Folding Forum

I have a mini PC laying around. I plan to add a GPU and start folding on it. Specs:

ECS NM70-i2 motherboard
Intel Celeron 1037U CPU (soldered)
2x2 GB DDR3 ECC

I've got one of these and Xbox 360 Slim power brick (135W) as PSU: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32814603296.html

What's the most powerful GPU that Celeron 1037U can feed without issues while folding? And if i need a new PSU what would be the minimum?

By mini PC does that mean it will only take low profile PCIe cards? If so, that will limit your choices. In addition, with a 135 W PS you will need to limit the cards to something in the GT 730 to GTX 750 or GT 1030 to GTX 1050 ranges. This will also depend on what else is in the PC. Avoid any version that requires additional power beyond the 75 W available through the PCIe slot.

Joe_H wrote:By mini PC does that mean it will only take low profile PCIe cards? If so, that will limit your choices. In addition, with a 135 W PS you will need to limit the cards to something in the GT 730 to GTX 750 or GT 1030 to GTX 1050 ranges. This will also depend on what else is in the PC. Avoid any version that requires additional power beyond the 75 W available through the PCIe slot.

It's case is so small that it might not even take low profile cards. I won't use the case, i said mini PC because i wanted to emphasize it's underpowered, sorry for misunderstanding. It will have a SATA SSD for OS.

If the CPU can lift something more powerful than a 1050 series card, i can buy a new PSU.

Mainboard supports 1 X PCI Express X16 Gen 2.0 slot and CPU 64bit 2 x 2,8Ghz is fast enough for any GPU and 4GB RAM also sufficient. So you could even go with a nvidia RTX 3080 and a new power supply 500watts on 12V.

The Celeron itself should be able to handle the CPU side of GPU folding for cards in the nn60 range adequately. Anything beyond that it would work, but not at full capacity of the GPU. You would need something in the 300-400 W range for a PS depending on other hardware..

I have several low profile cases. The selection of available GPUs that will fit is limited but the machine I'm currently folding on has a GT710 which is the absolute bottom of the GPU range, but it does run CUDA. (Some GT710s do and some do not and I already own the GPU.) I'd consider upgrading the GPU but this M/B has another constraint: The PCIe slot faces the side of the case so I can't use a GPU that occupies two slots. Many M/Bs reverse the 1x and 16x slot, leaving room for a double-wide half height board.

Every WU completed counts.

03:59:39:******************************* System ********************************
03:59:39: CPU: AMD E-450 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
03:59:39: CPU ID: AuthenticAMD Family 20 Model 2 Stepping 0
03:59:39: CPUs: 2
03:59:39: Memory: 3.50GiB
03:59:39: Free Memory: 2.32GiB
03:59:39: OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
03:59:39: OS Arch: AMD64
03:59:39: GPUs: 1
03:59:39: GPU 0: Bus:1 Slot:0 Func:0 NVIDIA:3 GK208B [GeForce GT 710]
03:59:39: CUDA Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:3.5 Driver:10.0
03:59:39:OpenCL Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:1.2 Driver:417.35

You used to be able to buy supplementary power supplies to just drive the GPU, I used them for my 4x GPU rigs when PSU's didn't go much over 850w. BoosterX and Themaltake Power Express were ones I used then and maybe some of these are still kicking around. Some were designed to slide into optical drive slots but I just sat them beside my system. There also exist connectors to run dual PSU's that many miners used. Maybe you can turn this mini PC into some crazy creature with the GPU on a riser and supplementary power all external. An interesting project.

The Celeron seems to have a base speed of 1.8 Ghz, not 2.8!
That CPU sits about at where a 2060 or 2070 would max out.

Considering the age of the motherboard, an RTX 2000 series GPU may or may not even be supported by the Bios.

What I would do, is try to get your hands on a 2060 to 2070 Super (whatever you can get your hands on), and buy it with a free return policy (in case the GPU won't work).

If it doesn't work, I would recommend (from best to worse) a 1660Ti, 1660 Super, 1650 Super, or 1660.
The 1650 Super has been mentioned before to be the same compatibility as the GTX 1060, so it should be recognized.
If it still doesn't work, a 1060 6GB, 1060 3GB or 1050 would be your next best bet.
Though the lowest I would go, is either a 1060 6GB, or a 1650 Super.

foldy wrote:Mainboard supports 1 X PCI Express X16 Gen 2.0 slot and CPU 64bit 2 x 2,8Ghz is fast enough for any GPU and 4GB RAM also sufficient. So you could even go with a nvidia RTX 3080 and a new power supply 500watts on 12V.

He might not be able to get a 3080 to work on a mobo that old due to Bios support limitations. I have the same problem on my ivy bridge based Z9PE, My turing GPU's won't work in it at all and if i update the Bios I lose support for my ES cpu's. Even if he can get bios support its all irrelevant anyway as 3080's are currrently rarer than unicorn poo

Thanks for the replies. No crazy projects haha, will just slap a GPU and call it a day.

I've heard of the incompatibility but, wasn't it about UEFI? Never heard anything specific to Turing GPU's.

VegaZhree3 wrote:Thanks for the replies. No crazy projects haha, will just slap a GPU and call it a day.

I've heard of the incompatibility but, wasn't it about UEFI? Never heard anything specific to Turing GPU's.

The incompatibility has something to do with the fact that more modern (Turing, and perhaps GTX 1600 series GPUs too, I don't know for sure) use a more modernized setting, that isn't recognized by older bioses.
I think it has to do with the subtraction of VGA compatibility.
Newer GPUs are expecting at least HD screens, with a digital connector.
Not sure if an older BIOS prefers a fallback system (like 640x480 pix analog video chip) before it'll relinquish control to drivers to take over...
If it doesn't find it, it'll just remain stuck at boot.

MeeLee wrote:

VegaZhree3 wrote:Thanks for the replies. No crazy projects haha, will just slap a GPU and call it a day.

I've heard of the incompatibility but, wasn't it about UEFI? Never heard anything specific to Turing GPU's.

The incompatibility has something to do with the fact that more modern (Turing, and perhaps GTX 1600 series GPUs too, I don't know for sure) use a more modernized setting, that isn't recognized by older bioses.
I think it has to do with the subtraction of VGA compatibility.
Newer GPUs are expecting at least HD screens, with a digital connector.
Not sure if an older BIOS prefers a fallback system (like 640x480 pix analog video chip) before it'll relinquish control to drivers to take over...
If it doesn't find it, it'll just remain stuck at boot.

interesting, i wonder if a hdmi to vga adapter would work??

Nathan_P wrote:

MeeLee wrote:

VegaZhree3 wrote:Thanks for the replies. No crazy projects haha, will just slap a GPU and call it a day.

I've heard of the incompatibility but, wasn't it about UEFI? Never heard anything specific to Turing GPU's.

The incompatibility has something to do with the fact that more modern (Turing, and perhaps GTX 1600 series GPUs too, I don't know for sure) use a more modernized setting, that isn't recognized by older bioses.
I think it has to do with the subtraction of VGA compatibility.
Newer GPUs are expecting at least HD screens, with a digital connector.
Not sure if an older BIOS prefers a fallback system (like 640x480 pix analog video chip) before it'll relinquish control to drivers to take over...
If it doesn't find it, it'll just remain stuck at boot.

interesting, i wonder if a hdmi to vga adapter would work??

No. Compatible source code have to be natively built into the GPU Bios.
I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think the GPU bios communicates with the motherboard BIOS at bootup.
If the right conditions are met, the motherboard bios will recognize it as having a monitor out, and boots. If not, it'll just keep waiting for that confirmation bit.
I presume Nvidia could just upload a firmware update to include something like this in the GPU's bios. But there must be reasons why they didn't. Perhaps compatibility, or performance reasons... Not sure.
It's kind of like how the bios and modern operating systems work. They're waiting for an UEFI. If it's supposed to boot UEFI only, and the drive only has a legacy boot option, the PC won't boot at all, despite it having more than the capabilities to do so.

I'm trying to buy a GPU since i posted this, but the prices in the market are not reasonable, even for the used old cards. (GTX 970, 1060, 1070 etc.) So i decided to replace 1660S in my main build, looking for 2060/2060S, but couldn't find a card with a fair price. I'm still looking for it but one thing is certain: when i buy a new GPU, the old one, 1660S will be used in the system i posted in thread, so i decided to try it now.

Compatibility wasn't an issue. Even if there would be an issue, CPU has HD Graphics 2500, and i was able to get a video output from it, and fold with the 1660S without any issue.

CPU usage was fairly high during GPU folding, hovering around %60-70, and easily maxed out if something else starts working in background. When the CPU is maxed out, the GPU usage dips, which is something i never seen on my main build, even it's CPU folding with %100 usage besides the GPU folding. If the CPU overloaded long enough, the GPU usage can drop to %0 and will stay there until the background process goes away. I tried with both "Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling" on and off, but there was no difference.

Slightly lower PPD, due to weak CPU. (800-900K instead of 1.0-1.1M) GPU load is around %80-90 instead of %95-100, and can easily go down as i mentioned.

If the CPU load depends on how powerful the GPU is, i wouldn't put something powerful than a 1660S on this build, at least with Windows 10. Still was able to get 1.0M PPD with this build, after using the iGPU for video output, but maybe it's related to Project.

You can get a GTX 1650 in Low Profile. It will only use about 65 watts, so not need a new case or power supply. Mine get 400k PPD each.