One Workstation or Multiple separate computers?

Topaz Video AI General
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Hi, I have 6pcs Nvidia rtx 3090 available and my main question is whether:

  1. build one standalone PC with all GPUs connected via GPU risers? Is it possible to use Multiple GPU rendering on one PC and will the rendering be spread over all GPUs or will they be limited by CPU operational threads, PCI-e transfer, etc.?

  2. build multiple (6x?) separate PCs each with one GPU. And can topas distribute rendering over a local network? (such as when rendering in 3D visualization programs such as Autodesk 3DS max, when the auxiliary program has two parts - 1x controlling app and then X so-called slaves. Here you also only need one license for 3Ds max and each slave can render without a license for the program itself).

  3. build multiple (6x) separate PCs and work on each separately? (this will probably be demanding on the price of the Topaz license :frowning: )

Which of the options to go for, how could it work best? Of course there are questions:

  • the price of building a PC with a quality CPU
  • price of Topaz licenses for multiple PCs
    vs. rendering speed and user control.
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To use the multi-GPU processing workflow you would need to upgrade to a Pro License.

Doing a distributed workflow on a network is an option but would be a custom build of the app and that would fall under an Enterprise license which would be more expensive than the Pro License. If you want a quote on this, email the Enterprise team at enterprise@topazlabs.com

An Individual license does allow you to use the app on two different computers at the same time, as each license comes with two seats. So to cover 6 systems you would need three licenses.

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To add to Kyle’s reply regarding multiple licences, you would need to contact support directly to purchase additional ones as you can’t do that on the website. It defies logic that you can buy extra seats for Photo AI from your existing account, but not for TVAI.

Also, despite what Topaz would like you to think, you CAN use your personal licence to make use of multiple GPUs for a single video if you’re prepared to use the CLI to segment, process and concatenate the renders. But for multiple videos, you can do that in the UI with a bit of faffing round. You would need to select the GPU before starting the 1st render, then change to another GPU for the next, and so on, up to the maximum 4 parallel processes (in a single PC).

If you can afford the hardware and extra licences (or seats) you will certainly get maximum performance using separate PCs, rather than multiple GPUs in a single PC.

Thanks

Andy

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