[SOLVED] - Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Issues related to hardware problems
jmacdougca
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[SOLVED] - Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jmacdougca » 2021/02/17 04:06:41

I currently have

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[orca@orcacomputers ~]$ nvidia-detect
kmod-nvidia
[orca@orcacomputers ~]$ nvidia-detect -v
Probing for supported NVIDIA devices...
[10de:11c6] NVIDIA Corporation GK106 [GeForce GTX 650 Ti]
Now, I have a new GPU Geforce RTX 2060 https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/

I am curious do I simply boot down the machine, install new hardware and reboot and

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kmod-nvidia
will pick up the new gpu driver? Or do I download the driver from the Nvidia site? Reason I ask is I see kmod-nvidia looks like it was updated last in 2015 so I'm not certain if the kmod-nvidia will have the updated driver. Likely won't work with new GPU so next option is to use proprietary Nvidia driver with CentOS7 if one exists. I believe the Nvidia driver from the site will have problems in the future, uncertain though, speculating.

I tried looking at a list of all supported devices here ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux ... chips.html but the url isn't loading from the page http://elrepo.org/tiki/nvidia-detect

Then is there a way to see all listed drivers in the kmod-nvidia from the cli?

:)
Last edited by jmacdougca on 2021/11/10 16:56:47, edited 1 time in total.
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jlehtone
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jlehtone » 2021/02/17 13:56:08

The command 'nvidia-detect' does not tell what driver you have. It checks the hardware that you have and tells which (ELRepo) driver package you should install.
At this moment ELRepo has three drivers:

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kmod-nvidia-340xx
kmod-nvidia-390xx
kmod-nvidia
The 3**xx are legacy drivers for old cards. Your GTX 650 Ti is still supported by the latest driver.

According to NVidia's own page the latest version of kmod-nvidia in ELRepo, 460.39-1.el7_9.elrepo, does support both 650 Ti and 2060.
You should be able to simply swap the cards because same driver supports both cards.

You should see whether you have driver already installed and whether there is more recent version in repo with:

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yum list kmod-nvidia

jmacdougca
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jmacdougca » 2021/02/18 02:23:55

Thank you for this response. You helped me clear the fog in thy mind.

I currently have

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kmod-nvidia.x86_64 460.39-1.el7_9.elrepo
which is the latest driver.

So the GPU I am going to install; Will the hardware work to the level it was designed to? or will there be diminishing returns of the hardware because

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460.39
is "old?" Is

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460.39
"old?" *scope limitation*
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chemal
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by chemal » 2021/02/18 03:42:11

The driver doesn't remember the old card, if that is what you mean.

jmacdougca
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jmacdougca » 2021/02/18 04:29:02

I mean will the driver be able to power the new gpu to its full capacity of its power?
Curious because this is a massive hardware upgrade. Wondering if the driver is able to keep up with the beef. Not certain how this part of the technology works. I have observed the software is the bottleneck in Computer Science not the hardware.
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jlehtone
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jlehtone » 2021/02/18 08:04:45

There is no "keep up" with drivers.

There are essentially three cases:
* Driver supports all features of the hardware
* Driver supports some features of the hardware. Other features cannot be used
* No driver supports the hardware. Hardware cannot be used at all

There is Nouveau's open source driver and NVidia's closed source driver for NVidia cards.
The Nouveau does not support all features and last Fall it did not support RTX 3070 at all.

Yes, changes to driver software can remove bugs and improve performance, but the 460.39 is the latest that NVidia has released. There is nothing better out there. Besides, the driver supports RTX 30-serie too. The 20-serie is already "last generation" -- "old".

chemal
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by chemal » 2021/02/18 17:00:06

The GTX 650 Ti is ~9 years old. If the rest of your computer is also that old, your CPU might become a bootleneck for the RTX 2060 in some use cases.

jmacdougca
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jmacdougca » 2021/02/18 20:54:28

Processor is good. I haven't been able to come close yet to capacity.

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[orca@orcacomputers ~]$ sudo dmidecode -t processor | grep HTT
[sudo] password for orca: 
		HTT (Multi-threading)

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[orca@orcacomputers ~]$ lscpu
Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                12
On-line CPU(s) list:   0-11
Thread(s) per core:    2
Core(s) per socket:    6
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 63
Model name:            Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz
Stepping:              2
CPU MHz:               3599.975
CPU max MHz:           3700.0000
CPU min MHz:           1200.0000
BogoMIPS:              6996.32
Virtualization:        VT-x
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              256K
L3 cache:              15360K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-11
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chemal
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by chemal » 2021/02/18 21:19:14

Then go ahead, swap cards, and be happy.

jmacdougca
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Re: Nvidia GPU Upgrade To Geforce RTX 2060

Post by jmacdougca » 2021/02/21 02:45:52

Install went fine. When I run

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glxgears
with both cards I see 300fps.
I was expecting to see something different.
I see the new GPU is added to the nvidia gui though so that's good.
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