Advice for an efficient folding GPU... or no GPU folding

[ChristianVirtual]

Dual E5 2692v2's have retail quite some initial investment ... But agree: running cost looks great. Wish I would have ...

[Devlin85]

Welcome to the forum.

On a single cpu config I would have to agree with you but its not true at the higher end of cpu folding. Dual E5 2692v2's @2.4 using an AX650 PSU pull 278w from the wall and earn 470k PPD, that's 1,690PPD/w. Dual X5670's get 488PPD/W and dual E5-2665's get 939PPD/W.

Thanks for the welcome!

I do agree that there are some staggering figures with the extreme processors/Server Processors, but that's absurdly unrealistic, especially considering each of those processors cost $2,500+ it's in no way worth it and obviously should be calculated into the equation. I could go buy a $1,000 TITAN Black and get upwards of the same PPD/Watt. So yeah, I'd have to say GPU is definitely the way to go! (I've seen results of over 300k PPD on core 17 WU's. Max 250 Watt, Generally running at 200 watt though). But really besides that, who would purposefully spend $2,500 for 1 CPU vs 2 EXTREME GPU's for a lot less? And those 2 GPU's would be massively more productive.

[jrweiss]

Looking for the highest PPD/Watt is A Good Thing, but for some people it may be a matter of TOTAL electricity use. If you're not a gamer, there's little need for a mega-GPU that will use twice as much (or more) power as the rest of the rig. Also, some of the powerful GPUs are quite noisy when the cooling fans are running...

For the lowest power draw, an AMD 3750 / R7 250 or nVidia GTX750ti GPU will Fold just fine, and need no supplemental power cables. The choice of CPU is more varied; though for a hyperthreaded 4-core CPU, the i7-4770S or 3770S would be my choice. My 4770K/3750 rig burns 162 Watts (measured at the wall) Folding SMP+GPU for ~35K PPD. A 3770S or 4770S (instead of the K-clocked CPU) will use ~30 Watts less, with little impact on overall performance. You can get dual-core CPUs that use less power, but overall performance will suffer significantly. The 3750 (and maybe the other GPUs) lends itself to passive cooling for both GPU and PSU, so you can also get a very quiet rig as well if you want to Fold with a HTPC or bedroom rig.

I live in the Seattle area, where electricity is fairly cheap at $.089/KWh. That means every 100 Watts running 24/7 costs about $6.50. A big GPU such as a GTX690 or R9 295X2 will burn 440+ Watts for the GPU alone while Folding, and cost >$28/month...

[Devlin85]

I live in the Seattle area, where electricity is fairly cheap at $.089/KWh. That means every 100 Watts running 24/7 costs about $6.50. A big GPU such as a GTX690 or R9 295X2 will burn 440+ Watts for the GPU alone while Folding, and cost >$28/month...

I agree power consumption is an issue, but most newer GPU's are actually more efficient than you think. My GTX 760's say they max out at 170W, but I have never seen them taking a draw of more than 150 and generally even when fully folding it's more like 100W. And the GTX 690 actually maxes out at 300W, not the 440+ like you said, and it is already 2 cards in itself, so running at 150 Max per GPU is not some crazy high figure, it's actually quite good. Considering it also runs generally at 200-250 Watts max. (Unless your overclocking, but that leads to poor results and PPD) The newest TITAN BLACK only uses a max of 250W and also generally runs at 200W on the high end when fully processing. (The difference in the amount of cores is the difference in power drain in this case, but the titan black is one larger GPU instead of 2 smaller sets of cores so it is more efficient and seems to respond quicker in testing)

The R9 295X2 probably isn't too efficient, as it has it's own mandatory water cooling so that will be quite a bad choice for long term folders in a power cost increase (Unless your entire system is water-cooled). And in comparison of PPD/Watt, 5632 Processor cores can bring in 500,000+ PPD and even at 440Watts that's a nice figure! (~1200 PPD/Watt)

When it comes to noise you just need to make sure you are getting the best fan setup in your system, I purchased 2 EVGA 760 Superclocked Editions, they have one fan on the front of the card and vent ALL exhaust out of the back of the system entirely, no excessive noise like in those ACX DUAL/TRIPLE fan setups and from what I have seen, those are a complete joke. These run between 50-70C at full load and even at 99% fan speed, my STEALTH 120" on the front of my case is louder. The hard drives spinning up are louder. But those overdone ACX fan setups can be not only a power drain, but can actually cause your card to overheat, especially when in pairs. Most actually tell you to only use 1 per system.

My computer is on 24/7 anyway so I'm only seeing the ~200 watt increase, about 10 bucks/month in Florida. ($.058-$0.069/kWh)

[jrweiss]

I got the info for the high-power cards from Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2014 ... s,175.html). YMMV, but it's a great comparison tool. When comparing CPUs or GPUs without specific personal experience, it's better to use some standard rather than anecdotal figures.

I agree that actual Folding power consumption for the GPU may be less than TDP or Tom's stats. The increase from GPU idle to Folding for my 7750 (75W max per Tom's) is about 36 Watts. For my i7-3770S (65W TDP), the jump is 63W.

[Nathan_P]

Welcome to the forum.

On a single cpu config I would have to agree with you but its not true at the higher end of cpu folding. Dual E5 2692v2's @2.4 using an AX650 PSU pull 278w from the wall and earn 470k PPD, that's 1,690PPD/w. Dual X5670's get 488PPD/W and dual E5-2665's get 939PPD/W.

Thanks for the welcome!

I do agree that there are some staggering figures with the extreme processors/Server Processors, but that's absurdly unrealistic, especially considering each of those processors cost $2,500+ it's in no way worth it and obviously should be calculated into the equation. I could go buy a $1,000 TITAN Black and get upwards of the same PPD/Watt. So yeah, I'd have to say GPU is definitely the way to go! (I've seen results of over 300k PPD on core 17 WU's. Max 250 Watt, Generally running at 200 watt though). But really besides that, who would purposefully spend $2,500 for 1 CPU vs 2 EXTREME GPU's for a lot less? And those 2 GPU's would be massively more productive.

If you pay for retail cpu's I totally agree that GPU folding is currently the best bang for buck. However there are top end xeon's out there on a certain auction site at a lot less than retail