Re: Best bang for the buck build?
Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2024 2:29 am
nchowlett,
Without knowing specifics, it's hard to say if overclocking the CPU's would help. If the CPU and motherboard combinations are old enough, and taxed at 100% currently, it might. With newer hardware I would say doubtful, but could be wrong in that opinion. On my Ryzen 2400G, I decided that it wasn't worth even allowing the PBO auto boost features to run. They didn't really add points to the GPU side of things, and having the folding loads plus out other uses on the system made it harder to nail down good fan curves that didn't get loud at times.... for no real performance boost.
But what works for one system might not work for the next. The specifics of the hardware might favor certain conditions more than on the next system. If you are running multiple GPU's on an older CPU then higher CPU clocks might work. If that 100% use is due to also CPU folding with the GPU's you might still see an increase in CPU folding performance with higher clocks.
But everything has tradeoffs. Sometimes maximum points also means more fan noise, less power efficiency, and less available overhead left for other tasks if you use that computer for things other than folding. Only you know what you want to tolerate to get more points. As for me, keeping it 100% stable, reasonably quiet, fairly efficient for the GPU I run, and trouble free is worth a lot. That way I only deal with it on the rare occasion I have updates, maintain the fans and such, or power issues.
The ONLY single thing I have found that I have seen no negatives from at all is using Hardware Accelerated GPU in Windows. Points go up, and I see no negative side to the change. Power use increases very slightly, but the bump in productivity overcomes that. But even then, it's not a huge change in PPD either, just a minor tweak.
The one way to know for sure is to test changes to your system and see. Do your best to keep conditions the same, get enough samples to filter out the noise, and see for yourself. As with the evidence above, some of the things claimed by some don't always amount to being 100% true with all the various factors tested. Compare only the same projects to each other, and run enough to allow for project to project variances. As an example, some projects seem harder on a CPU and will raise temps much more than the next. Some will use less power at any set power cap, others will always use less.
Without knowing specifics, it's hard to say if overclocking the CPU's would help. If the CPU and motherboard combinations are old enough, and taxed at 100% currently, it might. With newer hardware I would say doubtful, but could be wrong in that opinion. On my Ryzen 2400G, I decided that it wasn't worth even allowing the PBO auto boost features to run. They didn't really add points to the GPU side of things, and having the folding loads plus out other uses on the system made it harder to nail down good fan curves that didn't get loud at times.... for no real performance boost.
But what works for one system might not work for the next. The specifics of the hardware might favor certain conditions more than on the next system. If you are running multiple GPU's on an older CPU then higher CPU clocks might work. If that 100% use is due to also CPU folding with the GPU's you might still see an increase in CPU folding performance with higher clocks.
But everything has tradeoffs. Sometimes maximum points also means more fan noise, less power efficiency, and less available overhead left for other tasks if you use that computer for things other than folding. Only you know what you want to tolerate to get more points. As for me, keeping it 100% stable, reasonably quiet, fairly efficient for the GPU I run, and trouble free is worth a lot. That way I only deal with it on the rare occasion I have updates, maintain the fans and such, or power issues.
The ONLY single thing I have found that I have seen no negatives from at all is using Hardware Accelerated GPU in Windows. Points go up, and I see no negative side to the change. Power use increases very slightly, but the bump in productivity overcomes that. But even then, it's not a huge change in PPD either, just a minor tweak.
The one way to know for sure is to test changes to your system and see. Do your best to keep conditions the same, get enough samples to filter out the noise, and see for yourself. As with the evidence above, some of the things claimed by some don't always amount to being 100% true with all the various factors tested. Compare only the same projects to each other, and run enough to allow for project to project variances. As an example, some projects seem harder on a CPU and will raise temps much more than the next. Some will use less power at any set power cap, others will always use less.