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Frozennova

Frozennova

Frozennova

Man of Honour
Joined
13 Nov 2009
Posts
11,666
Location
Northampton
Does anyone else use the uniprocessor client?

Mine have been picking up the new gromacs33 units and they seem terribly inefficient and slow for the PPD they're producing.

Its somewhere around half what AMBER or GROMACS cores produce.
 
Uni..what? :eek:

:p

Haven't run the uniprocessor client in donkey's years. However it is common for all clients to get horrible WUs that take ages.
 
Time to laugh but heres what I have folding.

Eeepc 701SD 961mhz
T1500 1.8ghz ( 2 Clients) I'd try SMP but as its not on enough I dont think it would make deadlines
Athlon XP 3800+ 2.4ghz

I have an athlon II 240 system coming shortly that will overclocked by a reasonable amount and I'm going to see what that run SMP like.

While I'm here the Athlon II is being built on a tight budget and wondered what you would advise as best PPD/£ GPU I dont mind buying used either.

So far I'm looking at GTS250 or 9800GT Green
 
Difference between the 9800GT Green and the non-green edition is the green one is underclocked. You could do that yourself if you really wanted, don't pay a premium for it :p
I picked up my 9800GT and 8800GT for ~£35 each in the last couple of months (used, of course!)
 
Didnt know there was a premium on them, as I understood as they we're underclocked they would run cooler and draw less power and I could gain a few more PPD by overclocking the shader core.

Looking at the graph on this page http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2009/08/03/how-to-build-the-best-folding-rig/4 how does the GTS250 beat the GTX260 when its 128 vs 216 shader cores. Is this due to the 600mhz difference in shader clocks?
 
I don't know if there is a premium (although for some reason there often is because it's 'desired' because of the lower TDP) but you can underclock the non-green to the power levels of the green, and then o/c the shaders, so just buy the cheapest 9800GT if you decide to get one. Although bear in mind some are 65nm and others are 55nm - I suppose with the green version you might get a guaranteed 55nm version, not sure.
 
But then I can still find GTS250s for £5 less than the 9800GT and it performs better according to Bit-tech

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So go for it then, the only reason I talked about the 9800 is 'cause I know about them :)

How much does it look like you'll be spending, out of interest?
 
Its being built in stages as its acutally for the misses and she's on a low income being at sixth form, but she's letting me fold on it.

so far its

Asus TA-861
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2
OCZ StealthXstreme 400w

£110

Then I'll be adding

Athlon II 240 - £50 ( 3.2Ghz overclock maybe more once I buy a new cooler)
Patriot Sector 4Gb £86.99

GPU cost will be minimal as she only wants to play Sims 3, So I'm looking at no more than £100

I'll also be upgrading it to a quad once I've sorted my finances and moved into her parents house, and it'll be replacing the laptop with the T1500 mentioned above
 
Cool, how little do you reckon you can get the GTS 250 for?

Building things in stages always seems a bit odd as in theory prices should be lower the longer you wait, so surely you should buy all the bits at the point when you'd buy the last one needed to run it! That doesn't always work in practise though, especially when buying second-hand.
 
She's not great at leaving money in the bank account untouched like my self so its easier to buy bits each time she gets paid. I think her parents are paying for the rest part earlier birthday present and she's getting £100 for her current laptop as well.

I've found the GTS250 green for around £80
 
Makes sense then!
That's a pretty decent price new, I'd definitely keep an eye out second-hand though if you don't mind a risk of there being no warranty and things breaking. Should be able to get a 9800GTX for roughly half that, or possibly slightly more, second-hand (GTS 250 itself tends to be a bit more expensive because the card name is newer/better although 'tis the same thing as the 9800GTX+, I'm sure you know)
 
Second hand is always an option when building a rig so I'll be keeping an eye out on MM for a 9800 of some description or a 250.

Whats the crack with folding on two GPU's do they have to be in SLi or does it not matter?
 
It's actually recommended not to use SLI I believe. My experiences with SLI are limited but I'm currently folding on three GPUs (9800GT, 8800GT, 9600GT) without issue, although on my secondary/tertiary GPUs I have a -forcegpu flag set. You'll also need a monitor plugged into each of them although it doesn't have to be in use, or an adapter to fool them into thinking a monitor is plugged in.

Finally, there could in theory be driver issues if you're folding on cards with different architectures. Things have improved a lot with Windows 7, but I wasn't able to fold in the 5 minutes I tried for with a 9600GT and a pair of 4850s, though I might have been able if I'd tried for longer. I'm sure other people will have experiences to share of folding on different architectures (e.g. 8/9 series + 200)!
 
So I should in theory have no problems running say a GTS250 in the PCI-e 16x slot then another say 8800 or 9800 in PCI-e 1x slot due to the GTS250 being a refresh?
 
From a quick search they're both G92 cards so they should be compatible.

However a GTS250 and a 9800GTX+ will be pushing the PSU a little ( 355 watts system total @ 100% load)
 
You only need a monitor plugged into second/tertiary cards if running Vista or 7. XP will run fine without.

If you have Vista/7 you have 3 options:

1: Plug a monitor into each card you wish to fold on. Easy to do, but takes up space having spare monitors that may not be doing anything - though if you want a dual monitor system it is ideal.

2: If your monitor supports multiple inputs, you can plug both cards into the same monitor. For example, when my dual GTX260 machine was my main rig, I had two cables coming from my Dell 2007WFP, one DVI and one VGA. Great for saving space if you do not wish to run two screens. Downside is not all monitors have two inputs.

3: Create a dummy plug. All you need is a spare DVI to VGA adapter [a lot of GPUs come with at least one] and 3 68Ohm resisters - which are about 20p each at most. All you have to do is insert them into the correct holes on the VGA adapter - no soldering required! :) No need for a spare monitor or dual-input monitor. This is the best option if you don't mind going getting the resistors.
 
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