GPU/Clearspeed- Would you buy?

[marty9876]

Just throwing this out there, which if any would you buy? You can vote for more than one since I am. (4 and 5, yea confusing in my world)

The numbers are about as close to made up as you can get w/o throwing darts at a board.

GROMACS core only-

3.0 P4 @ 600 Point WU= 350 PPD
ATI X1800XT @ 600 Point WU= 1050 PPD ($500.00)
Dual 3.0 Xeon 2x instances of 600 Point WU= 700 PPD (???)
Clearspeed thing @ 600 Point WU= 7000 PPD ($1000.00 I read someplace Clearspeed was 10x Dual Xeon processing power, the price is total shot in the dark)

Opps: Admins can you edit this? I forgot "Yea I want my cheesy poofs" as option 6...

The numbers are off in the graph below per VJ himself

 

[MN Scout]

Actually the numbers are not off. Vijay himself says

I talked to Mike and I now see where these numbers are from. It was a different calculation than I thought, so I think Mike's numbers are right (they were for the explicit water kernel, BTW). However, as Mike mentioned in his talk, there should be a lot of room to optimize this.

Moreover, our current plan is to run several calculations (potentially all of our GPU calcs) which do not use this water-water kernel directly and instead use a protein-only kernel in an implicit solvent model. That could lead to a much bigger speed increase as well.

 

[MN Scout]

I think I'll buy the one that has the most developer and program support. ATI is here and now, and once they get a slightly better support to the coders we'll start to see programs surfacing. I haven't heard anything lately about Clearspeed.

It really is awesome to see the performance of these things when put to work.

 

[Kvothe]

The really exciting thing I've pulled from the pdf that MN Scout posted in the other thread, is that those are non-optimized numbers even. If they are exhibiting those kind of gains in a non optimized fashion, just imagine what they are going to end up with once they are fully taking advantage of the capabilities.

If the boxen is going to be built for folding, might as will build it with some style, now just imagine how well it might work in Crossfire.

Great find guys!

 

[CaptRingold]

I agree it's exciting, but I had to go for the last of the options.. an uber-high end card I couldn't justify for F@H, my cheaper X800XL runs games absolutely fine, and thats all I really need. At least the X2 made since due to a lot of other apps I run.

 

[SmokeRngs]

I have to go for options 1 and 5. While buying something like this just for folding isn't somethnig I can do as I have money constraints. I wouldn't mind having one of the new ATI cards for the light gaming I do (my 8500 is just a bit too long in the tooth) and it would be great for it to double as a folding processor. For me that is a win/win scenario. I get extra value out of the vid card which would justify me upgrading the vid card a bit from what I would normally get. I know that sounds confusing considering I also chose number 5.

Spending extra on the vid card doesn't hurt me as bad as others since I usually keep it for at least two if not three or four years. The actual money spent can be considered to be stretched out over that period which doesn't hurt me that much. Plus, the more powerful vid card might allow me to go a bit longer than normal for a vid card upgrade.

Either way, I want to have the ability to fold on a vid card. Most times it just sits there and does nothing. I'm not on my computer that much and don't play a whole lot of games anyway. It would be nice to be able to put the thing to good use when I'm not personally using it.

 

[MN Scout]

One thing I'd like to hear more information about is if they'll be able to utilize 2 graphics cards at once for all those motherboards that have 2x pci-express. I'm sure they can, I'm just wondering if they have the capability in the current code that they are writing.

-Mn Scout

 

[magnusvir]

How about an option for "I'd buy it if I have the money for it." or "I am a broke a$$ college student"

 

[Dark Ember]

Yeah, I'd get the ATI card. The gaming performance isn't that much off the 7800, but the folding performance is far superior. Seems like a good trade to me.

 

[RPhArrow]

Heh -- a ClearSpeed will cost "in the low 5 figures" .... I guess I could raid my 401(k) for one of those

 

[BillR]

None of the above would matter if it would all run on something besides over priced electricity, as it is I’m holding way too much hardware I can’t afford to run.

 

[Duster]

well you can always give it to me

I am intrusted to see were this GPU is going

 

[unhappy_mage]

How about an option for "I'd buy it if I have the money for it." or "I am a broke a$$ college student"

QFMFT... but I voted for everything. I'd buy all of them, especially if I could afford them after ordering $600 worth of hard drive stuff (look for benchies in the DS forum!) earlier this evening

so that's why I'm looking for the "broke a$$ college student" option...

 

[marty9876]

None of the above would matter if it would all run on something besides over priced electricity, as it is I’m holding way too much hardware I can’t afford to run.

I think the Clearspeed deal runs @ ~35 watts or something like that. Who knows until it's on the open market, and Stanford has a client for it.