Community driven support forum for Folding@home
https://foldingforum.org/
For a dedicated GPU box you can forget the $244 cpu - you just need a cheap dual core, and AMD might be the way to go if you can find a cheap mobo with 3-4 PCIe slotsmdk777 wrote:I have looked again at building a dedicated / watt efficient platform for a GPU dedicated system. It is easy to spend $700 without the card...so $1000 for the entire system.
$244 I7 CPU
$100 Z77 MB
$100 Gold or PLAT PSU
$100 OS
$80 MEMORY
$50 BOX
SSD DRIVE, etc. etc.
$250 $300 GPU and you are around a grand.
Now, you are going to be at 200/300 watts and a $1000 for the expected 100K to 150K ppd.
This compares with what 600 Watts and $2000-$3000 that people making 4P systems were spending to generate 200K to 300K PPD.(OC systems were going as high as 400K if I'm not mistaken) So yeah, the GPU will win in comparison, but it is not anything like a 10x loss, or even a 5x loss compared to the BIG-ADV. points that people were generating.
Obviously, YMMV, people will build SLI systems to reduce overhead costs etc. etc. etc.
I'm just pointing out that using the entire system for GPU has costs beyond the GPU itself...and if GROMACS uses Heterogeneous compute, the entire system might be used even more than in the past.
Ultimately, the Science should and will determine the best system/ points. I'm just not sure it will be immediately a lopsided loss for the 4P systems in comparison.
It is also useful to have more than one PC folding with equipment of different vintages, so that something is coming due for an upgrade each year (motherboard, video card, memory or converting a hard drive to an SSD, etc.). All can keep your interest up in the subject. More interestingly now, we have the shift to Gromacs 4.6, which may reshuffle the deck with respect to Nvidia and AMD, so the old assumptions may no longer hold true.bruce wrote:Do you buy a new car every year ... or every few years ... or every 10 years? Determining when a computer is "worthless" is based partly on the numbers but also partly on emotion. You're investment is not going to be a choice that lasts forever because at some point you'll decide that the cost of power per point will pass some threshold compared to the cost of an upgrade or the cost of a new system -- or if you're less analytical, you'll feel the competitive pressure from those who are earning more PPD and you'll upgrade anyway ... or you'll find a super-neat game that will play better on a new system ... or.... Nobody can make that decision for you.
+1 to this, I have several 3x pcie dual core systems. You *will* need a dual core to keep three gpus fed. If you start looking at dual GPU cards, you may need more cpu but won't need to be fast. High quality psu is the number one requirement then add gpus as funds allow. Shift a lot of air to keep it cool.Nathan_P wrote:For a dedicated GPU box you can forget the $244 cpu - you just need a cheap dual core, and AMD might be the way to go if you can find a cheap mobo with 3-4 PCIe slots
Yup, that was the case for the old GPU projects. I followed / commented on the ATLASFOLDER design as it developed.For a dedicated GPU box you can forget the $244 cpu - you just need a cheap dual core, and AMD might be the way to go if you can find a cheap mobo with 3-4 PCIe slots
That "anticipation" is what makes the OP have a hard time.That will have some interesting and useful implications for F@h particularly as we look at more and more cores on donor CPU’s (and things like GPU integration). That’s all for now; we’ll keep you posted on progress.
It has me puzzled too, hopefully someone from PG will be able to explain in in simple terms.patonb wrote:^but my power bill can't
I still have trouble wrapping my head around how the gpu can do the same work as a 4p cpu...... but hey, its not my job.
Nathan_P wrote:It has me puzzled too, hopefully someone from PG will be able to explain in in simple terms.patonb wrote:^but my power bill can't
I still have trouble wrapping my head around how the gpu can do the same work as a 4p cpu...... but hey, its not my job.
GPUs were already known to be much faster than PCs a long time ago. They just couldn't run the same solvent models as the PC, so while much faster, the science was much less helpful.The next major step forward: Streaming Processor cores (September 2006)
Much like the Gromacs core greatly enhanced Folding@home by a 20x to 30x speed increase via a new utilization of hardware (SSE) in PCs, in 2006, we developed a new streaming processor core to utilize another new generation of hardware: GPUs with programmable floating-point capability. By writing highly optimized, hand-tuned code to run on ATI X1900 class GPUs, the science of Folding@home will see another 20x to 30x speed increase over its previous software (Gromacs) for certain applications. This great speed increase is achieved by running essentially the complete molecular dynamics calculation on the GPU; while this is a challenging software development task, it appears to be the way to achieve the highest speed improvement on GPUs.
Simple terms? OK. Here's a shot at it (even though it's oversimplified and not perfectly accurate).Nathan_P wrote:It has me puzzled too, hopefully someone from PG will be able to explain in in simple terms.patonb wrote:I still have trouble wrapping my head around how the gpu can do the same work as a 4p cpu...... but hey, its not my job.