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Best CPU for F@H?

M

MrDigital

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2004
Messages
161
I'm curious as to what CPU provides the best performance for F@H.

With current technologies is there one CPU which is better than others? For the sake of simplicity, no dual comparisons, singles only.

Intel or AMD?
If Intel, P4(800FSB/HT) or Xeon(533FSB/HT) or P4EE?
If AMD, AXP or A64 or Opteron?

I'm going to assume Opterons and P4EE's are better, but they are also far more pricey. I'm looking for CPU's under say $400.

Is there any benchmarks that prove certain CPU's dominate F@H?

Second question:

How do dual processor boards compare to single processor boards? And no, I don't mean hyperthreading.

Like, will a dual xeon compare to 2 separate single xeon systems? I am aware that SMP isn't a 100% gain in any real world setup, but folding@home is specifically processor intensive, nothing more.

If you have 1 CPU giving 100% and a 2nd CPU giving 100%, wouldn't they both be completely utilized identical to 2 separate computers? SMP bottlenecks are always RAM/HD/OS seemingly, rather than CPU, so I would assume F@H on dual CPU boxes should give close to 200% instead of the more common 140% seen in SMP.

I'm trying to decide whether it's better to have a farm of cheap single processor boxes or a farm of pricier (and yet still cheaper than 2 separate boxes) SMP boxes.

Anyone have any numbers on this?


-MrD
 
In our([H]ands farm) data we have found the AMDs do better on some WUs and Intels do better on others. Price for performace AMD is better but Intel chips run cooler. F@H on dualies runs great as long as you have enough ram...512MB or greater and they will complete 2 WUs in the same time a single cpu takes to complete one WU. Personally I prefer Intel but many here prefer AMD.

On your second question I believe the consensus here is to build cheap single processor farms over duallies. A Bunch of Barton Boxen would Be Bitchen.

rs

ps please dont make this into an AMD v Intel thread. lets just help this hard folder build a farm.
 
Will the 64-bit processing in A64's or Opterons make any difference to F@H? I would suppose it is if folding is floating point intensive, but I don't really know if it is or not.

-MrD
 
Also, even though Prescotts are marginally slower than Northwoods, what about their usage of SSE3? Will this make any difference in the near future to F@H?

Prescotts are faster than Northwoods in certain tasks, could F@H be one of them?

-MrD
 
I'm not sure about SSE3, but I know that if you are going to go for a specific points-per-day its cheaper to buy Intels because you need less computers and they run at a higher Mhz. The electricity cost ends up really hurting if you have a lot of computers running.
 
XP's were the best bang for the buck for a long time, not sure about that anymore. Avoid Celerons of course, and with the price of mid range Athlons being descent no point in skimping. If you're planning a good size farm you might consider Intel chips because of heat/electric costs etc... Otherwise just buy huge quantities of the most expensive chips you can afford and fold like crazy! :)

p
 
Right now I'd have to reccommend Intel over AMD although when building systems I personally lean toward AMD.

The reason for this is Stanford has started using a new Double Gromacs Core for the Gromacs WU, this has caused a drop in productivity for me and most others. The DGC doesn't run the CPU at 100% flat out the way the Tinker or reg. Gromacs cores do. Instead the CPU bounces from 0% to 100% with a cycle time of a few seconds. Currently I've got two machines Folding, one a 2.6ghz P4 (non-HT) and the other a Athlon XP2500+. Before the DGC they stayed within 10% productivty of one another. But right now with the DGC the P4 is trashing the Athlon by about 35% on the same protein. The P4 is doing a 38 point DG protein in 12 hours, the Athlon is taking over 16 hours.

I I were building a farm right now, I'd build Intel. If more science is your object that's the only honest advice to give.
 
In the case of a WU that doesn't use 100% of the processor power, would it be better to run two instances so that the chances of having at least one of them at 100% will make sure you get the most out of your processor? If there are CPU cycles to spare, it seems like you need another instance running to make sure you're using all of them all of the time.
 
Originally posted by Mattman
In the case of a WU that doesn't use 100% of the processor power, would it be better to run two instances so that the chances of having at least one of them at 100% will make sure you get the most out of your processor? If there are CPU cycles to spare, it seems like you need another instance running to make sure you're using all of them all of the time.
Click to expand...
Good point haven't thought about that.
 
Actually, AMD CPUs of similar performance to Intel CPUs consume and generate slightly less heat. According to AMD's and Intel's own spec sheets, here are some examples of maximum energy consumption (pretty much what is going to be constantly consumed while running F@H)...

P4 2.8C - 69.7W
P4 3.0C - 81.9W
P4 3.2C - 82.0W
P4 3.4C - 89.0W

Barton 2800+ (333FSB) - 68.3W
Barton 3000+ (333FSB) - 74.3W
Barton 3000+ (400FSB) - 68.3W
Barton 3200+ (400FSB) - 76.8W

Intel CPUs may run slightly cooler, but that's because they have better cooling. The Intel is still going to use and give off slightly more heat.
 
It seems like I might have found my own answer to the SSE3 question.

From techreport.com:
"SSE3 instructions — Intel has endowed the Prescott core with 13 new instructions now known as SSE3. Like previous SSE revisions, these extended instructions are intended to accelerate certain types of computational tasks. Five new instructions for complex arithmetic allow for better handling of tasks like Fast Fourier Transforms; these instructions should enhance the Pentium 4's potential in scientific and distributed computing scenarios."

I think I might invest in Prescotts. Higher heat, of course, and probably higher wattage/electrical bill. But SSE3 could make a major difference once they develop a core for it.

-MrD
 
It would be interesting if somebody out there could compare a 2.4A and 2.4C at a overclock of 3.6. I know the Prescott's longer pipelines don't do as much work per GHz, but on the otherhand, folding@home is supposed to be more core speed dependent. Also as long as you're not running a lot of other programs, the folding core should work better with the long pipelines. Any thoughts or real world results?
 
I'll throw in my $.02 here.

I know you may want to believe that Opterons would have some sort of edge over the XP Bartons due to both the 64Bits and the SSE2. But realistically... the performance just doesn't merit the price.

Last Oct. 14th I spent nearly $1700 for an Asus SK8N, 1 Opteron 246, and 2GB of Registered Corsair DDR (all from Newegg of course)

Two weeks ago I bought 1 Mobile XP Barton 2500 for $92+sh.
I stuck it in my "old" Asus A7V8X with 2x 256Megs of DDR2700 RAM, It currently runs at 13.5x 175MHz on "cheap" air cooling for roughly 2.36GHz.

The "cheap" setup eats my "$1700 investment for the future" 's lunch and asks for seconds. In both F@H and UD the Mobile Barton simply wins hands down in both price and production.

And now that I hear my 940 Socket investment is soon to be made obsolete by Socket939... ugh I think I'm going to be sick again.

Save yourself the ulcer and go with a NForce2 motherboard and a Mobile Barton. By the time they finally develop a client that actually takes advantage of either 64Bits or SSE2 much less SSE3.... the Opterons and Intel offerings will both cost much much less.

Just my $.02

DAKemp
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And as for the Dual vs single question:

I have 5 Dual MP 2.0 systems and several single 2.0GHz systems that run headless. I have observed that the 1st CPU in a dual system and the CPUs in the single systems will complete in aprox. that same amount of time. The 2nd CPU in the dual system however usually completes the same WU in about 5-10% less time than the others.

I can only assume that this is because the 2nd CPU is actually getting 100% of FAHs time whereas the others must deligate some process time to say the OS, IE, e-mail, disk caching and the like.

Of course I could be way off on that assumption. :confused:

DAKemp
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Originally posted by jkstang
And as for the Dual vs single question:

I have 5 Dual MP 2.0 systems and several single 2.0GHz systems that run headless. I have observed that the 1st CPU in a dual system and the CPUs in the single systems will complete in aprox. that same amount of time. The 2nd CPU in the dual system however usually completes the same WU in about 5-10% less time than the others.

I can only assume that this is because the 2nd CPU is actually getting 100% of FAHs time whereas the others must deligate some process time to say the OS, IE, e-mail, disk caching and the like.

Of course I could be way off on that assumption. :confused:

DAKemp
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Click to expand...

No, you are correct on that.
 
If you are cost concious XP's still can't be beat.
On PriceWatch the cheapest m/b CPU combo for an XP runs about $70 less than a an Intel solution of the same "rated" speed.
Duallies are usually only worth the money if you have an application which uses it. Otherwise a Turmelle stack can get you more bang for the buck.
It's like my Harley - did I buy it because I needed 1200CC of motorcycle to move me ? No, I bought it because I loved the sound of 1200CC between my legs. Cost effective ? NO
 
Originally posted by gnewbury

It's like my Harley - did I buy it because I needed 1200CC of motorcycle to move me ? No, I bought it because I loved the sound of 1200CC between my legs. Cost effective ? NO
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:p :D



... bang for buck, go dual AMD. .. lower TCO than two seperate AMD systems, slightly higher output too. Run two instances per proc to nullify the current cores idle issue. 512 should be good on the ram, assuming "normal usage" ... you can even game with this setup in my opinion... AMD doesn't have the issue Intel's HT does with thread priority (which is why many gaming folders turn it off while gaming) ... of course a good chunk of people LIKE that their system still folds while they are gaming, and don't think it makes a difference..


...Folding seems to use about 15 to 20 megs of ram per instance... somebody else with dual instances let me know if my not-even-kind-of scientific observations are valid.
 
Originally posted by MrDigital

Prescotts are faster than Northwoods in certain tasks, could F@H be one of them?

-MrD
Click to expand...


NOT in the lower forms anyways... No HT on the 2.4 or 2.8 prescotts... which is a big boost for P4s... (when you run two instances) ... and you know you don't go buying 3+ghz P4s for folding... not exactly cheap.

...

of course if they OC easier (cheaper RAM, and MOBO, and same or better results) than the Northern variety some people will say yes, but I'd MUCH rather OC a cheap 1.8 or 2.4 or 2.6 even (ebay :D ) and have my HT support.
 
I'd perfer running an older AMD. My 1900+ (I had to sell it) ran just about as fast as my 2500+, which is at 2.3 ghz right now. Tinkers really sucked on it, though.

I have a Mobile Duron 1 ghz... :p
 
You'll have to hook it up and tell us. :p

The .804 is because your running at 1804 mhz. Your FSB isn't a perfect 133mhz or 166 mhz or 200 mhz, it's just very very close. My 1 ghz PIII runs at 997mhz. My 1 ghz mobile Duron runs at 1009.187 mhz stock. Its up to the board and the chip as to what the actual mult and FSB are. ;)
 
Dual Barton or P4 with HT and 2 folding clients will both kick out more than 1000 PPW.

If electricty were free for you, low-end duron or tbred boxes with integtrated everything booting via LTSP will get you the most CPU's per $1 spent.
 
My P4 box with HT does 800+ppw consistently... they're pretty good...I didn't buy it just for folding though... :D
 
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