Folding Forum

Joe_H wrote:

BobWilliams757 wrote:On another note, and simply curiosity.... what is the most client any one person here has running? I know quite a few people run several machines. This question was raised in my mind when I see individual user stats with huge numbers of clients, and I have to wonder if they actually run that many systems/servers/whatever.... and who is essentially a team but listed as individuals. Not that it matters much to me, but I know some of you guys run a lot of hardware.

That is quite a question, and hard to answer without a lot of qualifications. I only have 2 system running currently for about 110k PPD from CPU folding only as I run OS X. But 2 people on my team are generating much more points. One has over 40 systems running, all doing CPU work, and getting about 2.5M PPD. How is one individual doing that? Well from posts of his years ago in the forum where our team originated I learned he was running a computer business and keeps F@h running on many of the machines there Would you count that as a team by itself or as an individual that just happens to have access to greater computing resources.

The other person on my team has a single PC running a CPU slot and a GPU slot with an apparent high end card, about 4.5 PPD. Definitely an individual folder.

You can find people from both types, those with just 1 or 2 machines and those with access to many. There are also organization teams/usernames that get in there. Some are easy to tell and others not. At least several corporate usernames/teams have shown up over the years using F@h to stress test new server setups. Some only fold once during a period after the servers are installed, others periodically have come back as their setups changed or new server farms were added.

I can't imagine keeping 40 systems going, but if he's got the resources to do it with then in my mind it's still an individual. And though buying new high end gear might produce more points, the fact that people keep older gear running and being productive is a good thing IMHO. And if it's the case of a large company testing servers, the load of F@H is a great test while helping science so I can't fault that at all either. I had never thought of that angle really.

What I'm speaking of is people showing hundreds of clients, that appear to be much more likely to be a team really.

gunnarre wrote:Total score: 1309941767
Total WU's: 20473
Current Rank: FAH: 1407 of 2896102. EOC: 1386 of 1730296
Years folding: 1.5 (since March 13th 2020) (e: 13th, not 15th)
Do you have dedicated 24/7 folding rigs? Not anymore, but I used to experiment with cloud folding (vast.ai, and IBM cloud) in the summer of 2020. I now only fold on my work and gaming PCs.
Approximate cost per year in gear and electricity? Heating and wear only now. If I average what I spent on cloud folding and excess electricity in 2020, it's about $260 per year.

MeeLee wrote:You can find a lot of this information on extremeoverclocking.com/

Yes, but that site is biased towards the top folders. Teams and individuals with less contributions don't get picked up by that site.

I might look into some cloud folding myself. As I'm not a gamer and really have no need for higher end gear other than for folding, it might be more productive until GPU prices come down to sane again. Even when that happens, I'll have cost in setting up a new rig probably, as the computer I currently fold on is used for all our other computer needs. I doubt my wife would tolerate anything that produces much heat or noise as the primary system.

aetch wrote:Score: Fast approaching 1.6 Billion (yes, with a B)
Work units: Roughly 16K
Rank: Yes, don't come too close unless you're wearing a gasmask or breathing apparatus, none of your N95 stuff here. Currently 1,062 (for a few weeks there I added a GTX 1080Ti in a push to get sub 1K but stopped as my rigs were producing too much heat)
See signature image for current stats.

Joined: Right after Linus Tech Tips' FAH server build went out. I'm surprised I'm still here.
Dedicated rigs: Ryzen 9 3900X, RTX 2070 SUPER. While technically this is an upgraded gaming rig I actually have other systems I can game on.
Other rigs: I sometimes experiment with other graphics cards, processors, laptops I have. After seeing some recent threads on Raspberry PIs I might dabble with that, having a small stack of 3Bs sitting.

Comments: I wish the FAH client had a testing/benchmarking mode where it could feed your system a few well worn work units, which do not contribute to any ongoing projects, to help shake your system down. Few things stress your system like FAH.

That's a lot of points for such a brief period of time. I'd imagine quite a few with newer hardware fold a lot more, then the thrill wanes as upgrade time comes. It's a shame that many people just seem to "drop out" once their productivity drops in comparison to new stuff, but then again any contribution is better than none.

As for a testing benchmark, by far F@H has got to be one of the most brutal. When tweaking memory setting I've tried running multiple benchmarks at one time, but even doing that doesn't generate the heat or load that F@H does. A good benchmark/torture test could surely be made by capturing various F@H work units for testing. It might also be a good tool for GPU assignment for actual projects.





Thanks for all the scoop everyone. For now, having missed the decent GPU prices while I was being indecisive, I'm just going to keep folding on this little iGPU until it's not making timeouts on a regular basis. My rank is in the 45K range, and really the only progress is moving past people that have quit folding, and slowly catching up to the back of the active folders. BUT..... it's better than not folding.

BobWilliams757 wrote:I might look into some cloud folding myself. As I'm not a gamer and really have no need for higher end gear other than for folding, it might be more productive until GPU prices come down to sane again.

I did cloud folding mostly as a learning exercise. Here's a post where I calculated the economics of folding on cloud vs. folding at home, and back then it depended on local electricity prices if it was better or worse: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=34137&start=15#p343567

At the moment, cloud folding isn't as economical as it used to be. Vast.ai prices are more than double what they used to be when I folded on it. Graphics cards have gone up in price, though, so perhaps that makes up for it. Hopefully the GPU market will become more normal in 6 months to a year.

I never folded for free, but it used to be that you could do that on some cloud vendors.

WU: 8263
CREDIT: 1,299,093,621
RANK: 1532
TEAM 2233 RANK: 249
Years folding: almost two

I run my home desktop 24x7x365 on Manjaro Linux, Gigabyte Aorus Master x570s motherboard, NVidia RTX 2070 and NVidia GTX 1650, AMD Ryzen 5950x on ECO mode.

My electricity usage is 120 system watts and probably on the order of $75 US per year. I use my desktop for normal geek home applications, including 24 hour four camera video surveillance to an NAS, email correspondence, finances, entertainment, etc. Kudos to F@H team that the application running in background does not disturb normal desktop use.

-Phil
Yorktown, Virginia, USA

pcwolf wrote: Kudos to F@H team that the application running in background does not disturb normal desktop use.

This is the essence of FAH and its intended design ...

I first started folding in 2005, on an Athlon 64 3200+ that did around 500PPD. Forgot the name of that account though (and my hotmail emails got deleted, much to my chagrin). Then again in 2013, with either an i5 3450 + 650Ti or a Core 2 Duo P8600. And now finally, on my current account, I've been folding for the last 2 years. Started with an i5 - 3450 (yes, the same one ) + GTX 1060 and upgraded to a R5 3600 + 1060 for Rosetta@home on the CPU and Folding on the GPU.

WUs : 1894
Points : 14,92,02,439 (just shy of 150 million points)
Current Rank : 15,601 and dropping fast

Dedicated machine - I had one last year, i5 3450/R5 3600 + 1060, and that machine got me the majority of my points(around 80-90 million) despite being pre-CUDA and a slower 1060 compared to the 1660Ti mobile and 2060 I have now.

Don't plan on folding full time again until I get access to a renewable power source and some source of income(I'm a student) so that I can allot some money to this.

I am very jazzed that I discovered an RTX A2000 card exists. 3,000+ CUDA cores and runs at PCIe rated watts <75w, so no power from power supply.

Replace my GTX 1650 with 800 CUDA cores.

Backordered, of course

tcphillips wrote:Re:
Spending on gear -- who on earth can afford a new GPU board these days..?

I seem to have been lucky. I have a number of half-height systems with 4-way CPUs and GTC1050Ti s. They've been running windows 7 or 10 for years and years. I wonder how long that can last...

pcwolf wrote:I am very jazzed that I discovered an RTX A2000 card exists. 3,000+ CUDA cores and runs at PCIe rated watts <75w, so no power from power supply.

Replace my GTX 1650 with 800 CUDA cores.

Backordered, of course

The core frequency is about half of RTX 3000 GPUs.
The cooling is also blower format.
These would be good, if they could get a standard dual fan cooler, or water cooling.
Even with a water cooler, it's important to still cool the rest of the GPU (eg: with a case fan).

Would work really well that way, if you could overclock it and use up to 100W of power, which isn't that hard to do with a powered riser sandwiched between the board PCIE port and the GPU (and use a spacer to fit it in half slot size).

~33000 cores at ~1200Mhz should equal about the performance of an RTX 2060 (~2k cores at ~2Ghz), only at sub 75W levels, vs 125-130W on a 2060.
I think it'll be hard to find motherboards that will accept more than 2 of these (some exceptions might be able to run 3).

Folding on 3 of these GPUs in one system could mean 3.6-4MM PPD at 300W, which is pretty awesome!
The cost price of a single A2000 is ~$900 (MSRP), which could get you an RTX 3060; being more than twice as powerful.
PPD/Watt, a single 3060 should be pretty close to 2x A2000. Slightly faster, but slightly more power draw as well.
On the other hand, one could very easily lower power consumption and thus core clocks on those RTX 3000 series GPUs, to run even more efficiently.
I'm going to assume that on those A2000 series GPUs you'll probably want to overclock only, seeing their performance is similar to RTX 2000 GPUs.

The A2000 will be my second card behind RTX 3070 ti. I expect the blower style will reduce the parasitic heat trap from being in the second slot. I am currently running similar on Linux using "Cool-bits" to cap RTX 2070 power to 160w and still contributing over 3 million ppd with total system watts ~350.

pcwolf wrote:The A2000 will be my second card behind RTX 3070 ti. I expect the blower style will reduce the parasitic heat trap from being in the second slot. I am currently running similar on Linux using "Cool-bits" to cap RTX 2070 power to 160w and still contributing over 3 million ppd with total system watts ~350.

I found both on my blower and triple fan 2070s, they run best at around 137-144W, with a mild overclock.
This is in an open case.
Increasing power to the GPU from here, will increase GPU frequency by a bit, but lower efficiency by more.

WU: 41,105

Total Points:9,010,065,815

Current All teams Rank: 151

Started in 2007 after seeing a discussion about F@H on the ABIT forum and learning about the ABIT Folding Team, got my first record on 11.07.07.

I started with a Dell Optiplex GX 520 (Pentium D - 2 x 2.8Ghz P4), got a bit of folding experience and installed the SMP client 24/7. Changed the team to The Folding Wolves after ABIT went bankrupt. Folded until 2013 when I changed the workplace, it was a work machine and my boss was not bothered by me folding on it. Started folding again in 2018 on laptop with a T7200 Core 2 Duo at home and a bit later I changed to a Dell Optiplex 3050 with a I3-7100 at work, Fortunately, the Boss agreed with my Folding@Home at work. The PPD rise from Pentium D to Core 2 Duo and especially I3-7100 was quite big.

At the end of the 2019 I became interested in GPU Folding@Home so I purchased a repaired/refurbished GTX 970 which died in about two weeks of folding and a repaired/refurbished 1050 TI who still works today as a gaming card in a donated PC. Also acquired at the beginning of 2020 a repaired/refurbished RX 580 4GB (resold after a month since the PPD was weak) and the following brand new cards 1 x GTX 1650 (non Super), 2 x RTX 2060, 1x 1660 TI. I started to use MSI Afterburner to set the power limit to the minimum possible value after the GTX 970 died on all the rest of video cards and I am happy to report that they are working just fine.
All the above cards were used in the test lab at work until the Covid 19 came.

Since I lost contact with the The Folding Wolves folding team, I changed the team to CmpTIR and sent them my videocards and some other PC hardware. All my cards have the power limit to minimum, The RTX 2060 eats around 125W, the 1660 TI eats about 75W, the 1650 Non Super around 45W. I implemented this power limit to all the teams video cards, however not all cards still have a decent PPD at the minimum power limit so for the most power hungry the power limit is around 70-75%. This reminds me, I may need to deactivate the processors turbo boosts for some of the teams PCs, we fold with GPU only.

My team has a room of full of folding rigs folding 24/7 and a smaller room with folding rigs that fold as much as possible. As for the power consumption I am trying to convince my team leader to provide you with the details by posting in this thread. The team is made by 3 members, the leader who handle the main hardware purchases and the power bill, the hardware guy who handles the installation and the maintenance of the PCs and the save a buck guy / optimize the PPD/W guy (me) who from time to time makes sure that the video cards are not stressed to much and the heat is within normal levels. Let's say that in winter you can stay in a T-shirt and shorts in that room.

WU 69,905
Current team WU 54,010

Total points 16,189,443,247
CmpTIR team points 14,145,113,879

First record 06.29.2019 team My Garage
First CmpTir record 04.18.2020 (team start)

Starting GPU - RTX 2080 Ventus OC. Still working today 3.2 mil PPD.
Founded team CmpTIR in 04.18.2020 unpleasantly impressed by teammates from MyGarage team in Covid era (91% not folding) with colleague Zad Adrian.
After few weeks colleague @Foxter join our team.
In initial team we fold a little to enthusiastic and Foxter bring in moderation and efficency. Suddenly power max go down from 100% to a optimal value for every GPU.
First RTX3000 GPU - MSI RTX3090 Ventus X3 OC arrived 09.28.2020.
Folding Home location has 10 workbench units with 2 GPU's on every one. In adition 4 mono GPU PC's at my office.
Folding home:
Foxter
- 2x 2080 Ti Zotac blower 72%power 70 celsius 172 W 4.9-5.1 mil PPD each
- 2080 Ti Gainward Phantom 3 fans 72%power 63 celsius 178 W >5 mil PPD ; 2080 Ti Inno3D 2 fans 72%power 73 celsius 186 W 4.7-5.1 mil PPD
- 3070 PNY Rebel ... 3 fans 60%power 55 celsius 130W 4.1-4.4 mil PPD ; 2080 S Ventus 2X 2 fans 50%power 60 celsius 125W 3.1-3.3 mil PPD
Zad
- 3070 Ti Zotac Trinity OC 3 fans, 72%power 65 celsius 220W > 5 mil PPD ; 3070 Asus Tuf 55% power 65 celsius 131W > 4 mil PPD
- 3070 Ti Zotac Amp (?) 3 fans 72%power 71 celsius 210W about 5 mil PPD : 2080 S Ventus 2 fans 50% power 58 celsius 125W 3.1-3.3 mil PPD
- 3070 Aorus 3 fans 60%power 67 celsius 150W 4.1-4.5 mol PPD ; 3070 EVGA XC3 3 fans 60%power 67 celsius 131W 3.9-4.2 mil PPD
NGruia
- 3080 PNY Revel.... 3 fans, 71%power 60 celsius 225W 6.3-6.8 mil PPD ; 3070 Palit JetStream 2 fans 55% 52 celsius 130W power 4-4.4 mil PPD
- 2080 Ti EVGA FTW (best 2080Ti in team) 72%power 63 celsisus 210 W 5.4-6.0 mil PPD ; 2080 Ventus 2X OC 2 fans 58%power 66 celsius 122 W 3-3.3 mil PPD
- 3060 Ti Gigabyte Gaming 3 fans 55%power 65 celsius 130W 3.4-3.7 mil PPD ; 3060 Ti Gigbyte Gaming 3 fans 55% power 60 celsius 130W 3.5-3.8 mil PPD
At office:
- 2060 Ventus 2X 12G 2 fans 71%power (min power) 53 celsius 124 W 2-2.2 mil PPD (case restrictions mATX max 240 mm GPU)
- 2060 S Gaming X 2 fans, 71%power (min power) 51 celsius 125 W 2.8-3 mil PPD (case restrictions mATX max 240 mm GPU)
- 2060 S Gainward Phantom 58%power (min power) 54 celsius 125 W 3-3.1 mil PPD
- 3090 MSI Ventus 3X OC 3 fans 72% power 63 celsius 250W 8.5-9.3 mil PPD.
Team has no lider !! Foxter is our specialist in setting and tweaks, Zad is hardware specialist (very good one) and NGruia learns from both and helps here and there.
Currently rank 64 All-Time team.

Well in my slow iGPU system, I've finally cracked 1,000 work units yesterday. Total score 45,751,339 and a current ranking of 43,023.

Thanks for all those that have contributed a lot more work. I might do so at the time GPU prices become reasonable again. Until then, I'll fold away slowly, hoping that the WU's don't change enough to keep me from making the timeouts. I guess if that happens I'll do some CPU folding until prices on GPU's come down.

I was also looking at HFM data and the average scores, thinking certainly my average return score would be higher. But even on this slow system..... the higher PPD returns units run for so much less time that looking at PPD scores is at best deceiving. This is probably exaggerated in my case by more variation in return scores.