Question Upgrade time - what to get?

[eco_bach]

Hardware upgrade time. Or at last considering. All I know is I require more vRAM so that means A6000, the newer Ada Lovelace A6000, or perhaps the RTX 5500-5000 since 24GB RAM would be sufficient.
I just know my current 12GB is a bottleneck.
I do mostly Unreal cinematics and Houdini simulations. In Unreal I'm often crashing due to vRAM constraints.
Considering the prosumer level RTX 4090 but it seems like quite the power hog!
I'm attracted to the higher end Quadro cards for reliability, efficiency and smaller form factor considerations.

And ideally want to avoid having to rebuild an entire new PC around a GPU upgrade. Currently have an older ROG Zenith Xtreme x399 motherboard, dual 12GB (Titan Volta) cards and EVGA 1200w power supply.

When it comes to reviewing hardware specs I quickly feel a migraine coming on so just 2 questions

1. Which GPU should I target? This probably means looking at a lot of benchmark comparisons and making a choice based on price vs performance. Speaking of which benchmarks can be confusing This shows the A5000 way outperforming the A6000 for typical gaming RTX A5000 vs Quadro RTX A6000 - Technical City
2. What is the best way of determing motherboard compatibility?

Thanks for any feedback!

NVIDIA RTX & Quadro Desktop Workstations

 

[Eximo]

All PCIe graphics cards are basically compatible with any motherboard. X399 will have no issues running anything

Older RTX 3090 and 3090Ti are the equivalents of the higher end A5000, A5500, and A6000, these are all Ampere based cards. (GA) (Geforce Ampere)

RTX 4090 is going to be the beefiest way to get to 24GB, and the latest architecture. These are Ada Lovelace (AD) (Ada)

Very specifically:
NVIDIA RTX 6000 ADA GENERATION, not RTX A6000, which might be the most confusing thing they've done yet. (Near as I can tell, not yet launched, they are listed and linked though, but nothing for sale) - Rumors suggest a potential 800W TDP for the RTX 6000 Ada, so if you think they will get you away from the power requirements, think again, also 600W for the next step down.

You will have to consider your PSU if you want more than one 4090. That would mean 6/8 PCIe 8-pin and using adapters. Or getting a $400 PSU with dual 12VHPWR 16-pin connectors.

You also need to consider slot spacing and room inside your case. RTX4090 are enormous. Length, width, and PCIe expansion slots are at least 3.5 if not 3.75. So 4-slot spacing is a must. Meaning you need at least 8 PCIe expansion slots in your chassis. If you have only 7, then it isn't likely that two will fit.

 

[eco_bach]

Thanks. No not going to go the dual GPU route.
Wasn’t aware you can ‘power limit’ gpus. Do you know if this is just a software setting?

 

[Eximo]

Yes, there are several ways to set a limit on GPUs. MSI Afterburner is the typical tool. vBIOS modifications would be the other method.