CPU FAH core with AVX support? Mentioned a while back?

[donkom]

Back in May on the official FAH blog, it was mentioned that a new CPU Gromacs core was in the works and should take advantage of the AVX instructions. Many processors now support AVX and AVX2 is also becoming commonplace.

Any word on when we will see folding@home CPU work units take advantage of these new capabailities?

[7im]

Any additional news on the topic would appear on that same blog. Sorry.

[_r2w_ben]

AVX support was added to GROMACS in 4.6. As far as I can tell, Core A4 version 2.27 uses code from GROMACS 4.5.3.

Based on the timing of the blog post and GROMACS release dates, the core that includes AVX/AVX2 will probably include code from GROMACS 5.0.

[_r2w_ben]

AVX test project 11900 spotted!

This project is for testing purposes only and therefore has no scientific value. It is a simple simulation of Lysozyme in Water that was derived by following this tutorial. The main purpose of this project is to test the functionality of our new Gromacs cores 0xa7 and 0xa8. These cores use a more modern version of Gromacs (5.0.4), and in the case of 0xa8, take advantage of AVX vector instructions available on newer CPUs.

[calkapokole]

Wonderful news!

[_r2w_ben]

No new from FAH yet but the latest Gromacs 5.1.3 release contains an improvement to AVX detection on some AMD CPUs.

[bruce]

Gromacs has changed how they designate their version numbers.

The official release of GROMACS 2016 is now available {...containing...] all the content of GROMACS 5.1.3 (and subsequent bug fixes)

[_r2w_ben]

Another test project has surfaced: p11920

This is a copy project 9752 running on our new Gromacs 0xa7 for testing purposes.

[bruce]

Yes, that's what the project description says.

Development has a backlog of things they want to fix before it's rolled out for a public beta.

[artoar_11]

FAH does not currently support AVX, including on Chrome.

It's on a long list of desirable enhancements but would require some significant changes to FAH's infrastructure, making it a more expensive enhancement that many others. (i.e. - probably not soon™)

viewtopic.php?f=95&t=28277&p=280707&hilit=AVX+support#p280707

[_r2w_ben]

CPU counts
Previous clients may not get assigned when they have CPU counts that our simulation software does not like. This client negotiates a lower CPU count with the AS so that it can continue folding with the most possible CPUs. This also helps with systems that have more CPUs than we are able to currently handle. In the near future, we will be releasing a new simulation core which will fully utilize higher CPU counts.

viewtopic.php?f=104&t=29067&p=288018&hilit=new+simulation+core#p288018

[bruce]

The infrastructure shortcomings have been overcome.

Moreover a version of GROMACS -- later than the one used in the a4 cor -- comes with AVX support, meaning that it has become an easier task to port GROMACS to a FAHCore. (I suppose that later version also brings a number of scientific enhancements).

[Duce H_K_]

How client/slot should be configured to catch FahCore 0xa7 WUs?

[bruce]

Currently AVX is supported on one project. It's in general release; no special configuration is required or expected.

As new CPU projects are started, we'll certainly see more use of this feature.

[Duce H_K_]

Code: Select all

 Project ID: 11920
 Core: GRO_A7
 Credit: 1000
 Frames: 100


 Name: AMD A8 5600k 4.622GHz | 3.75Gb DDR3-1600 9.0-9-9-23-36 CR1| NB 2.3GHz |
 Number of Frames Observed: 90

 Min. Time / Frame : 00:02:37 - 11 180,3 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:02:42 - 10 666,7 PPD