As most of you probably know, stanford have been working on a gpu client and its due to be released today, afternoon pacific time which is 8 hours behind gmt, so sometime this evening, around 8.
There has been lengthy discussion of the gpu client in the team news, however now that the client is about to be released we need a thread where everything gpu related can be collated and discussed and those with X1900 series cards can compare results.
I'll also be writing a quick guide to folding on your gpu, and as i don't yet have an x1900 series card i'll need help from people who have an X1900 series card and can experiment with the client.
We can also try and answer all the questions we have about the client.
Download it here.
What we know so far:
-You need one of the following graphics cards:
Radeon X1900 GT
Radeon X1900 XT
Radeon X1900 XTX
Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition
Radeon X1950 XTX
Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition
-Support for X1800 series and older has been withdrawn, but may be added in future.
-You need the ATI Catalyst 6.10 driver.
-Folding on an X1900 series gpu gives 20 - 40x speed increased over a cpu.
-Points will be adjusted to reflect the massive speed gains of running on a gpu, however i believe points will still be better than running on a cpu. Points may be raised later is stanford feel tis required.
-Making the gpu client required a lot of developement, and as curren ati cards are better for folding a client for nvidia cards won't be available, but may be produced in future.
-The client is currently in beta, however although it has bugs it does work.
-There is a new core based on gromacs for gpus only.
-Folding only draws around 80w from each gpu, so its not as massively power hungry as it could be.
-The client will come in both graphical and command line versions.
-The gui client will be released sometime after the console client.
-An official faq and howto will be released with the client.
-The affect that this has on both users and teams will be very varied, with some teams having far more users with X1900 series than others.
-Gpu temperature when running folding is cool relative to the high temperature gpus are able to run at.
What we don't know, which we intend to answer in this thread:
-What effect does the ram on the graphics card have compared to speed i.e is it better to get a slower card with more ram or a faster card with less.
?
-Can you fold on multiple gpus?
Rumour has it than you will be able to, in the same way that you can with the cpu client, however this is unconfirmed.
Edit: The pc perspective article, says dual gpu support coming soon, the slides in the article are presumable from the stream computing conference.
?
-Can you adjust gpu utilisation?
?
-How is it affected by pci-e bandwidth? i.e could you run it from a card in a 4x pci-e slot with no slowdowns or does it require a 16x slot to work at full speed? If it can be run from a 4x or even a 1x or 2x slot this allows for many users to have a 3rd or even 4th card.
?
-What is the affect of folding long term on the lifetime of the card and the cooling system?
?
-What are the avantages and disadvantages of the gui client over the console client?
?
-Will it work with fahmon?
Yes
-Will the client automatically give up resources when required i.e. gaming etc?
?
Bugs:
A few, minor, read thread for detail.
Links:
Ati catalyst driver 6.10 beta.
The folding at home client download page (currently the download links for the gpu clients point to the old 5.02 cpu client)
Ocuk X1950 series page.
Ocuk X1900 series page.
Ocuk this week only page featuring one X1950 XTX and one X1900 XT
Stanford folding at home news.
Folding@Home Petaflop Initiative (FPI)
Folding@Home on ATI GPU's official FAQ
Folding@Home high performance client FAQ (with some gpu info)
Ati stream computing press release (including the official announcement of folding on gpu)
Anandtech: The GPU Advances: ATI's Stream Processing & Folding@Home
Pc perspective have a nice article on gpu folding here.
I intend to incorporate most of this into the quick guide to gpu folding which i've started and can be found here.
Questions to you:
Any suggestions for things we know, and is there anything else you want me to add to the above list of things we want to know?
Who has an X1900 series card, and which of you will be able to report back when the client is released to answer some of these questions above?
Who intends to buy an X1900 series card as soon as the client has been tested, or as soon as you know which card is best value for folding?
Personaly i can't wait to see what this client will be like, its been a long wait for anything exciting to happen with folding developement but this is definately interesting.
As you may have noticed, our team output is already at the highest level it ever been, thanks to the dedication of team members, and this gpu client can only make things better.
There has been lengthy discussion of the gpu client in the team news, however now that the client is about to be released we need a thread where everything gpu related can be collated and discussed and those with X1900 series cards can compare results.
I'll also be writing a quick guide to folding on your gpu, and as i don't yet have an x1900 series card i'll need help from people who have an X1900 series card and can experiment with the client.
We can also try and answer all the questions we have about the client.
Download it here.
What we know so far:
-You need one of the following graphics cards:
Radeon X1900 GT
Radeon X1900 XT
Radeon X1900 XTX
Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition
Radeon X1950 XTX
Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition
-Support for X1800 series and older has been withdrawn, but may be added in future.
-You need the ATI Catalyst 6.10 driver.
-Folding on an X1900 series gpu gives 20 - 40x speed increased over a cpu.
-Points will be adjusted to reflect the massive speed gains of running on a gpu, however i believe points will still be better than running on a cpu. Points may be raised later is stanford feel tis required.
-Making the gpu client required a lot of developement, and as curren ati cards are better for folding a client for nvidia cards won't be available, but may be produced in future.
-The client is currently in beta, however although it has bugs it does work.
-There is a new core based on gromacs for gpus only.
-Folding only draws around 80w from each gpu, so its not as massively power hungry as it could be.
-The client will come in both graphical and command line versions.
-The gui client will be released sometime after the console client.
-An official faq and howto will be released with the client.
-The affect that this has on both users and teams will be very varied, with some teams having far more users with X1900 series than others.
-Gpu temperature when running folding is cool relative to the high temperature gpus are able to run at.
What we don't know, which we intend to answer in this thread:
-What effect does the ram on the graphics card have compared to speed i.e is it better to get a slower card with more ram or a faster card with less.
?
-Can you fold on multiple gpus?
Rumour has it than you will be able to, in the same way that you can with the cpu client, however this is unconfirmed.
Edit: The pc perspective article, says dual gpu support coming soon, the slides in the article are presumable from the stream computing conference.
?
-Can you adjust gpu utilisation?
?
-How is it affected by pci-e bandwidth? i.e could you run it from a card in a 4x pci-e slot with no slowdowns or does it require a 16x slot to work at full speed? If it can be run from a 4x or even a 1x or 2x slot this allows for many users to have a 3rd or even 4th card.
?
-What is the affect of folding long term on the lifetime of the card and the cooling system?
?
-What are the avantages and disadvantages of the gui client over the console client?
?
-Will it work with fahmon?
Yes
-Will the client automatically give up resources when required i.e. gaming etc?
?
Bugs:
A few, minor, read thread for detail.
Links:
Ati catalyst driver 6.10 beta.
The folding at home client download page (currently the download links for the gpu clients point to the old 5.02 cpu client)
Ocuk X1950 series page.
Ocuk X1900 series page.
Ocuk this week only page featuring one X1950 XTX and one X1900 XT
Stanford folding at home news.
Folding@Home Petaflop Initiative (FPI)
Folding@Home on ATI GPU's official FAQ
Folding@Home high performance client FAQ (with some gpu info)
Ati stream computing press release (including the official announcement of folding on gpu)
Anandtech: The GPU Advances: ATI's Stream Processing & Folding@Home
Pc perspective have a nice article on gpu folding here.
I intend to incorporate most of this into the quick guide to gpu folding which i've started and can be found here.
Questions to you:
Any suggestions for things we know, and is there anything else you want me to add to the above list of things we want to know?
Who has an X1900 series card, and which of you will be able to report back when the client is released to answer some of these questions above?
Who intends to buy an X1900 series card as soon as the client has been tested, or as soon as you know which card is best value for folding?
Personaly i can't wait to see what this client will be like, its been a long wait for anything exciting to happen with folding developement but this is definately interesting.
As you may have noticed, our team output is already at the highest level it ever been, thanks to the dedication of team members, and this gpu client can only make things better.
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