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Pan Crastus
Anti-Metagaming League
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Posted - 2011.01.24 21:26:00 -
[61]
Edited by: Pan Crastus on 24/01/2011 21:34:19
 Originally by: Kazuo Ishiguro
I suspect that within the top 20% or so of contributors, there is a much higher level of awareness of the associated costs than there is elsewhere.
I don't think cost is the main issue people are aware of or interested in, quiet/cool PCs have become more important lately and so users are avoiding things that provide no value to them and cause a lot of heat / fan noise.
Quote:
Currently, I understand that the ideal machine in terms of (points per day) / (cost over 3 years inc. power) is held to be some sort of dual socket server equipped with a very efficent pair of multi-core Xeon CPUs.
That's interesting findings, it must be hard to check all possible options though since depending on CPU family, using different instructions might change the picture radically (e.g. SSE3 might be best on Xeons, 3DNow on Opterons). I wonder if they tested obscure low-power CPUs like current ARM cores (used in tablets).
PS. the only benchmarks for folding @ home and points per Watt I can find are > 2 years old and put GPUs far, far ahead of CPUs ...
How to PVP: 1. buy ISK with GTCs, 2. fit cloak, learn aggro mechanics, 3. buy second account for metagaming
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Master Blade
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Posted - 2011.01.24 22:06:00 -
[62]
Originally by: Pan Crastus
That's interesting findings, it must be hard to check all possible options though since depending on CPU family, using different instructions might change the picture radically (e.g. SSE3 might be best on Xeons, 3DNow on Opterons). I wonder if they tested obscure low-power CPUs like current ARM cores (used in tablets).
this is actually something worth looking at. a diskless linux netboot on this type of processer interests me as well. unfortunatly clusters within thier cluster are not supported by f@h atm, so would have to be a very custom or obscure hardware to get the ultimate powersavings per cycle donated. |
Derik Wildstar
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Posted - 2011.01.25 00:04:00 -
[63]
Edited by: Derik Wildstar on 25/01/2011 00:09:04
If your really interested in your own participation's electrical usage you could pickup a killawatt pretty cheap and actually see... or you can use something like PSU Calc to get a decent rough estimate on what wattage your pulling (considering pretty constant 100% load and allowing for aging) break out a calculator and do the following maths- ((computer wattage x 730)/1000) x .12 = monthly electrical cost. (This converts watts to watt-hours (730/mth) and uses the US national average kwh adjust if necessary)
There are lots of tables that give the different values of components potential draw under folding I'll have to find references hardwarecanucks used to have a decent list iirc.
Was a little surprised convo took this turn as I figured up the cost of running my dedicated folder before I ever built it, I figured on worst case maximum power draw but the realized increase on my bill was not as great as there are downtimes, my cpu is actually close to idle, and other system components are in lowered states of operation.
edit: Using my original calculations I had allotted for around $50/mth but my bill only increased about an average of $23/mth, year over year not month over month. The summer months it increased slightly more as the AC had to work a little harder to dissipate the extra heat the winter a little less since I have a folding furnace 
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Kazuo Ishiguro
House of Marbles
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Posted - 2011.01.25 00:11:00 -
[64]
Originally by: Pan Crastus
Quote:
Currently, I understand that the ideal machine in terms of (points per day) / (cost over 3 years inc. power) is held to be some sort of dual socket server equipped with a very efficent pair of multi-core Xeon CPUs.
...
PS. the only benchmarks for folding @ home and points per Watt I can find are > 2 years old and put GPUs far, far ahead of CPUs ...
The majority of benchmarks I know of were put together round about when the GPU client was first released, and people were still building up a reasonable idea of how performance scales with various GPU characteristics. At the time, they led the field by a very long way.
Since then, some extra-large work units have become available for the (CPU-based) SMP client, which have a couple of interesting properties:- The client will only download them from the assignment server if it detects 8 or more cores on the host system
- Uniquely, they score more points the faster they're completed.
Dual Xeons give you the necessary cores and perform very well without drawing much power. They're expensive to set up, but they pay for themselves in the long run. Also, the necessary server motherboards for that CPU socket type also tend to be made to quite a high standard, which increases the system lifespan.
Prior to this, it was not unheard of for people to run multiple SMP clients in virtual machines - still a useful trick if you want to fool the client into thinking that a 6-core processor actually has 8 cores, and required for making it work at all on linux.
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34.4:1 mineral compression |
Master Blade
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Posted - 2011.01.25 00:50:00 -
[65]
good idea derik on picking up a tool to measure exactly what is being used. For me personaly, I dont care how much it uses for the project as whatever it comes out to be is fine by me.
I think that a high output/low power farm would be a cool project. I also will pursue my original idea of the sr-2.
I was just unaware of the fact that some people are actually concerned by a few extra watts being used on a non-dedicated system. personally, I would never notice a $5 - $50 dollar increase to my electrical bill based on the normal fluctuation that occurs naturaly due to my life-style.
this is not an indication that I am an unessessarily wasteful person, only that when I enjoy working on a project, the costs associated with it are well within my budget.
although ive enjoyed ribbing our resident troll, he did bring up a thought of using risk based processors which I find interesting.
what concerns me about his line of thought is that with a single basic client, with a maximum addition of $1 per day to run, he feels is an unacceptable waste of energy. this small amount being unaceptable seems as rediculous to me as some people other than myself would feel a huge outlay of maxed hardware would be.
just my 2 cents based on the research I cared to do b4 I started. guess thats the key, people need to do thier own research to see if the benifits outweigh the drawbacks for each individual.
anyway, I'm folding along with my non-dedicated client for now till I get the other system up over the next month or 2 I just past 100k mark. |
Derik Wildstar
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Posted - 2011.01.25 01:11:00 -
[66]
Pretty sure only x86 based processors are supported along side the CUDA from Nvidia and limited OPENCL from AMD, I haven't checked the Standford forums lately for their stance on this but ARM and other embedded processors wouldn't yield enough project results to merit the time to support additional client designs. This may change in the future as some of these are getting more and more powerful and we are starting to see trending towards generally lower power designs. The clients themselves are optimized for Intel processors so your likely to find your performance per watt there. The gpu client is optimized for Nvidia I haven't seen the specs on their low tier based on the GTX500 series yet but willing to bet there is a winner in there somewhere.
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Derik Wildstar
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Posted - 2011.01.29 15:25:00 -
[67]
Woot Ranked 450, halfway to our next goal! Thanks for the continued support.
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defiler
Mad Hermit
Wayward Alliance
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Posted - 2011.04.04 21:25:00 -
[68]
400! Congrats everyone! \o/
(notify) Lurking Device II is already ForumLurking. |
Derik Wildstar
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Posted - 2011.04.05 19:56:00 -
[69]
Took us awhile but finally got here \o/ thanks to everyone for contributing.
Sadly going to have to start regulating my main folder to post processing work will continue folding when its not busy, one of these days I'll head over to newegg and get a pair of 570's to play with :D
Happy folding!
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Vogue
Short Bus Pole Dancers
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Posted - 2011.04.05 21:10:00 -
[70]
It would be nice If Sony would endorse a folding@home client for the PS3. I don't want to run this on my PC but I would on my PS3.
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Fortress Of Solitude |
Kazuo Ishiguro
House of Marbles
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Posted - 2011.04.05 22:13:00 -
[71]
Edited by: Kazuo Ishiguro on 05/04/2011 22:15:20
Originally by: Vogue
It would be nice If Sony would endorse a folding@home client for the PS3. I don't want to run this on my PC but I would on my PS3.
I'm not sure whether Sony endorsed it, but it certainly exists:
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3#ntoc3
Edit: further down that page, it says Sony developed it 
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34.4:1 mineral compression |
Sidus Isaacs
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.04.05 22:58:00 -
[72]
This reminded me to check up on my old linux box... gotten in quite a few more packs for SETI at any rate. Not sure if I really checked it since I posted here last. Might even add Folding to it now as well.
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http://desusig.crumplecorn.com/sigs.html |
Vogue
Short Bus Pole Dancers
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Posted - 2011.04.06 23:32:00 -
[73]
The anti troll fairy hits me for 100 damage. Installed the Ps3 client through playstation life 
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Fortress Of Solitude |
Kazuo Ishiguro
House of Marbles
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Posted - 2011.05.07 21:05:00 -
[74]
Good news for anyone who owns an ATI 5000 series or newer graphics card: a new folding core is now available which makes these GPUs almost as effective as their Nvidia counterparts.
At the moment, it's still in beta, but it's fairly simple to get it working (at least compared to some of the previous clients).
To get started, you need an ATI driver installed that supports APP. All Catalyst drivers from 11.3 onwards include this as standard when you download them from ATI's website.
Next, you need to install the V7 beta folding@home client. Choose the appropriate version from this page:
https://fah-web.stanford.edu/projects/FAHClient/wiki/BetaRelease
If you already have any other folding@home gpu clients installed, uninstall them first.
Once the V7 beta client is installed, set it up to run on your GPU. This part of the process is fairly self explanatory. To unlock the new core (core 16), you then need to change a few settings via the Folding@Home Client Control app:
- On the upper right pull-down menu (next to "About") change Novice to Advanced.
- On the upper left, select Configure
- Pick the Slots tab
- Highlight the gpu slot
- Click Edit
- At the bottom below Extra slot options (expert only) choose Add
- Enter the text client-type in the Name field and advanced in the Value field and click OK
- Click OK
- Click Save
Your client will then be able to receive work units that use the new core. It may not receive one immediately - you might have to wait a day or two, depending on the scarcity of those work units.
The bottom line: performance on a stock 5850 is up from about 4k ppd to over 7k.
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34.4:1 mineral compression |
northwesten
Amarr
Trinity Corporate Services
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Posted - 2011.06.13 13:15:00 -
[75]
friendly bump.
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