Folding Forum

WestX64 wrote:I've also been developing a slight fear that running my components at full load 24/7 will eventually lead to something breaking faster than it would have otherwise. Will running everything full load 24/7 significantly decrease the life of any of my hardware?

Most likely, yes. But the (hypothetical) question is: would it matter much if your setup broke down after 10 years with 24/7 folding vs 30 years without folding? It is far more likely that you'll retire your current setup as obsolete well before it breaks down, folding or no folding. My current setup has been folding for some 3½ years, overclocked and at high temperatures. Only difference I've noticed is that I'm not able to overclock the GPU quite as heavily as I did when it was brand new, and I had to reapply thermal grease to CPU and GPU.

In a way, I'm almost hoping they'd break, at least I'd have an excuse to spend on something far more capable...

WestX64 wrote:A question I have now - is there a way, other than choosing which disease you'd like to focus on, to actually choose which WUs you would rather work on? This is more of a curious question. Also, I've been looking into getting a NZXT Kraken G10 with a NZXT Kraken X41 to cool my GTX 770. This would have to be further on down the road though since that would cost me another $140. From what I'm seeing in people's YouTube reviews and other reviews from around Google, this solution would let my GTX 770 run much cooler than the stock ACX cooler.

I've also been developing a slight fear that running my components at full load 24/7 will eventually lead to something breaking faster than it would have otherwise. Will running everything full load 24/7 significantly decrease the life of any of my hardware?

There is no way to choose your WUs. The priorities are set by the researchers.

You'll likely upgrade for the "latest & greatest" a decade before the CPU or GPU dies from heat stroke.
I've been Folding for 10 years. The ONLY machine that has been adversely affected (and indirectly, at that) is a laptop. Constant full-bore Folding caused a buildup of dust inside the case, and that eventually led to overheating. After 1 cleanout and recurrence, I retired it from Folding. While we often clean out our big rigs, it is much more difficult to do so in a laptop.

If you are running 10C or more below the max CPU/GPU design temp, you won't hurt it. The "TjMax" for the i7-4770K is 100C. it is known to run hot -- 10-15C above the SandyBridge and older CPUs. Mine runs in the 60s, with occasional excursions into the 70s (no A/C in the house). The 3770S runs in the high 40s to mid-50s under similar conditions.

Similarly, GPUs are designed for 100-105C in general, though some will automatically throttle below that (you'll have to check the AMD or nVidia specs for specifics). My fanless 7750 runs in the high 60s while Folding... Again, if you run it at least 5C below the "throttling" temp, it will last a long time.

This is all great information, thank you both! Right now my hottest motherboard temp is maxing out at 50C which is more than it used to be. I assume it's because this added GTX 750 Ti is blowing more hot air down onto the motherboard. 50C doesn't worry me much though. My 4770K is maxing out at 60C and has not gotten any hotter than that over the past 72 hours. The GTX 770 sits around 66C currently and the GTX 750 Ti sits around 48C. They all seem way under the max operating temperatures you mentioned and I'm comfortable with them at this range. It's when they get around 75C and higher that I start to play around with the fan curves to get the temps lower. I would still like to see my GTX 770 a little lower which I could only accomplish if I got a liquid cooler option. Again, that will have to be further down the road as I'm not prepared to fork over another $140 at this time.

I've been playing around with the idea of building an entire machine that does nothing but sit in the back room of my apartment and fold 24/7. I may save up money over the next several months and do that. However, when it comes to choosing components for a folding only build, what would I look for in a CPU? I would want something that is energy efficient but that could also crank through the WU. Would an 8 core AMD processor outperform a 4 core Intel processor? I know threads don't do a whole lot to improve the performance of CPU folding (or so I've read in a few places online), but the number of physical cores does impact performance. When I look at benchmarks, 4 core Intel processors pretty much blow 8 core AMD processors away in almost every category. Is Intel still the best when it comes to folding too? Here are two CPUs I'm looking at as reference: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz 125W ---VS--- Intel Core i5-4690K Haswell Quad-Core 3.5GHz 88W.

The next question is what to look for in a great folding GPU? Again, generally speaking, do AMD or Nvidia cards typically turn out more PPD at any given price point. What would be your deciding factors in picking a great GPU for folding? Again, just for the sake of reference, these two cards: GeForce GTX 750 Ti ---VS--- Radeon R7 260X. When looking at benchmarks, in some areas the AMD card comes out ahead, and in some cases the Nvidia comes out ahead (and they are around the same price point). However, which brand is generally better at folding?

I know a lot of these are generalized questions and therefor they are pretty hard to give a straight answer to. I'm just trying to figure out what the best things are to look for when deciding on what components to buy for a dedicated folding rig that does nothing but sit and fold 24/7. I know a lot of the answers I'll get to these questions will likely be a little opinionated, but that's okay. My experience is primarily with Intel and Nvidia products, but I am not opposed to buying AMD products if they perform better in the task at hand.

To clarify my earlier answer, GPU folding will use one CPU THREAD per GPU, but you MAY get better mileage overall by using one THREAD for two GPUs. (Sorry about the confusion, but a hyperthread is usually referred to as a CORE, since each hyperthread can run multiple program threads.)

Don't worry too much about CPU performance, since the work done by GPUs is far greater. CPU performance requires physical cores (actually the FPUs) rather than hyperthread cores (AFAIK both Intel and AMD "8 core" CPUs are 8 hyperthreads sharing 4 FPUs). There were six-core AMD CPUs that have six FPUs -- they perform well.

No comment on AMD vs Nvidia GPUs -- the advantage varies with drivers and folding cores. If you want to stay Nvidia, go for the best Ti model you can afford -- in general Ti are significantly faster than others. But I don't have full figures for PPD per $ spent, or PPD per watt consumed. If I were buying now, choice would be between 780Ti and 750Ti -- though who knows what is just round the corner. IF and when Nvidia produce a higher spec Maxwell Ti model, that will be a contender at least on Windows. The FAH core for Maxwell on Linux is not yet available unless it sneaked out while I wasn't looking.

WestX64 wrote:I've been playing around with the idea of building an entire machine that does nothing but sit in the back room of my apartment and fold 24/7. I may save up money over the next several months and do that. However, when it comes to choosing components for a folding only build, what would I look for in a CPU? I would want something that is energy efficient but that could also crank through the WU. Would an 8 core AMD processor outperform a 4 core Intel processor? I know threads don't do a whole lot to improve the performance of CPU folding (or so I've read in a few places online), but the number of physical cores does impact performance. When I look at benchmarks, 4 core Intel processors pretty much blow 8 core AMD processors away in almost every category. Is Intel still the best when it comes to folding too? Here are two CPUs I'm looking at as reference: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz 125W ---VS--- Intel Core i5-4690K Haswell Quad-Core 3.5GHz 88W.

The next question is what to look for in a great folding GPU? Again, generally speaking, do AMD or Nvidia cards typically turn out more PPD at any given price point. What would be your deciding factors in picking a great GPU for folding? Again, just for the sake of reference, these two cards: GeForce GTX 750 Ti ---VS--- Radeon R7 260X. When looking at benchmarks, in some areas the AMD card comes out ahead, and in some cases the Nvidia comes out ahead (and they are around the same price point). However, which brand is generally better at folding?

AMD may have the nod for performance/$, but there's no question Intel has the performance advantage overall per core or GHz. An LGA2011 MoBo and It all depends on your priorities -- absolute cost, electric consumption, PPD, noise...

With the new 8-core Haswell-E or 5960, you could do some serious Folding, but at a cost in $$, noise, and electricity. Same with [multiple] Titan or R9 295 X2 GPUs.

When I built my "low-power, quiet" machine, I got an i7-3770S -- 65W TDP at 3.5 GHz. The first fanless AMD 7750 GPU went in there as well. That one only burns 135W with max CPU+GPU load with the monitor off/standby, and is QUIET. The 750 Ti GPU is the current equivalent of that GPU in power consumption, but the 750 Ti apparently Folds much faster.

Intel seems to be in a state of flux right now. I'd wait before buying anything cutting-edge, but you may find good deals on "last year's tech"... I'm at least going to wait until someone comes out with a good fanless 750 Ti.

AMD may have the nod for performance/$, but there's no question Intel has the performance advantage overall per core or GHz. An LGA2011 MoBo and It all depends on your priorities -- absolute cost, electric consumption, PPD, noise...

What about the two processors I listed? The LGA2011 socket processors are a little too darn expensive, haha! I'm talking about a processor in the $200 - $300 range and graphics cards in the $200 - $400 range. I don't mind cards with fans, what I would probably do is work in some custom water cooling loop to cover the CPU and the one or two GPUs in there. I know the GPUs will blow the CPU away in folding performance, but it's still nice to have an at least semi-efficient CPU slot working away on it's own WU. Can't argue with the extra PPD, even if it's only a fre thousand PPD, you know? So yeah, of the two processors listed, which of those two would be the best for folding do you think? Or would an i7 with it's four extra threads (i7 4770K is only $80 more than the i5 at Microcenter) outperform both the AMD I referenced and the i5?

I have to say, I love my GTX 750 Ti right now. I don't know a whole lot about the AMD cards as it's been a long while since I've bought one. But at the same price point, would AMD or Nvidia perform better with folding generally? What's your feeling on it? Does folding performance have a lot to do with the number of CUDA cores in the card? Sorry for my novice level with folding, but I'm trying my best to learn...

Yes, running anything 24/7 will wear it out faster than if you just read emails and surfed a few web pages. So your computer will wear out in about 4-7 years instead of 15 years. But who really wants to be running the same computer 15 years from now?

Your hardware will be obsolete before it wears out even running fah.

Someone else will have to weigh in with AMD CPU Folding performance claims/comparisons. My last AMDs were Opteron 244s (which were GREAT performers in their day!)...

Again, if you are including the latest Intel Haswell-E stuff in your assessment, you'll have VERY little real info...

AFAICT, the 4690 will be identical to the 4770 for Folding at stock clocks.

AFAICT, the 4690 will be identical to the 4770 for Folding at stock clocks.

Really? Even with hyperthreading the 4770 has identical folding performance to the 4690? So hyperthreading really does nothing at all for folding huh? In that case the Intel i5 series would be what I would go with since it's about $80 - $100 cheaper than the i7 in most cases. I'm still interested to see how AMD's 8 core CPUs stand up against Intel's quad core i5s with folding though, so I hope someone who has experience with AMD processors will weigh in soon...

If I read the specs right, both the 4770 and 4690 have hyperthreading...

Oops! I misread the chart. The 4690 does NOT have hyperthreading. As I understand it, hyperthreading adds a bit to CPU Folding, but nowhere near twice the PPD. Also, since you can dedicate 1 thread (instead of 1 full core) to each GPU, there will be less effect on CPU Folding when you add GPUs into the mix.

Oops! I misread the chart. The 4690 does NOT have hyperthreading. As I understand it, hyperthreading adds a bit to CPU Folding, but nowhere near twice the PPD. Also, since you can dedicate 1 thread (instead of 1 full core) to each GPU, there will be less effect on CPU Folding when you add GPUs into the mix.

Haha, that's okay! I thought I was going crazy for a second there. Intel i7 and i5 processors are mostly the same except that the i7 has hyperthreading and sometimes a little more cache. So yeah, if hyperthreading does help folding a bit, that's good to know. I know it won't double the PPD because eight virtual cores are not nearly as powerful as eight physical cores, but eight virtual cores are slightly better than just four physical cores alone with no hyperthreading. So yeah, I would still like to know how the AMD eight core processors (eight physical cores) stack up against the Intel i5 and i7 processors when it comes to folding. Hope someone jumps on to relay that info, but it looks like only a select few people browse this thread. I am quite thankful for any help I get though.

Current "8 core" AMD processors are sharing 4 FPU's with two of the cores for each FPU. In theory a thread running on one core can do 128-bit floating point calculations utilizing half the 256-bit FPU while a thread on the other core sharing it does it own calculation. In practice that does not appear to happen independently, and the throughput is not close to double. So since folding is heavily dependent on floating point, they probably have similar improvements as the HT approach used by Intel.

Posts on the 8 core AMD chips have not showed up here yet, but the adopters of the 6 core versions that came out a while ago posted they were not seeing the throughput they were expecting from 6 physical cores.

WestX64 wrote:I've been playing around with the idea of building an entire machine that does nothing but sit in the back room of my apartment and fold 24/7. I may save up money over the next several months and do that. However, when it comes to choosing components for a folding only build, what would I look for in a CPU? I would want something that is energy efficient but that could also crank through the WU.

I don't have personal experience on it, but I've wondered about i5-4570T before - viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25372#p253376

Since it's "just" a hyperthreaded dualcore, it'd primarily be a GPU feeder, yet capable of some CPU folding on the side.

Posts on the 8 core AMD chips have not showed up here yet, but the adopters of the 6 core versions that came out a while ago posted they were not seeing the throughput they were expecting from 6 physical cores.

Thanks for jumping in with your input! I have been doing some research on the "8 core" AMD chips and now I'm understanding it better. It actually seems a little misleading for AMD to advertise their processor has eight cores. I mean, it does in fact have eight cores, but when each pair of two cores have to share a single FPU, then I wouldn't consider it a true eight core processor myself. If both cores have to use a single FPU, then one core ends up having to wait and do nothing until the other core is finished using the FPU. So yeah, this would not double the performance over a quad core AMD chip. It looks like an Intel Core i5 or i7 is still the way to go for the best folding performance. The lower wattage of an Intel chip will help the electric bill as well.

Now, I've also been doing some comparisons between the Nvidia GTX 700 series GPUs. What is wrong with the GTX 760s? Everyone seems to jump right from the 750 Ti to the 770 or 780 / 780 Ti, but not many people mention the 760... I'm also still curious if the number of CUDA cores directly effects the folding performance of the card. If everything was the same, would more CUDA cores make a strong impact on folding performance? If CUDA cores are essential to folding performance, then the 760 offers a better value per CUDA core than the the 750 Ti ($0.21/core vs $0.25/core).

The 760 is the older Kepler architecture; 750 is the new Maxwell. Two 750 Ti's will cost just a bit more than a 760, but burn less electricity (70+70W vs 170W TDP). 2 x small/quiet fans will likely be quieter than 1 larger, noisier fan. You'd have to see how the PPDs compare, if that is your concern.