• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

On to CPU folding.....

G

gkanakis

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2004
Messages
1,167
So I think I have this whole GPU folding thing down pretty good. Now it's time to evolve onto some CPU folding.
I have read about the VM's, notfreds, -bigadv, linux....my mind is jello.
I'm thinking that the -bigadv is the way to go.
I see everyone is going the way of OC'ed i7's to complete these.
What would be the best way to do these the Xeon way?
For example on quad Xeon setup do the chips all compute one protein or do you have to run multi clients?
I have lots of questions, but I'll start with these.
 
A 8 core Xeon system with HT would be the best way to go.... however it isn't cheap.

Evil has played with this kinds stuff. He might have some stuff to share.
 
The type of CPU doesn't matter, only the number of cores. The best way for you to go in my opinion would be to run 8 or more core VMs (depending on what your systems are) with -bigadv workunits. There's a pre-prepared Linux distro for bigadv folding floating around the net, but I personally recommend that you make your own VMs.

To do this, either download VMWare Server for free or download the trial version of VMWare Workstation 7 (I recommend this), download an ISO for the Linux distro of your choice (make sure it's 64-bit), and set up a few VMs. Actually doing so is very simple; just go through the wizard in VMWare, choose the parameters you want, and it will let you pick the ISO to install the OS from on first boot. From that point on it's exactly the same process as you would go through to set up a new PC.

Once you've created the VMs, you'll have to uninstall whatever version of VMWare you're currently using and install VMWare Player 3.0 instead (it won't let you have more than one version of VMWare installed). If you've used Server to create the VMs, you'll have to edit the .vmx files with Notepad and change the CPU amount to whatever you'll be using, since Server only supports up to 2 core VMs. If you use the Workstation trial, you should be able to set them up with more than 2 cores right off the bat. When you have Player installed, just open the VMs you've already created and they should start right up.

To set up folding, just follow the guide at the top of the forum. To get set up with -bigadv workunits, I can't help you, but I'm sure someone else with experience doing that can point you in the right direction. Overall, it's not a complicated process, and will just take a bit of your time to get up and running. Once it is up and running though, it'll require very little maintenance.
 
Zero82z said:
The type of CPU doesn't matter, only the number of cores.
Click to expand...

I was referring to 8 physical cores, 16 thread with HT.

If you had the funds to do a SMP box, and do it right, this would be the way I would do it.

Should be very good with energy too.
 
With -bigadv, the faster you return the work-unit the bigger the bonus.
Because the bonus works off the square root of the return time, running two clients will drop it by around one fifth.
So with a dual 1366 system, only running one client is best.

Luck .......... :D
 
kanakis what you need is:

This Mobo
This expansion board
8x of these memory modules
8x of these CPU's

And $10k later you have yourself a 32-core 80Ghz SMP monster.
I reckon something like that would get you around 100k PPD with that kind of bonus on Bigadv
 
Has anyone explored the 6-core Opterons for -bigadv productionor do they not compete with the Nehalem Xeons on SMP? Would a dual-socket system with 12 physical cores be able to work on one unit and be fully loaded?
 
flogge said:
Has anyone explored the 6-core Opterons for -bigadv productionor do they not compete with the Nehalem Xeons on SMP? Would a dual-socket system with 12 physical cores be able to work on one unit and be fully loaded?
Click to expand...

It would work but a dual Xeon Nehalem rig would perform better and not cost as much
 
gkanakis said:
At that price I'll pick up three.
Two for me and one for a lucky folder giveaway.
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Also you got a case for that thing?
Click to expand...

Thats the problem.
I have yet to find a case that will house something like this except for this one Tyan.

I almost built one of these last year. A guy i know was selling the boards as a combo for $400. and you can get the CPUs with TLB bug on ebay really cheap.
I had the whole thing specd out at $1400.
I was just going to set it on a rackmount shelf above my Norco and take the guts out it and use a SAS expander.
 
That looks good too.

If you want E5520's I have a friend here selling a pair for $600
 
gkanakis said:
I was thinking along the lines of this setup.

One of these Motherboards
Two of these ram modules
Two of these CPU's

This motherboard has four PCIe slots too.
Click to expand...

Why stop at that.
I'm thinking of .............

A Supermicro X8DAH+-F +.......
2x W5580's + ......
18x 4gb Ram + ..........
3x 295's.

It will only set me back about £4-5k.

With that type of setup plus what I have, I should be able to get ~130k PpD from only two boxen and less than 2.5 kWk power draw.

Luck ............ :D
 
Tigerbiten said:
Why stop at that.
I'm thinking of .............

A Supermicro X8DAH+-F +.......
2x W5580's + ......
18x 4gb Ram + ..........
3x 295's.

It will only set me back about £4-5k.

With that type of setup plus what I have, I should be able to get ~130k PpD from only two boxen and less than 2.5 kWk power draw.

Luck ............ :D
Click to expand...

What are you running now?
 
nitrobass24 said:
kanakis what you need is:

This Mobo
This expansion board
8x of these memory modules
8x of these CPU's

And $10k later you have yourself a 32-core 80Ghz SMP monster.
I reckon something like that would get you around 100k PPD with that kind of bonus on Bigadv
Click to expand...

gkanakis said:
I was thinking along the lines of this setup.

One of these Motherboards
Two of these ram modules
Two of these CPU's

This motherboard has four PCIe slots too.
Click to expand...

Tigerbiten said:
Why stop at that.
I'm thinking of .............

A Supermicro X8DAH+-F +.......
2x W5580's + ......
18x 4gb Ram + ..........
3x 295's.

It will only set me back about £4-5k.

Click to expand...

Don't hold anything back, guys! :D


 
nitrobass24 said:
What are you running now?
Click to expand...

I'm only running a Skulltrails & dual E5355's as my main box.
CPU are overclocked to 3.4 Ghz, the memory is maxed out at 8 Gig and I've triple 9800GTX's in it.

Luck ........... :D
 
flogge said:
Has anyone explored the 6-core Opterons for -bigadv productionor do they not compete with the Nehalem Xeons on SMP? Would a dual-socket system with 12 physical cores be able to work on one unit and be fully loaded?
Click to expand...

Yes, User "Tear" over at FoldingForum.org has a system like this.

AMD P2671: -smp 12, 2m30s per "frame", 11059 PPD
A Pair of Intel E5530 can fold a -bigadv frame 10 min faster.

AMD is not the route to go for large units

Tigerbiten said:
Why stop at that.
I'm thinking of .............

A Supermicro X8DAH+-F +.......
2x W5580's + ......
18x 4gb Ram + ..........
3x 295's.
Click to expand...

Be very very careful. User "ToTow" on FoldingForum tried something very similar with 2x 285/295 GPU's. Using 2 cards crashed the system and even failed to boot on occasion.
Removing one card did fix the situation. He is working with SuperMicro now but no eta on fix yet. They have tried a bios update but that did not solve the problem fully. He also made the comment to me that the GPU client made a noticeable impact on -bigadv points .. More then you think it would have.

Kendrak said:
A 8 core Xeon system with HT would be the best way to go.... however it isn't cheap.

Evil has played with this kinds stuff. He might have some stuff to share.
Click to expand...

You are correct, it is not cheap at all.

I would suggest building several uni-processor systems vs a dual cpu system unless it is your main rig.
I am sure Tiger will agree, they are fun toys to have and awesome, but not cost effective in the big picture.

I am planning my new farm out now. Here is what I am going to use.
  • SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIL-O LGA 1156 Intel 3400 Micro ATX
  • Intel Xeon X3450 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Server Processor
  • Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
I am going to build 3 x systems at first then expand as needed.
I have changed all the processors in my home to Xeons and there is a difference
(in terms of power consumption, heat, and starting to think PPD --> testing that last fact as we speak)
 
Last edited:
Found this calculator, might help on the -bigadv.

Looks like you have to do one frame every 57 minutes to get a bonus.

57 min a frame is 11,173ppd
58 min a frame is 6,307ppd

If you could do one a day, you would average almost 88,000ppd.
That's if the calculator is correct!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top