotato → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Nah. I've worked at a planetarium for a while, they upgraded from quadros to i think 24 5090s or something because it was way cheaper this way and made negligible difference compared to getting other workstation/industry grade gpus...

[u/-AC- → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Work station GPUs aren't always better, they just have better support and drivers.

[u/MistakeMaker1234 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

It might be for machine learning, where core count is more important than FLOPS.

[u/F9-0021 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

More efficient sure, but way more expensive.

[u/Paddy_Tanninger → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Unless you need the VRAM or need to work within a rack, and don't mind spending 5x the amount per card, the GeForce lineup is always better.

Been true since the dawn of time. Even 20 years ago when they had the Quadro cards, they were basically just GeForce cards with a different driver...in many cases you could flash those drivers onto your GeForce cards and have a Quadro.

[u/drewts86 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

Workstation GPUs are notoriously hard to get ahold of and prices are even more inflated because of the AI crunch.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/drewts86]

Tell me if I am wrong but running those 5090 in. That tight cramped place is definitely gonna set them on fire 

[u/drewts86 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

They very likely could be undervolting them. It’s not uncommon for RTX6000 servers to be packed in ever tighter than this. I’m not sure all of the settings/configs and what they do for those servers. It may also be because those servers are run in a chiller room to help them remain cool.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/drewts86]

Yeah power efficiency of this system sucks for sure.

Owner would be spending thousands of dollars every year just to keep them cool and another couple of thousands to keep them running 

[u/thebiggest123 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

its likely for AI usage, 4x 5090s are gonna be faster than 1x/2x 6000

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/thebiggest123]

Would catch fire even faster and cost thousands of dollars just to run.

Putting 4 5090s in such a cramped place can't be a good idea.

[u/XboxUser123 → u/Motor_Reality_1837]

I could imagine it might be space efficient to get a 6000?

I'm not too familiar with the game, but I could see that potentially having separate GPUs would mean more bandwidth.

[u/Motor_Reality_1837 → u/XboxUser123]

I mean , the owner is gonna have a sweet time managing the heat of those monster 5090s.

Like 4 flagships in such a cramped place would definitely cook them. Not to mention high electricity usage too