Thunderbolt + Tesla?

[kitsunestudios]

Just had an odd thought.

Thunderbolt is generally too slow to get good external GPU performance, since it's 4xPCI E. But what about using CUDA or OpenCL acceleration? Could you pop a Quadro Pro or Tesla card into a Thunderbolt enclosure and get decent GPU renders from Adobe or blender Cycles? Or would you be better off buying a tiny PC with a pumped up graphics card as a render box over a network?

If the former, I wonder if nVidea or ATI would consider making a native Thunderbolt stream processor box.

 

[leman]

Just had an odd thought.

Thunderbolt is generally too slow to get good external GPU performance, since it's 4xPCI E. But what about using CUDA or OpenCL acceleration? Could you pop a Quadro Pro or Tesla card into a Thunderbolt enclosure and get decent GPU renders from Adobe or blender Cycles? Or would you be better off buying a tiny PC with a pumped up graphics card as a render box over a network?

If the former, I wonder if nVidea or ATI would consider making a native Thunderbolt stream processor box.

I don't think that such product would be a commercial success due to the limited number of potential clients. But overall, I don't see why something like this would not work.

 

[thekev]

NVidia doesn't even have Tesla support on OSX. I wouldn't get too hopeful.

 

[audiodragon32]

I have got two Tesla M2050 Cards to work in a 2009 Mac Pro. Is recognized and runs 3D rendering. So yes, there is hope.