Cost effective GPU Folder?

S

Schro

[H]F Junkie
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Mar 15, 2002
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I've been out for most of this year due to moving houses, summer, life, etc, but I'd like to get back within an arms reach of the top 100, thus, I'm getting my folding on again :). I'm a bit out of touch with this exponential bonus nonsense, but alas...

I've got a pair of quad cores fired up, and I've got an x2 3800 and related motherboard that I'm going to drop into the rack in the basement to do some folding - but if I'm not mistaken, I'll get more points out of GPU folding in that box, therefore....

Whats the most cost effective GPU to go after these days?

I've got my eyes on Vaulter's 9800GX2, but it seems that the 460GTX does a similar level of PPD for circa $150 at a much lower power draw... How would a used 2xx series card compare?

I was hoping not to spend more than $100, but it'd also be nice not to have a dustbuster... if the absolute best way is to spend a bit more, i could go for that too...

 
As Tobit says the 460 is the best card out there for cost effective folding at the moment, low power draw, low heat and excellent overclockability means it beats almost any 2xx card hands down. I personally have an asus with the upgraded directCU cooler and think its great - it runs even cooler than a reference 460.

~$150, 130 watts at full load and 10k plus PPD - nuff said:cool:
 
gtx 460, gts 450, or used GTX 260's or 275's when you can find them for 100 or less.. the gtx 260's will put out the same PPD on gpu2 WU's as the 450's on gpu3 WU's and the gtx 275 will put out the same PPD on gpu2 as the 460 does on gpu3..
 
OK, can someone give me a quick PPD summation in regards to the 200-series range on current projects including P10109 WUs. TIA
 
APOLLO said:
OK, can someone give me a quick PPD summation in regards to the 200-series range on current projects including P10109 WUs. TIA
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i dont know about the new WU.. my gtx 260 avg'd 6800-8400 PPD at 605/1512/1161 on gpu2..

if i remember correctly tobit was doing a little over 10k PPD on his gtx 275 running his shaders at 1782 or something like that..
 
I have two gtx260's @ 720/1620/1080. They get between 8100-9500PPD each. Right now they are both folding a 10109 and getting 8208 and 8369 PPD.
 
I've purchased two EVGA GTX 465 SCs for $180 AR from newegg now, waiting for the second one to get here, but the first is doing 13-14k a day with the shaders at 1500. Guess I should bring the 260 core 216s back online if they're doing 8k a day...
 
APOLLO said:
OK, can someone give me a quick PPD summation in regards to the 200-series range on current projects including P10109 WUs. TIA
Click to expand...

My gtx275 is pulling 8100 ppd on the new 10,1xx WU's. (633 core 1590 shaders).

On different WU's I've seen as much as 11k ppd.

I don't have any complaints about noise, after reseating the cooler it's at 79-81c with the fan at 55%. Can't hear it over the cpu fan.
 
APOLLO said:
OK, can someone give me a quick PPD summation in regards to the 200-series range on current projects including P10109 WUs. TIA
Click to expand...
ewww, 10109 sucks.. I do not like them at all. 1K/day slower than most other Core11 units. But since you asked so nicely...

Code: 
 Name: callisto - GTX275
 Path: C:\fah\gpu2-0\
 Number of Frames Observed: 300

 Min. Time / Frame : 00:00:48 - 8,892.0 PPD
 Avg. Time / Frame : 00:00:49 - 8,710.5 PPD
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
the gtx 260's will put out the same PPD on gpu2 WU's as the 450's on gpu3 WU's and the gtx 275 will put out the same PPD on gpu2 as the 460 does on gpu3..
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Not if you overclock. GTS 450s and GTX 460s will significantly outperform 260s and 275s, especially with the smaller GPU3 units that were just released from advmethods.
 
yeah, either get a GTS450 or a GTX460 as budget allows.
 
APOLLO said:
Is there a big difference between these GPUs in folding?
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I don't have personal experience with the 450, but from what I see the 460 is 2k to 3k ppd faster. The 450 seems to be around 7k to 10k, and the 460 seems to be around 9k to 13k.
 
jebo_4jc said:
I don't have personal experience with the 450, but from what I see the 460 is 2k to 3k ppd faster. The 450 seems to be around 7k to 10k, and the 460 seems to be around 9k to 13k.
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I've been doing some researching on the GTS450 and there seems to be a very wide range of production, probably stemming from the release of the new GPU3 WUs. Some people are claiming ~13k PPD with the -advmethods WUs. That's crazy if there's any truth to that.
 
I find 13k hard to believe, but I've seen enough variation not to discredit it entirely.
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jebo_4jc said:
I find 13k hard to believe, but I've seen enough variation not to discredit it entirely.
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Yeah, hard to believe. On the EVGA forum, one guy replaced his GTX285 with a GTS450 stating there was a big difference in production. :confused:

I don't know what to believe and he's not the only one posting that level of performance.
 
Going through more of that thread it seems that with the -advmethods WUs, an OCed GTS450 will produce nearly 15k PPD - no, that's not a typo. The big caveat is with standard WUs it can drop to ~7k PPD. So it really runs the gamut. If these new WUs are discontinued or future WUs are released that perform like older WUs, then you'll be stuck at much lower production levels. The plus side is these cards are cheap. YMMV
 
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Still bothers me though. Does your source cite specific Wu numbers?? I own two 470s and one460 and even my 470s only produce 15k, and only in a good day at that. My decently clocked 460 mazes out close to 13k
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jebo_4jc said:
Still bothers me though. Does your source cite specific Wu numbers?? I own two 470s and one460 and even my 470s only produce 15k, and only in a good day at that. My decently clocked 460 mazes out close to 13k
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The 13k PPD post was from the FF. It's confirmed that the GTS450 is capable of close to 15k PPD. It's all over this thread: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=571461&mpage=1
 
The new WUs don't appear to benefit my OCed GTX470 at all. At 15k ppd, I'm basically even with an OCed GTX460, but using 50% more power.
With the old WUs, the 470 was more or less equal to the 460 in ppd/W but cheaper in ppd/$.
 
thefreeaccount said:
The new WUs don't appear to benefit my OCed GTX470 at all. At 15k ppd, I'm basically even with an OCed GTX460, but using 50% more power.
With the old WUs, the 470 was more or less equal to the 460 in ppd/W but cheaper in ppd/$.
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that's where I'm heading too. There appears to be no benefit to running 470s, in fact they just suck up more power. It's causing me to reconsider the sli 470s in my gaming rig.
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Hate to be the nub here, but isn't GPU folding still less efficient in terms of ppd/kWh than CPU w/bigadv? Just wondering if the OP would spend less in the long run with more power efficient folding.

Any ideas?
 
High-end (i.e., Fermi) low-power GPUs like the GTX 460 can be very competitive with CPUs in PPD/W. Also, the PPD is much more consistent, since you're not relying on the luck of the draw getting bigadv WUs. Finally, it's a lot cheaper to throw a GPU or two in an older box you already have than to build a brand new SMP box.
 
Hmm...all valid points. I suppose if the farm location isn't impacted by the heat output (which can be a heater replacement) then GPU folding isn't all that bad. I know it's certainly less expensive for the initial investment. Too bad I'm about to move to Texas, where it's almost always hot, hehe.

Plus, IIRC, there were some comments on the 10th year anniversary 'post' by PG about new and exciting "stuff" coming up for GPU folders.

Time will tell :D
 
Plus, don't forget, while CPU rigs may be king in long term costs and GPUs are king in short term ease of upgrade, both do seperate kinds of work the other can't, that's why it's good to have a balance. While I used to have a shit ton on gpu clients and now I only have one capable of folding lol, I'll still fold that gpu just to help with all aspects. Same reason I've still got a Borg on the classic client
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Sounds like the 450/460 series cards will be the winner for me - thanks for all the insight and discussion in the thread!

Jmtyra said:
Hate to be the nub here, but isn't GPU folding still less efficient in terms of ppd/kWh than CPU w/bigadv? Just wondering if the OP would spend less in the long run with more power efficient folding.

Any ideas?
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Efficiency isn't everything. I pay about 10 cents/kwh, so even if I was burning an extra 100w by GPU folding instead of CPU folding, thats about a $7/month difference in power between the two options. It'd take a whole year to pay for the cheapest quad core CPU on the market at that rate, making the overall cost per PPD over the course of a year much lower on the GPU folding rig in this example. Even if you were to suppose a 200w difference, the math still isn't favorable to the CPU rig.

Now lets apply that to my scenario that spawned this thread - I have an Athlon x2 3800 processor, a socket 939 board and a pile of DDR 1 that can run a PCI-E graphics card. I don't want to spend the $300+ it will take to do a quad mobo/ram/cpu (as it'd still be weaksauce from what I can tell), thus, plunking $150 to get 10k ppd instead of the 1 or 2k that the x2 can pull is VERY cost effective to me, even if I have to spend $10 more than I would have otherwise each month to power it.
 
Schro said:
Now lets apply that to my scenario that spawned this thread - I have an Athlon x2 3800 processor, a socket 939 board and a pile of DDR 1 that can run a PCI-E graphics card. I don't want to spend the $300+ it will take to do a quad mobo/ram/cpu (as it'd still be weaksauce from what I can tell), thus, plunking $150 to get 10k ppd instead of the 1 or 2k that the x2 can pull is VERY cost effective to me, even if I have to spend $10 more than I would have otherwise each month to power it.
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agreed, i run an older single core 3500+ but the mobo is an older asus sli model, for $300 i could gain 23k ppd, every day. big advantage rigs are really nice on the power from but its still luck of the draw as far as wu's are concerned. you can go from 25k to 10k day to day.
 
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