Nvidia Tesla K20Xm z820

[Chris_Robinson9]

Not sure how to do this sorry I’m a nubbie

my specs is 48Gb 1333Mhz DDR3 ECC Ram

dual Xeon E5-5620 V0

gtx 680 4Gb

Tesla K20Xm 6Gb server gpu

What is this GPU to be used for?

I was going to use it mining bitcoin which requires the cuda portion of the gpu

I'm assuming you have the actively cooled version- with blower-style fan. The passively cooled one will absolutely not work as it requires a server-level air flow -80cfm? to cool it.

i have put a second gtx 680 PNY  enthusiast edition shroud on it with fan connections modified to work on the Tesla!

I've never used a K20X, but I'm reasonably sure the K20X should be in the primary GPU slot- and set as the primary in BIOS and then you'll need a Quadro with display output in the secondary slot. Certainly find the installation manual

However, in my view, the K20X is not a strong compute accelerator for use today.  It has 5GB of GDDR5, 2,496, and a healthy 320-bit bandwidth, but it runs at only 760MHz clock speed ( a modern  GTX will be 1800+) is PCIe2.0 and 225W-  and will run quite hot. Actually I think the 5GB is a bit low.

its actually 6Gb

Here's an idea that a bit eccentric and might not suit your needs, but consider a used AMD Vega Frontier Edition.  That has 16GB of HMB2 low latency RAM 4,096 shader units and can run the Radeon Pro driver = the AMD counterpart to Quadro.  These were $1,100 new and now only $400 or so. They can use an enormous mount of power they;re rated at 300W but can peak at to to 425 at the extreme, -but the z820 does have a sufficient power supply.  I think this might need a strong supplemental fan arrangement too.

I'd been thinking of trying a Vega Frontier, but have instead decided to buy a Quadro RTX 4000 as I think it will be better in 3D modeling and the RTX aspect suits my use of VRay. If you're CPU/GPU raytracing renderings there's always RTX.

to expensive right now I had to part out with my mining rig which had 6 gpus in total. 2 gtx 1080, 1 gtx 1070 , amd rx 480 8Gb, rx 580 8Gb, and a Vega 64 to get the z820 just because I had a a failing hdd and couldn’t mine anymore

Another thought is to emulate the z620 configuration of our Forum friend Brian1065 who runs a Quadro P2000 and water cooled GTX 1080ti which for animation rendering.

In any event, it seems some further research is advisable. GPU's have become more specialized - it's rare to find one that can do everything.  The Vega Frontier and the Titan Xp were attempts to do that however.

i can however run the Tesla with the gtx 680 but I can only install the Tesla 311.36 driver force windows 7 64-bit and the Tesla works with the z820 but any other driver won’t work even on Windows 10, tried but with no luck.

[BambiBoomZ]

Chris_Robinson9,

The new post is a bit confusing as the combination of my earlier questions and your answers will not be clear to others who might have contributions.

At this point, it seems a good idea to take a step back and look at the overall situation.

1.  There is no Xeon E5-5620, but there is a Xeon E5620.

2.  The Xeon E5620 is a 4-core /8- thread / LGA1366 processor running at 2.4/2.66GHz

3.  1+2=The system in question is not a z820, but is a z800.

4. In my opinion. the E5260 does not have adequate core count, clock speeds, disk speeds, nor memory bandwidth except for quite basic uses.  Bitcoin mining with this system would consume many times in the cost of electricity over several months any possible Bitcoin yield value.  There have been in  the last several months, hundreds of high-end GPU's put on the market as the result of the uneconomical aspects of mining.  The mining farms had eight or dozens of high end GPU's in a row on the shelves and even with that speed, when Bitcoin the price fell, it could not pay it's way. There was a mining farm in Iceland that ran 100's of GPU's on nearly free- geo-thermal electricity in a cold environment that needed less cooling, and it is now out of business.

The z800 is an excellent system, beautifully made, and ultra-reliable, and with faster processors, GPU, and disks completely useful today- up to a point. 

if you are determined, I'd say consider changing to a pair of X5680 6-cores (check if your motherboard can use it- it has to be the later version), a pair of used Radeon RX 580X 8GB's, add a PCIe RAID controller that will run the disks at SATAIII speeds and use at least a Samsung 860 EVO+ 1TB . But, it would be an expensive hobby; the cost of system- which can not be used for anything else, plus the electricity will never pay for itself. If Bitcoin didn't work out, the same system could be a decent rendering engine, video editing, photo editing, graphic design,  moderate 3D, and so on.

BambiBoomZ

[Chris_Robinson9]

My bad I have the dual Xeon E5-2650 8 core in my z820 with 48Gb ECC 1333Mhz DDR3 Ram. I have however got the K20Xm to work but only on Windows 7 64-bit with the Tesla/quadro 311.36 or so drivers. I do have a quadro fx 1700 but that’s all I got besides the gtx 680 4Gb that’s basically a K20 already because you can hard mod them to become either a grid k1 or k20 by putting resistors on the board but other than that that’s all I got. I was trying to use the Tesla K20Xm as a compute board to mine bitcoin because it uses the cuda of the card but I can’t find any other drivers that work besides the 311. Need a better driver for cuda. As for cooling the K20Xm I have cut the shroud of a gtx 680 4Gb Enthusiast edition and modified the fan to work on the Tesla. I had a 6 gpu mining rig with 2 gtx 1080’s, 1 gtx 1070, a amd rx 480 8Gb, a rx 580 8Gb Andy a Vega 64 but i had to trade for this z820 because my hdd crashed on Mubarak mining rig and wasn’t able to buy another. But I  essentially want to use my  Tesla to mine bitcoin even if it does cost power.

[BambiBoomZ]

Chris_Robinson9,

Ah, that's a different potential.

A couple of points; When using a Tesla/ Quadro, they need to be the same series.  The K20 is a Kepler, so the Quadro should be a Kepler. On a budget, I'd recommend a KX200 , the K2200 and K4200 , both 4GB.  They are very good- I've used both models-and the K2200 is only 70W - no power connector necessary and the K4200 is 105W.  In the US a K2200 is about $80-90 and a K4200- about $110-150. They have a DVI and a couple of DP ports.

I expect that there may not have been a Windows 10 driver for the Tesla, but it's possible. Did you check nvidia.com / drivers?

The E5 first series-including the E5-2650 can use DDR3-1600 ECC registered and I think if you look on Ebay, it's quite reasonable.  Last week I bought 32GB (4X 8GB) of DDR3-1866 ECC reg for $60.  Also, I don't know the arrangement of the  48GB of RAM in your system, but it is quad channel and will run better in sets of four of  the same size module. Note that in dual CPU systems, it's important to follow the layout of the RAM according to channels. CH1- 1,3,5,7 CH2- 2,4,6,8- that kind of thing.  Both CPU's must have the same quantity and I recommend using all identical Samsung RAM with an HP sticker/part number on it.

The E5-2650 is 8-Core/16-thread@ 2.0/2.8GHz, so the thread count is good.  Of course if you run across E5-2680's they are not terribly expensive ($70-90) and  are 8-Core/16-thread@ 2.7/3.5GHz.  I had a z620 with 2X E5-2690 8C@ 2.9/3.8GHz- even better- $120-160.

In getting more air to the Tesla, there are a couple of small USB portable fans that might be set up using an internal USB power.  For example:

https://www.newegg.com/thermaltake-af0007-case-fan/p/N82E16835106140?Description=thermaltake%20usb%2...

Full marks for effort! Let us know how you get on.

BambiBoomZ

[Chris_Robinson9]

The gtx 680 that I have is Kepler so could I possibly use that with the K20X for now? Just wondering because actually the quadro fx 1700 that I have is also a old  architectured Tesla.

[BambiBoomZ · Accepted solution]

Chris_Robinson9,

I believe Teslas have to be paired with Quadros,  The reason is the GPU series has to be the same so as to "share" the driver.

Have a look at this introduction to the NVIDIA "Maximus" configuration:

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2144/~/which-nvidia-graphics-card-can-i-use-with...

https://www.anandtech.com/show/5094/nvidias-maximus-technology-quadro-tesla-launching-today

If there is to be  a Kepler / Quadro, The K2200 4GB is recommended as one of the best cost/ performance bargains. It's faster than a K5000 too, that seem to sell for more I saw a nice K2200 sold for only $55 yesterday. 

How's the cooling arrangement looking?  See how the thermals look and if they're a worry consider the z820 Liquid Cooling Heatsink 635869-002.

BambiBoomZ

[DGroves]

just a FYI, the nvidia GTX 780 is as fast than the telsa k20xm, in most cuda based usage,  and consumes much less power and will work on the z800 under win 10 in bitcoin mining....... so why bash your head against a wall with non supported hardware that consumes more power, has no native win 10 os support and lacks proper cooling..............

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/tesla-k20xm.c1884

if your still determined to try/use the card, use the latest Win 10 nvidia telsa driver which does support the k20xm

https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/129483/en-us

[Chris_Robinson9]

I appreciate the info... I got the Tesla a long time and was never sure how to use it. I just wanted to see the performance of it. I might just get me a quadro then but I’m not sure the on the mining factor with the quadro series. The gtx 1080 and 1070 does mining a lot better than anything but I can’t shell out the money quite yet but I do appreciate your info and will consider getting a quadro soon since there cheap