Tesla P4 - 8GB / US$ 100 or even lower

[FlorianZ]

Does something like this Quadro P4 work for accelerating CAD programs like AutoCAD or the likes of Adobe Photoshop or Premiere when using another GPU for video output? I'm thinking workstation use, not vGPU or any virtualization.

Yes, in Windows that works - supposedly (haven't tried it myself). It's the same mechanism that makes iGPU and dGPU work together in laptops, where the display is only connected to the iGPU. There is an extra framebuffer copy that can introduce latency, but you still get accelerated graphics. I don't know if this works with Linux, though.

I can't get this to work in a kvm guest, though. The kvm process just hangs on guest startup after a crash in vfio, as soon as I pass the physical GPU through along with the vGPU. If I just pass through one or the other I have no problems. I bet you won't run into this if you pass both GPUs through as physical (rather than mediated) devices, or if you're running on bare metal.

EDIT: I failed to mention this earlier, but while multi-GPU should work in general, the NVIDIA Tesla cards in particular can bet set to compute-only (TCC) and graphics (WDDM) modes, and default to TCC out-of-the-box. I believe you will need the GRID vGPU driver to put them in WDDM mode, and the regular Quadro driver does not let you do that. Take that with a grain of salt. I haven't played with that myself, and there may be patches/tools/hacks that I am unaware of, and remember this only matters if you use the GPU on bare-metal or in non-vGPU PCI pass-through mode.

 

[Glock24]

There is no Quadro P4. However, this hugly depends on your software. You probably wont see any benefit if your output is different. For rendering or video encoding you can choose a dedicated gpu in most cases.

I meant Tesla P4. Well, it seems the only way is to test using more than one GPU and see if the program uses the GPU that is not connected to the monitor.

 

[Xeroxxx]

EDIT: I failed to mention this earlier, but while multi-GPU should work in general, the NVIDIA Tesla cards in particular can bet set to compute-only (TCC) and graphics (WDDM) modes, and default to TCC out-of-the-box. I believe you will need the GRID vGPU driver to put them in WDDM mode, and the regular Quadro driver does not let you do that. Take that with a grain of salt. I haven't played with that myself, and there may be patches/tools/hacks that I am unaware of, and remember this only matters if you use the GPU on bare-metal or in non-vGPU PCI pass-through mode.

Yes you need the GRID Driver and a license, this will allow WDDM mode and attaches a virtual display.

 

[efschu3]

...

EDIT: I failed to mention this earlier, but while multi-GPU should work in general, the NVIDIA Tesla cards in particular can bet set to compute-only (TCC) and graphics (WDDM) modes, and default to TCC out-of-the-box. I believe you will need the GRID vGPU driver to put them in WDDM mode, and the regular Quadro driver does not let you do that. Take that with a grain of salt. I haven't played with that myself, and there may be patches/tools/hacks that I am unaware of, and remember this only matters if you use the GPU on bare-metal or in non-vGPU PCI pass-through mode.

If you are using KVM you can just change(/set) the PCIe ID to the one of a corresponding quadro ID, then you can use Quadro Driver

 

[FlorianZ]

If you are using KVM you can just change(/set) the PCIe ID to the one of a corresponding quadro ID, the you can use Quadro Driver

That's a neat trick! I hadn't thought about that... and the Quadro driver will then put the Tesla card in WDDM mode?

 

[efschu3]

That's a neat trick! I hadn't thought about that... and the Quadro driver will then put the Tesla card in WDDM mode?

Yes. See vgpu_unlock on GitHub/discord

 

[FlorianZ]

Yes. See vgpu_unlock on GitHub/discord

I think we are talking about different things: I was talking about PCI device pass-through of the entire GPU (or using the device on bare metal). There is no GRID driver on the host, and subsequently no vgpu_unlock involved. You can still override the PCIe and subvendor ids on pass-through, though.

 

[efschu3]

I think we are talking about different things: I was talking about PCI device pass-through of the entire GPU (or using the device on bare metal). There is no GRID driver on the host, and subsequently no vgpu_unlock involved. You can still override the PCIe and subvendor ids on pass-through, though.

I ment to look there for the PCIe IDs. There is a list. To match your GRID GPU to the corresponding Quadro GPU.

 

[gb00s]

zero review seller shipped from china. just fyi

Received all my cards today from CHINA with FedEx. Tested, and all work just fine. Seems like they came from a Huawei environment. Just need to figure out migrating VMs on the fly with passing these cards through in a Proxmox HA cluster without any hiccups.

 

[FlorianZ]

I ment to look there for the PCIe IDs. There is a list. To match your GRID GPU to the corresponding Quadro GPU.

Got it! Thank you.

 

[Rahvin9999]

Received the 2 cards I ordered yesterday and was able to test them today.

Packaging was good and the cards themselves are in great cosmetic shape.
Cards worked as they should.
Only thing open for me are the low profile brackets the seller promised to ship to me and should be on their way now.

 

[Markess]

Received all my cards today from CHINA with FedEx. Tested, and all work just fine.

Received the 2 cards I ordered yesterday and was able to test them today.

Packaging was good and the cards themselves are in great cosmetic shape.
Cards worked as they should.

Since the seller seems legit, I thought I'd get one for myself. Offered (US) $90 for one, which I assumed would be countered but was a starting point. Seller countered with $109, I came back with $105, and they countered with...$99!

Okay, twist my arm. I'll give in and buy it for less than what I'd offered.

 

[63z5mgng]

Just got my P4. And love it so far. The only problem I got was the grid driver caps the performance at the beginning since I don't have the legit license. Spent some time to spoof it as Quadro P5000 and with Quadro driver it runs with full capacity.

I am thinking to get another one for my same server. But I learned only one GPU could be unlocked. So how can I use it? Anybody has idea? Thanks.

 

[efschu3]

Just got my P4. And love it so far. The only problem I got was the grid driver caps the performance at the beginning since I don't have the legit license. Spent some time to spoof it as Quadro P5000 and with Quadro driver it runs with full capacity.

I am thinking to get another one for my same server. But I learned only one GPU could be unlocked. So how can I use it? Anybody has idea? Thanks.

Just passthrough it as whole device with spoofed Quadro IDs, no need for vgpu

 

[63z5mgng]

Just passthrough it as whole device with spoofed Quadro IDs, no need for vgpu

so it doesn't need to be unlocked or something? I followed the vgpu unlock tutorial to patch the driver for Proxmox then spoof it as Quadro in VM.

 

[efschu3]

so it doesn't need to be unlocked or something? I followed the vgpu unlock tutorial to patch the driver for Proxmox then spoof it as Quadro in VM.

I see no reason why it should make a difference for spoofing the mdev or the dev itself.

 

[tozmo]

People are saying it would perform similarly to lower-end generational Nvidia GPU's for gaming. Can anyone confirm/deny? I'd love to try cloud gaming for Warzone or other higher-end games (ie not Civ, Sim City 4 or Red Alert 2)

 

[juma]

When spoofing as a Quadro in passthrough mode (not vGPU), is it it still possible to get a display output out of it without a virtual display driver? In other words, how do you get around not being able to plug in dummy display plugs?

 

[63z5mgng]

I see no reason why it should make a difference for spoofing the mdev or the dev itself.

Would you mind tell me how can I do that? right now I have

args: -device 'vfio-pci,sysfsdev=/sys/bus/mdev/devices/<mdev-uuid>,display=off,id=hostpci0.0,bus=ich9-pcie-port-1,addr=0x0.0,x-pci-vendor-id=0x10de,x-pci-device-id=0x1bb0' -uuid <mdev-uuid>

in my proxmox vm config. if i want to pass through P4 directly, how should I spoof it?

thanks.

 

[63z5mgng]

People are saying it would perform similarly to lower-end generational Nvidia GPU's for gaming. Can anyone confirm/deny? I'd love to try cloud gaming for Warzone or other higher-end games (ie not Civ, Sim City 4 or Red Alert 2)

I have tried Tomb Raider and the fps I get most of time is around 50-60. 1080P setting hight.