New computer + external graphics card?

[iopq]

For what it's worth, my PC is in Australia, in a room without air conditioning, with my GTX 1070 GPU inside the box, and I've never had a problem with it running too hot. You need a big enough box

I will stop you right there. There is nothing that actually makes a bigger case better for airflow. Room for bigger fans? Sure. Room for a larger card? Definitely. Actually cooler? Who knows?!

at least two fans.

[citation needed] My GPU runs just fine without an extra fan, it runs at 70C steady state 24/7 at 21C ambient

you have limited space and need your PC to be inside a smaller case. My previous PC (without GPU) did overheat sometimes on a hot day, but it wasn't in a gaming case, so the ventilation wasn't so good.

Check out my build, it's ridiculously small, yet it houses an RTX 2060 with a riser cable



the GPU itself is a side intake fan in my system, so I have no need for a side intake

my CPU cooler is downdraft style, so it's a second intake on the OTHER side of the system - this is called a sandwich style case



I just have ONE exhaust on the top. The total volume of my case is 5.25L or so. If the case was made differently it could house a longer GPU (if the case was more long than tall).

[iopq]

I changed the fan at the top, but I am kind of regretting it. I literally forced it in by whittling it a bit on the side. But the problem is that the top grille is not great for noise, so being so CLOSE to it is not good. The reason the case manufacturer put in a smaller fan is to leave a bit of room to decrease noise from the grille. My temperature is 2C lower, but the extra whine is annoying. I turned the fan down, but the average temperature of the GPU still stayed below 70C, so it's still a benefit overall. But I wish I just went with a 15 mm fan for this case to get it further away from the grille. A better pattern probably would have had better noise AND thermals, but I didn't really think of comparing grille patterns!

I also have bad luck with Flex PSUs (that's a form factor - it's a smaller type of PSU). They all have a higher pitched whine from the smaller fan.

So I'd probably go with something like a Velka 5 or a Chinese copy

[iopq]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFRBnJdx3Y

this card is very interesting, it's $300 and has close performance to the $500 2070 Super in SOME compute workloads

I would be curious if it actually has like 20% better performance in Go engines/machine learning

[Bill Spight]

Many thanks to everyone for your kind advice.

The computer is up and running with Ubuntu 18.04. More needs to be done to make it ready for deep learning. The 2080 Ti graphics card is currently using the default nouveau driver. The recommended driver is an nvidia-440. I can install a third party driver from PPA repository or download the driver from Nvidia. The Linuxconfig.org site has a good how-to. My question is whether getting the driver from Nvidia is worth the trouble. The procedure is rather involved. I would have to disable the nouveau driver and install the Nvidia driver from the command line. I grew up on the command line, so that is not a particular problem. Still, it's time and trouble and there is a possibility of screwing up. Is it worth it to get the official Nvidia driver?

Many thanks.

BTW, I ended up with a hybrid graphics card, more or less by accident. I am happy with the cooling, though. This afternoon my office got up to 25 degrees Centigrade, and it's barely spring.

[xela]

I think you need the NVidia driver, otherwise CUDA won't work. (I don't know this for sure -- my machine came with Ubuntu and drivers pre-installed, so I haven't tested with the Nouveau driver.) When I upgraded the driver, installing a new version from PPA was pretty straightforward. CUDA on the other hand had to come from Nvidia directly and ate up a couple of hours.

Good luck, and please keep us updated!

[Bill Spight]

I think you need the NVidia driver, otherwise CUDA won't work. (I don't know this for sure -- my machine came with Ubuntu and drivers pre-installed, so I haven't tested with the Nouveau driver.) When I upgraded the driver, installing a new version from PPA was pretty straightforward. CUDA on the other hand had to come from Nvidia directly and ate up a couple of hours.

Good luck, and please keep us updated!

Thanks. What I meant was PPA vs. Nvidia. It sounds like PPA is good enough.

[xela]

Thanks. What I meant was PPA vs. Nvidia. It sounds like PPA is good enough. :)

Oh, I misinterpreted you. Yes. The PPA is sometimes a version or two behind the latest Nvidia release, but that doesn't seem to cause any problems. Of course, any time you mess with graphics drivers, you want to make sure you've got some recovery instructions on a piece of paper (or other medium you can access if your computer screen isn't cooperating). But hopefully you won't be needing those instructions :-)

[Bill Spight]

Of course, any time you mess with graphics drivers, you want to make sure you've got some recovery instructions

Like a sharp rap with a small hammer to the back of the machine?



BTW, if you have never seen the movie, No Time for Sergeants, I highly recommend it.

[spook]

Cloud computing really is the future, in my opinion.

For example, I love what NVIDIA is doing with their "GeForce Now" project,
to popularize cloud GPU computing for video games.

I develop a website called "ZBaduk" (not that popular yet),
which applies the same concept, but just for Go.
You can use it to study and play Go with Leela Zero and KataGo.
The advantage is that you don't need a strong computer at all, because it uses GPU servers.

You can create a free account if you don't mind a popup now and then.
But even commercial memberships start below 3 eur / month.
(What does a gaming computer even cost these days? 1500 usd ?)

The way I see it:
The cloud was invented just for playing and studying Go.

Having said all that, I admire your beautiful pictures.
Building a computer can give a lot of satisfaction. Looks great !

[Bill Spight]

Cloud computing really is the future, in my opinion.

For example, I love what NVIDIA is doing with their "GeForce Now" project,
to popularize cloud GPU computing for video games.

I develop a website called "ZBaduk" (not that popular yet),
which applies the same concept, but just for Go.
You can use it to study and play Go with Leela Zero and KataGo.
The advantage is that you don't need a strong computer at all, because it uses GPU servers.

You can create a free account if you don't mind a popup now and then.
But even commercial memberships start below 3 eur / month.
(What does a gaming computer even cost these days? 1500 usd ?)

The way I see it:
The cloud was invented just for playing and studying Go.

Having said all that, I admire your beautiful pictures.
Building a computer can give a lot of satisfaction. Looks great !

Thank you.

As it turns out, I have broader interests than using Leela or KataGo, although I am interested in doing so. For instance, I am interested in developing a strong player for the Capture Game, for pedagogical purposes. I am interested in developing a strong player for Coupon Go. I am also interested in developing a difference game solver, despite the difficulty. And I have other ideas I would like to play around with.

Not that I am expecting to be able to do the whole job of any of these things without using the Cloud, except maybe the Capture Game.