New to folding

T

Tiporaro

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 12, 2011
Messages
1,151
Looking around at some of the FAQ's and other posts, I was hoping just to get a sense of the best current practices. I have a 2600k and 2 6950's I'd be happy to fold with when the rig is just sitting idle (which is unfortunately too often). I downloaded the V7 client as that appears to be the most current thing out and set it up as mixed GPU/SMP - it automatically found both gpu's and the smp, and downloaded work units for all of them from what I can tell.

So far, both GPU's are 10% into a WU and show a little over 3hrs left, while the cpu is 4% in with 8hours left. I seem to see mixed comments about running gpu's at the same time as the cpu, and I don't know what the best current practice is. Are the rates that I'm getting appropriate, or is there something else I should be doing? I read that I don't want to pop the -bigadv flag in until I get through the first 10 WU's - I'm assuming this still holds true?

And finally, I saw a couple posts mentioning that there isn't the same monitoring available for the V7 client as there was for older clients. To be honest, I have no idea what the significance or scale of PPD's are and what is good/bad/etc., so if anyone can give me the 2 line version of what to expect, I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks so much guys!
 
most people just run bigadv on the 2600k and ignore the gpu folding, though you can still do both.

the numbers sound about right for the gpu's and cpu client, and yes the 10 WU requirement still exists for the bonus points. so i would run 10 standard SMP WU's first with the passkey then switch to bigadv after the bonuses start.

ignore the monitoring thing, the V7 client does it, its self but some of us old timers are use to running 3rd party applications that give a little more information, if you don't know them then its not really a loss on your end since the extra info isn't all that critical.
 
thanks so much for the response and the good info!

So as to the gpu folding, is it just poor return on them, or whats the deal? I had heard something about the gpu's taking some amount of cpu cycles to fold, but I'm not sure if that's still an issue or if its even significant. Does gpu folding contribute to the same end that cpu folding does, or is it just that its not as productive?

Thanks again!
 
Well, yes the GPUs will still use some amount of CPU processing to feed the graphics card the WU information. I can't speak for the Nvidia side of things, but the AMD GPUs usually need at least 1 to 2 cores (depending on particular CPU) to run at their peak performance. With a 2600K; however, you will likely get more points doing bigadv and just ignoring the GPUs With the version 7 client be sure you are actually getting the Core 16 WUs for the most points on those 6950s. With my shader unlocked and slightly overclocked 6950 I get ~8000 ppd on a good day and usually less due to me not running the client all the time. I can dig up some better numbers of testing over the summer if you are interested in 6950 folding performance and scaling with overclocking if anyone is interested.
 
Tiporaro said:
thanks so much for the response and the good info!

So as to the gpu folding, is it just poor return on them, or whats the deal? I had heard something about the gpu's taking some amount of cpu cycles to fold, but I'm not sure if that's still an issue or if its even significant. Does gpu folding contribute to the same end that cpu folding does, or is it just that its not as productive?

Thanks again!
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the returns still there. i don't know how much the loss since on the bigadv side since they changed the bonus return on them. so i can't say from experience how much you actually lose running the GPU clients. you could try 1 bigadv WU + gpu's see what your total points return is over the period with the bigadv and gpu's then run 1 bigadv WU without the GPU's and see what your total point return is. that will give you the best idea of whats worth running and whats not.

as far as the WU's go, they work on different proteins. you would have to look at the WU descriptions on F@H's site which will give you a better idea of what WU's are for what protein testing.
 
Thanks for the welcome and the responses guys!

So sounds like the general consensus for easier and potentially better returns is just to run the cpu and drop the gpu from folding. Not to mention I'll probably not have my desktop running in full-on space heater mode then =)

Anyhow, thanks again guys, looking forward to hopefully contributing.

edit: Where's the best place to check out my point gains and any relevant statistics that might come with it? Sorry again for all the random questions
 
Tiporaro said:
So sounds like the general consensus for easier and potentially better returns is just to run the cpu and drop the gpu from folding.
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Bingo. The best thing to do would be to follow my guide: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1511766

Set it up for normal SMP until you've successfully submitted ten work units before their deadlines. Once you've done that, switch to -bigadv. That will be the best way to make use of your hardware.
 
Thanks. I took the suggested advice and just did a quick comparison between running only SMP by itself and with the GPU's. The cpu folding with the others running simultaneously only was showing up an estimated PPD in the V7 client of ~13k, whereas with CPU only I was seeing estimated 46k. And while there was no estimated PPD from the gpu's, checking the online stats page that was linked seemed to indicate that the GPU's would not make up for that difference, not to mention it's drawing significantly more power/putting out much more heat.

Is the estimate in V7 client pretty close to being on? And I'm guessing that doesn't take into account any of the bonuses you guys talk about - which I'll be honest, I don't understand much at all =)
 
46K sounds good for Windows -bigadv

From what I've seen, under Linux with tweaks @5.0GHz you should be just over 50K ppd

your one machine puts out in a day what my 4 machines put out in a week. Rock on.
 
Tiporaro said:
Is the estimate in V7 client pretty close to being on? And I'm guessing that doesn't take into account any of the bonuses you guys talk about - which I'll be honest, I don't understand much at all =)
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If you were seeing 46k just from the CPU, it was taking the bonus into account.
 
I saw that you have some temp issues on the H60. Hope you get everything sorted out.

I did say that the heat output was in the "Cons" department though :D
 
I have found that folding on the 6950s cripples the CPU to the point that it is a wash in terms of PPD, at the cost of 500 watts at the wall.

When bitcoins were worth something I accepted the PPD hit on the CPU and had the GPUs mine to subsidize the power...now they idle and I get my -bigadv bonuses
 
LightningCrash said:
I saw that you have some temp issues on the H60. Hope you get everything sorted out.

I did say that the heat output was in the "Cons" department though :D
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Yea, I just moved everything around in my study and apparently external circulation is worse where my pc's sitting now. Debating between just finding a better spot to set it up and hopefully go back to my cooling being (just) adequate, or swapping to something more robust. WC seems to have gotten much more...available I guess is a good word, since the last time I set up a real loop and had very limited options and had to figure a lot out on my own, so I'm almost tempted.
 
jojo69 said:
I have found that folding on the 6950s cripples the CPU to the point that it is a wash in terms of PPD, at the cost of 500 watts at the wall.

When bitcoins were worth something I accepted the PPD hit on the CPU and had the GPUs mine to subsidize the power...now they idle and I get my -bigadv bonuses
Click to expand...

Pretty much summed up what I was thinking. Just wished I had jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon sooner when one of my friends had mentioned it back when the difficulty level was significantly lower.
 
Saying folding and bitcion in the same sentence is like Hank Williams Jr talking golf. ;) just messing with ya. Welcome to the team!
 
Don't feel bad, I poked at it in February and failed...at that time the slick GUI frontends were not written yet and you had to learn a ton of stuff and configure it all manually. Yes, the folks that did all that made out pretty well if they played their cards right...but I am no CS genius and I'm guessing it would have taken me a week or more of reading obscure forums and breaking on scripts to get it running. By the time GUIMiner was out it just exploded.
 
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