Grid k2 for $350

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Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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11? No wonder none are left :/

Anyhow are those still the best option for vgpu?
 

timd

Member
Dec 12, 2016
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i had been paying 700 ish and as low as high 500s for the K2. These seem to work really well. I never had much luck with the K1 cards. I do 3 cards per server. They eat up a ton of space and power but you dont have per user licensing costs like with the newer cards.
 

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
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Decided not to buy due to import charges, moving house and trying to reduce my electricity bill! Shame more people here didn't get the chance to buy though.
 

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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Decided not to buy due to import charges, moving house and trying to reduce my electricity bill! Shame more people here didn't get the chance to buy though.
Concur, would have been nice to share the luv arnd a lil'...jus saying. Not salty but dang, did you really need 11 or 12 of these cards?

EDIT: Why don't they have the normal NVIDIA GRID badging on the GPU guts/plastic sleeving. Hope these are legit/correct but that does not leave a warm fuzzy based on the pics.
 
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timd

Member
Dec 12, 2016
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@whitey that is a great question. I actually do need these and have been buying individual cards for the past few weeks trying to get to the number i need for my cluster. my rule of thumb is that if I actually need the items myself I wont hesitate to buy an entire lot, whether posted here or somewhere else. If someone needs one, they can always hit me up and I can pass a deal on. I am so busy with my day job that I am not gonna just buy stuff to flip, not knockin people that do, just dont have time for it.

On another note, I had waited around for people to buy deals from sth when other randoms find the deals and get them before people here get them. also dont forget how broke most of us are here (lol, jk) because we get our discretionary money depleted with good deal after good deal on a near daily basis.

just my two cents
 
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timd

Member
Dec 12, 2016
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@timd What is the use case for these Grid K2? Just curious to know. Thanks :D
hey @hitmanbabyvn we use these to provide a virtual gpu passthrough (vgpu) for virtual desktops running vmware horizon and windows 10. The card basically has 8gb of memory that you can carve up for between 1 and 8 users. we run 3 cards per server and run about 24 users (or less) on Windows 10. The experience for windows 10 is much better with gpu than just running software. It helped in Windows 7 as well, but windows 10 vdi darn near require a gpu.
 

Dav

Member
Jan 20, 2016
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seen it but with amds MxGPUs cards and SR-IOV option i rather wait for those:D
 

nk215

Active Member
Oct 6, 2015
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hey @hitmanbabyvn we use these to provide a virtual gpu passthrough (vgpu) for virtual desktops running vmware horizon and windows 10. The card basically has 8gb of memory that you can carve up for between 1 and 8 users. we run 3 cards per server and run about 24 users (or less) on Windows 10. The experience for windows 10 is much better with gpu than just running software. It helped in Windows 7 as well, but windows 10 vdi darn near require a gpu.
I just want to add a little more info to timd reply. I just don't want ppl to buy Grid card and cant use it due to VMware license restriction.

In order to use vGPU and share the Grid card among more than 2 users (K2 for example), you'll need Enterprise Plus license for VMware. That's not practical for home lab. The alternative is use direct PCI pass-through which basically gives you 2 users per K2 card.

There's an additional drawback (beside from the license) for vGPU (shared PCI). Once it's activated, you can't use vMotion or hot add anything to the VM guest. You also can't mix sVGA and vGPU together.

Grid cards run hot. W/O a good air flow, the card reaches 80C at idle very quickly. I had to actively cool it with around 26 CFM.

A Poor man Grid setup is a bunch of Quadro 4000/2000 cards on the same host using PCI pass-through. This does have an advantage of using sVGA and dedicated GPU on the same host. For most office and youtube/video tasks, sVGA works just fine.
 

Jepong

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Nov 2, 2017
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There are some cards which came from HP. Can I use those HP branded Grid cards on other motherboards like Supermicro perhaps? @Rand__ :)
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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I would say so but wouldnt know for sure. Never had issues with HP rebranded OEM stuff...
 
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