AMD or Nvidia

[Forcinghavok]

Hello, I noticed that games and even folding at home is more geared towards Nvidia. ie., in f@h it says "CUDA: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'nvcuda.dll': The 13:59:23: specified module could not be found" and the other is "temperature control is not available" for AMD hardware! Just curious why nobody supports AMD? Can you not control the temperature with AMD?


My question is what brand is better for f@h, Nvidia or AMD?

[JimboPalmer]

Your choice!

CUDA is a Nvidia specific language or interface for general purpose computing on GPUs, the open source alternative is OpenCL.

AMD supports OpenCL very well with new drivers supporting new versions, I think they are to OpenCL 2.2

Nvidia once released an OpenCL 1.2 driver but never anything more recent. They hope you lock into their cards.

You will see 'F@H runs 25% faster on CUDA' but that is 25% faster than a driver last updated in 2015, several generations of hardware ago.
[edit: I am out of date "April 6, 2021: Nvidia supports OpenCL 3.0 for Ampere. Maxwell and later GPUs also supports OpenCL 3.0 with Nvidia driver 465+"]

As I understand it, temperature control is depreciated on every GPU and only exists to annoy you. It was supported in Core 15 but not Core 17, we are on Core 22 now. (They have not officially retired Core 21 but I have not seen one in a year)

I have used both AMD and Nvidia, but right now I am using low profile cases, the GTX 1650 is the best you can do low profile.

[iero]

Personally, on one hand, I traded my RX 5700 XT for a brand new RTX 3060 since I didn't intend to mine crypto [due to noise concerns] and saw a decrease in avg Power Draw and an increase in PPD.
On the other hand, I traded my RX 480 for a GTX 970 and while I saw an 25% increase [on avg] in PPD, the avg Power Draw doubled [and along with it did the noise - despite a 3x fan model of the 970]. So the PPD/watt decreased drastically and I decided to revert to my beloved RX 480 instead.

So, AMD vs Nvidia, doesn't seem to be so cut and dry after all.

[Forcinghavok]

Wow, that's interesting. Yea I don't mind the noise or power usage. I do want more power and more folding. I am personally an AMD man. With that being said I will stick with them I suppose.

Thanks.

[bruce]

[edit: I am out of date "April 6, 2021: Nvidia supports OpenCL 3.0 for Ampere. Maxwell and later GPUs also supports OpenCL 3.0 with Nvidia driver 465+"]

The FAHCore that uses OpenCL won't care since it's written to support OpenCL 1.2 which is still required by older AMD hardware and NVidia works fine on CUDA or falls back to OpenCL if necessary. (OpenCL 3.0 drivers accept commands from out OpenCL 1.2 code.)

[JimboPalmer]

[edit: I am out of date "April 6, 2021: Nvidia supports OpenCL 3.0 for Ampere. Maxwell and later GPUs also supports OpenCL 3.0 with Nvidia driver 465+"]

The FAHCore that uses OpenCL won't care since it's written to suppor OpenCL 1.2 which is still required by older AMD hardware and NVidia works fine on CUDA or falls back to OpenCL if necessary. (OpenCL 3.0 drivers accept commands from out OpenCL 1.2 code.)

I am not expecting speed up in the GROMACS code itself, as you say it still needs to support OpenCL 1.2, but rather in the Nvidia OpenCL driver, which now can assume a Maxwell GPU rather than a Kepler GPU. More advanced hardware may allow speedier drivers. It is moot however, as an Nvidia GPU that supports OpenCL 3.0 also supports CUDA. And Nvidia will want CUDA to be faster.

[MeeLee]

Personally, on one hand, I traded my RX 5700 XT for a brand new RTX 3060 since I didn't intend to mine crypto [due to noise concerns] and saw a decrease in avg Power Draw and an increase in PPD.
On the other hand, I traded my RX 480 for a GTX 970 and while I saw an 25% increase [on avg] in PPD, the avg Power Draw doubled [and along with it did the noise - despite a 3x fan model of the 970]. So the PPD/watt decreased drastically and I decided to revert to my beloved RX 480 instead.

So, AMD vs Nvidia, doesn't seem to be so cut and dry after all.

That's because your 970 is 3 generations old.
The 970 is superseded by a 1070, which is superseded by a 2070, and a 3070.
While consuming roughly the same power, The difference between the 3070 and the 970 is that the 3070 nets you 10x-15x the PPD of the 970.