Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

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Great_Gig
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Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Great_Gig »

I have a dedicated folding node with a Q6600 that runs Linux SMP 6.02 clients. I normally run 1 instance over all four cores, but was just wondering if it would be better to run 2 instances on 2 cores instead. Anyone know if one is better than the other?

Many thanks
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Ahavi »

Due to lagg between the dual cores running two SMP clients provide the best PPD, although is not the best for the project. There is a program for Windows that sets each client to use a specific pair of dual cores, but I dunno what your options are for Linux.
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Foxery »

The scaling problem is specific to Windows. You should only run 1 SMP client in Linux.
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by v00d00 »

Taskset can be used to set affinity.

Also it depends on whether you like points or science.

The choice is yours.
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Great_Gig
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Great_Gig »

Would rather have what's better for science, I'm way ahead in my team anyway, so PPD is not what's important. I want what's best for the project really.

So best for science is 1 SMP client over the 4 cores, is that correct? Don't really understand the comments about scaling problems or taskset being set to affinity :?
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Foxery »

Foxery wrote:The scaling problem is specific to Windows. You should only run 1 SMP client in Linux.
Great_Gig wrote:Don't really understand the comments about scaling problems or taskset being set to affinity
Er, I'll rephrase.

The reason for running 2 clients is specific to Windows. You should only run 1 SMP client in Linux.
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Great_Gig
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Great_Gig »

Thanks guys, 1 SMP client it is then.
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naapi
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by naapi »

Hmmmmmmmm,

I'm running 3 quads and on all of them running 2 clents of SMP yields better results (by 20% or more). I am able to still finish WUs within 24-36 hours so that's not delaying the program.

M.
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Ahavi »

Is that in Windows?
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naapi
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by naapi »

No, all quads run Linux - Ubuntu 7.10.

I understand 2 instances (2 clients) are unsupported by Stanford, but they still chyrn out much more, at least that's my experience.

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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Flathead74 »

naapi wrote:Hmmmmmmmm,

I'm running 3 quads and on all of them running 2 clents of SMP yields better results (by 20% or more). I am able to still finish WUs within 24-36 hours so that's not delaying the program.

M.
There is no way that slowing down the return of work units does also delay the project.

If you are seeing a gain of 20% by overbooking WUs, then there would also be a 20% slow down in returning the work.

I'm not trying to pick on you, but your statement just does not make sense.
naapi
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by naapi »

I meant that if you can return the samples within the preferred deadline (2-3 days depending on project), the WU is not assigned to any other folder.

Therefore, by increasing PPD by 20+%, I'm in fact speeding up the projects, not slowing them down.

If, for example I get 6 WUs from the same project in a row, I am able to finish that 6 WUs within 5 days if I run 2 SMPs clients and within 6 days if I run just 1 client of SMP.

M.
codysluder
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by codysluder »

No, your logic is still faulty.

If you can complete one project in 1 day and you can complete two projects in 1.6 days then you are doing more work, but you are also slowing down the project. Every WU that you process wastes 14 hours when somebody else could have been working on the next WU in that trajectory. FAH is a lot more like a relay race than an event for a single person. The individual times of each leg of the race add up and four people can get better times than the average that a single person would do over the entire course. The next person needs to start processing the WU after 1 day, not after 1.6 days.
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by toTOW »

Stanford recommends running one Fahcore per physical core ... so the recommendation for a quad core is to run only one SMP client ...
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Great_Gig
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Hardware configuration: CPU: Intel Q6600 'GO' @ 2.88GHz (20% Overclock)
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Re: Q6600 running SMP clients, 2 or 4 cores?

Post by Great_Gig »

toTOW wrote:Stanford recommends running one Fahcore per physical core ... so the recommendation for a quad core is to run only one SMP client ...
Thanks for that, that's what I have been doing and will continue to do so.
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