SETI@Home & OcUk Projects News Vol. 172 24th March - 30th March 2012

Area 51 said:
The 'word on the street' has indicated that the 680s... <snip>
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An interesting read, and one that I believe will cause them to lose a fair amount of custom should it be true.

High-spec GPUs are no longer just the reserve of gamers looking to boost their FPS count. Ever since GPU-compatible apps were first written for projects such as S@H there has been a plethora of DC users who have invested heavily in GPU technology in order to crunch as many WUs as they possibly can and stay ahead of the game. Even I did that - I switched from ATI to nvidia just so that I could run the S@H GPU client, thereby simultaneously ditching a card that was perfectly good for everything else I needed it for and spending money that I technically didn't need to.

The nub of it is that a lot of us have bought hardware just for the sake of gaining a few extra credits on DC projects that may or may not provide tangible results. A lot of people question the validity of distributed computing, but this is our hobby and one we are happy to throw money at, and if nvidia turns its back on this side of the market - as small a niche as it may be when compared to gaming - then many DC users will simply buy an ATI card and switch to a different DC project. Bad for CUDA-biased projects, bad for nvidia.
 
That was a struggle

cpartcert1.php
 
TheTross said:
An interesting read, and one that I believe will cause them to lose a fair amount of custom should it be true.

High-spec GPUs are no longer just the reserve of gamers looking to boost their FPS count. Ever since GPU-compatible apps were first written for projects such as S@H there has been a plethora of DC users who have invested heavily in GPU technology in order to crunch as many WUs as they possibly can and stay ahead of the game. Even I did that - I switched from ATI to nvidia just so that I could run the S@H GPU client, thereby simultaneously ditching a card that was perfectly good for everything else I needed it for and spending money that I technically didn't need to.

The nub of it is that a lot of us have bought hardware just for the sake of gaining a few extra credits on DC projects that may or may not provide tangible results. A lot of people question the validity of distributed computing, but this is our hobby and one we are happy to throw money at, and if nvidia turns its back on this side of the market - as small a niche as it may be when compared to gaming - then many DC users will simply buy an ATI card and switch to a different DC project. Bad for CUDA-biased projects, bad for nvidia.
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The 680s do have a huge increase in double precision (DP) capability - unfortunately, S@H uses virtually no DP calculations - apparently a limitation of the accuracy of the telescope data being analysed. I'm not saying I think CUDA will be abandoned - its just that this card is first and foremost a Graphics card and that the compute capability doesn't appear to have been a major design criteria for them. nVidia does generate a lot of money from selling its GPUs to the HPC and Supercomputing market - and I agree, they would be barking mad to walk away from both this and the DC market. I guess we will just have to wait and see what The Lunatics can do to strangle a reasonable performance gain out of the new series and hope that nVidia prove me wrong - more than happy to be wrong :)
 
Oh nicely sneaked in there Mr derv sah, was just about to click submit and pc crashed having to do the stats below the news again grrrrrr ...... your tiffy did it!!!! :eek::D
 
ToxicTBag said:
Me? nooooooo Mr Reaver has had it easy for a while now might spend the afternoon adding a 580 to the Reavernator :D
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It's been named. Now i know its getting serious :p

Repeats to self. I must stop playing skyrim. I must stop playing skyrim. I'm gonna need all the head start i can get :rolleyes:;)

On second thoughts sod it. As the song goes whatever will be will be :D
 
:) Is skyrim as good as peeps are making out Mr Reaver sah? Its still a bit pricey for my liking but it does look good .... oh yeah its named allright am just putting some thought into the paintwork :eek::D
 
Gotta say i'm enjoying it but then i have enjoyed the previous 2 games from the series as well. I'm currently 87Hrs in and have barely scratched any of the main quests so there is plenty to go at if your into this type of game.
 
Am surely tempted today, it sounds liuke there is plenty of free roaming to do then. Must admit while everyone runs around completeing main quests and the like i prefer scavenging and opening every box looking for chests etc if there is plenty to discover/collect i will more than likely get it :)
 
You can't go wrong with Skyrim, it's the best game out for several years... still prefer Fallout 3 though :D. I spent endless hours just exploring and doing random little side quests.

You can buy it online from one of the large supermarkets using online code EX-15OFF15-1. £18.25 with free delivery. Drop me an e-mail if you want the link.

You lot playing Skyrim will give me a bit of extra crunching time to catch up :p
 
and I'll be crunching just a little bit more powerfully.

The graphics update I've been talking about has finally come around - ordered myself a 7850, the overclocking headroom on that beast seems pretty nice. Also good for games, beats my 5770 hands down even at stock (My 5770 has had some visible low frames on Skyrim).
 
Nice upgrade will1b way to go :)

I decided to enforce a finish one game buy the next policy so before i get Skyrim am off to find the rest of these ingots in fallout 3 :rolleyes::)
 
Well, hangover has virtually subsided ;)

Just trying to motivate myself in stripping down big rig and installing the four GTX 680's :D
 
loudbob said:
Well, hangover has virtually subsided ;)

Just trying to motivate myself in stripping down big rig and installing the four GTX 680's :D
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:D Dooooooo it sah!!! you know you want to and we expect some mighty pics n stats from this rig .... headache no sympathy :p:)
 
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