Folding@Home | Why?

arknor said:
you realise how big the difference between idle and load is right? its around 3-4 100watt light bulbs for most people with top spec machines
Click to expand...

From what I have read, the GPU based version of F@H (and other distributed computing programs) are MUCH more powerful than the CPU based versions purely due to the parallel processing power of modern graphics hardware. Therefore, running F@H should only use your graphics card at full whack with not being called on.

Admittedly this may well be a good 200W more than it uses at idle (if you have a single top-end card), but its not going to bankrupt you.

Currently, F@H operates at over 5 PetaFLOPS while the single biggest (publicly known) supercomputer operates at less than 2 petaFLOPS. Considering F@H is dedicated to just medical research - then I think it is an excellent program and I plan to join up when I get back to my main rig.
 
Wow so many responses i might think about it but i was generaly on about people building dedicated "folding" rigs just for it and leaving them on constantly :)

which i think is a bit OTT unless your rich then you can have ten built :)
 
Hello infernox,

Folding@Home falls into two main categories . . .

Not everybody "crunches" 24/7 365 . . . some do I'm sure but myself and no doubt others fold when we can or when we can afford it, for those people not yet powering their rigs from solar panels etc then the extra processing will increase the rate of energy consumption and the individual will find their electricty bill increases!

There are many Distributed Computing projects, which one you run is down to personal preference? . . . search for Extraterrestrial life or communications? . . . weather prediction? . . . Human Protein Folding etc

It seems being charitable is not something a lot of people are interested in so I can understand why some may shrug their shoulders at the prospect of indulging in an activity that have no appernt material gain and costs them money! :D

Folding@home is a "creeper", one minute you just hear about it and the next minute your fully addicted, sourcing a motherboard with four PCI-E x16 slots for your GPU farm, caring and talking only about PPD, energy efficiency and your global ranking! :cool:
 
Big wayne, what sort of load does FAH place on a system. Ie can it be compared to running something like p95, only on a longer basis?
 
i see people talking about tri sliing 8800GTX's for folding and talking about ppd i was just like :S

but maybe i will look into it thanks guys :)
 
Running F@H loads your system like running P95 or furmark on your GPU you if you wish to fold on your GPU.

Take into account that you don't need mega harware to fold either. My rig set me back 400 notes and I'm in the top 20 for the team as far as production is concerned


EDIT: Tri SLI 8800GTX is fairly small compared to the 3xGTX470s and 1xGTX480 Biffa has in a watercooled rig known as 'wee beastie'
 
Last edited:
setter, I found folding and priming load the system up about the same, once you start adding GPU's to the mix I would guesstimate one is looking at 300w to 500w . . . which will cost a pretty penny if left running 24/7! :D
 
100watts247365bigwayne2.jpg
 
Tbh, i never leave this rig running for much more tha 5 hours a day, (weekends a bit more), i7 920 @4ghz with sli gtx 275's, at stock, i do use speedstep etc, no need for all that power for web browsing.
 
^True, a virus scan takes no time on my rig, downloading something is a different matter. Im on bt, which isnt great to start with, factor in the problem that im on wireless via a usb adapter, its the worst thing for net access ever.
 
Si105 said:
To aid in medical research.
Click to expand...

Don't really think that's a viable argument. If you donate the money to a research centre and they then decide to spend it on computational use, then I'd say its efficient use of that money if your goal is to aid medical research.

It seems to me, that its the competitive aspect which drives most crunchers.
 
Id say it likely would wayne, but im thinking of backing it off to 3.6ghz, i can run it at this speed on 1.18 vcore, (1.2750 for 4ghz). Cant see it bottleknecking my 2 gpu's, i dont overclock video cards theese days, and im no longer interested in 3d mark runs etc, to much heat for a silly score, and ive had a gtx 280 die on me at stock, that was pretty expensive.
 
ghost101 said:
Don't really think that's a viable argument. If you donate the money to a research centre and they then decide to spend it on computational use, then I'd say its efficient use of that money if your goal is to aid medical research.

It seems to me, that its the competitive aspect which drives most crunchers.
Click to expand...

I agree that the competition is a big factor, but the medical research argument is a good one. If you donated the money to a medical research institution and they needed more computing power, they would need to spend money to buy the equipment as well as pay to run it. If people can collectively come together and use computing equipment that has already been paid for to work towards a good cause - then I say more power to them.
 
Imo crunching at home is better than giving money to companies monthly. At least you KNOW where your money is going this way.

I run WCG, btw. Some real interesting projects on that which I'm proud to contribute to :)
 
I personally only fold on my cpu in my sig.

The folding client runs on an idle basis, so therefor if you are say folding then all of a sudden need cpu power for something else, the other thing gets priority over the folding client, Stanford set up the clients this way, so they don't hog resources.

People that spend an absolute fortune on folding rigs/farms do so as they have relatives that are affected by the diseases that stanford are trying to cure. I know of one person that spent well over £20k on a folding farm, but he had the money, and really wanted to help, that dos'nt mean everyone has to, or even wants to.

There are 3 ways to fold on the Cpu, System tray client (folds older cores) and is generally best for older cpu's, Console client (folds newer A3 cores) and is generally best to use fast dual or quadcored cpu's for this, but not a necessity. Then you have the uber projects called Big Adv's (Vmware client), theses beasts need horsepower, so the min cpu you will need is an I7 (8 threads), even then these take some time, as they are coded for multi cpu setups.

I personally fold as when im using my computer, my cpu barely breaks into a sweat on a daily basis, so i decided to start folding to make use of my computers power, and to help stanford in there research like many others world wide do, yes you get points everytime u complete a project, and if you are in a team u can have mini battles with each other, but thats it, its friendly competition and everyone is folding for the same purpose to help.

As its been said before u don't need uber fast pc's to fold, yes they help to reduce the time it takes to do a project for example my old E8400 @ 3.6ghz used to take 15 hours per project, where as my I7 @ 4ghz takes 5 hours to do the same projects.

Also im certainly not a 24/7 folder as my computer is in my bedroom, i generally do 1 or 2 projects per day, as my computer is on for that length of time, i then just stop the folding, shut down the comp and done, you can allways stop the folding client from running, when ever you like, it dos'nt run all the time, u have to actully start it up. So its all user based, as to when u run them.

To those wondering about temps, it is just abit lower then say prime/ibt/linX but folding does stress your cpu/gpu depending on what your folding on. As an example my Ibt/linx temps on my cpu in sig are high 60's lows 70s, when im folding my core temps are generally high 50's to mid 60's.
 
Last edited:
Its an easy way to get involved and feel like your doing your bit, most people here have powerful rigs that are only used for a few hours a day at what can be considered full loads so why not make use of the pc you've invested plenty of money in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom