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Transferring WUs from one GPU to another

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 9:47 pm
by paulmd199
I have a Windows 10 system with 3 nVidia GPUs running the same driver, however, they are not all created equal. Sometimes a job gets assigned to a slower one while a faster one is sitting idle. I would like to know if it is possible to reassign which GPU a WU is allocated to.

For instance I have a job assigned to the 1030 that will take a day and a half to complete, that if i moved to my presently-idling 1660 would take only a few hours, saving considerable compute time, and probably overall power usage. Can this be done?

Specs
1X GT 1030
1X GTX 1050 ti
1x GTX 1660

Re: Transferring WUs from one GPU to another

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:02 pm
by jonault
Personally I wouldn't mess with it. While it might be possible to move a work unit to a different slot, you'd have to throw out the work done by the 1030 & start over, otherwise the 1660 would probably just dump the WU. I think the odds of losing the WU entirely are too great to be worth the risk. IMO it's better to just let the 1660 keep trying to get its own WU so both cards will be busy.

Re: Transferring WUs from one GPU to another

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:38 pm
by bruce
If the GPUs are the same, then yes. If they're different then no. I suspect that having the same GPUSpecies is what matters, but I have not done rigorous testing of that concept.

If you remove a GPU slot which is processing a WU, the client will do one of two things. If there's another GPU that is recognized as "the same" (whatever that means) the WU will be enqueued on the remaining GPU. If there is no GPU that's the same, the WU will be dumped.

In other words, you probably can't do what you want to do.

Re: Transferring WUs from one GPU to another

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:55 pm
by paulmd199
Thanks to you both. Will leave it be.