HI, considering the new GPU cards on the market, I am looking for users’ experience and recommendations as our labs seek to expand processing capacity.
How stable is the 3090 for cryoSPARC and RELION running on TRX40 motherboard (or similar)? Is overheating often an issue? We would consider 2x 3080Ti if it increases stability. One company has recommended using 2x A4000 due to increased stability (and availability), but it seems much slower in the benchmarks (6,144 cores compared to 10,240 in 3080Ti), although it has 16GB memory and lower power consumption.
Has anyone had a good experience with CentOS7? I see some problems, here and here, in addition to the firewall issues during setup. Can CryoSPARC become stable on this OS? We only have experience with cryoSPARC/Relion in Ubuntu and it works well. One GPU provider can easily pre-compile their cryoEM software (RELION and others) with CentOS and will attempt cryoSPARC install, but the cryosparc install does not come with technical support down the line. I think Ubuntu is an option, but we would just have to install most or all of the software ourselves after they install CUDA drivers.
We are seeking increased processing throughput, as all users share one workstation currently. We are basically processing 24/7 on a workstation with 2x 2080Ti. No one works on very large proteins (say max 500px box), so I think the 3090 is probably overkill in terms of GPU memory for our needs, but the lack of upper limit would be nice down the line if we move to larger particles. That being said, if the 3080Ti provides drastically increased stability, we would strongly consider it.