PpD comparison Q's

crazjayz

2[H]4U
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With all the new cards coming out from Nvidia and ATi, I'm going to go ahead and ask a couple questions:

1) What's putting out the highest overall PpD, both stock and OC'ed solutions?
2) Which card(s) have the best PpD per Watt?
3) Which card(s) are the best PpD per dollar (so like PpD/inital cost)?

I'm just asking this for all the new, would-be folders out there who are thinking of starting their own farms.
 
I don't really know either, but here are my guesses.

1) GTX 295
2) hard to quantify, because you have to evaluate the whole system (# of cards, PSU cost, etc.)
3) GTX 260 216-core, or 9800GX2 if you can find them

If you want maximum PPD from a single box, four GTX 295s is hard to beat. If you use four GTX 260s instead, you'll still have impressive PPD with much less cost. I believe the 9800GX2 has a higher PPD then the GTX 260 at standard clock speeds, but it also has a much higher heat output and presumably higher power requirements since there are two GPUs per card.
 
I bet Tiger will be along shortly with some PpDpW figures. He seems to have that down to a science. :)

I would bet the 260 is a pretty good candidate for #2 as well but thats just a gut feeling.
 
Thanks for the replies SazenEyes and metallicafan. I would agree for the 260 (216 core) to be a strong solid folder and fit in well for a good PpD per Watt and initial price, as they can be had for around $160. The 295s have actually gone UP in price (to around $530 per card), which I'm kinda surprised about, since 285 and 260 prices have gone slightly down with the introduction of the 275 and 250.

Just a couple more questions to add to the fray:

1) Do the ATi cards still get decreased PpD compared to the Nvidia cards
2) Is there still a mixing shader issue? And if there is, do we know if this is due to F@H or CUDA code/drivers?

I ask #2 specifically because I think a solid machine would be 2x 260 and 2x250. With the different length cards, cooling shouldn't be that much of an issue, and neither should power costs. But then again, I'm just letting my mind meander through what I love best, computer hardware. :D
 
Its been a bit since I last upgraded my hardware so my figures are a bit old.
But .............

The trick is to pack as many GPU core onto one motherboard and power them all from a low wattage CPU.
At this moment the 295 is the king of the high end system.
Mid range is the 260, low end system look at the 9600GSO.
4 cores I would power off a single core 35 watt CPU, 8 cores off a 45 watt dual core CPU.
Only use one stick of ram, 1Gb is probably the best size.
The MSI K9A2 Plat is the best MoBo out for this try of rig, as its known to run 4x dual GPU's with no problem.

Doing that you should be able to get close to 50 PpDpWatt.

Luck ............ :D
 
With all the new cards coming out from Nvidia and ATi, I'm going to go ahead and ask a couple questions:

1) What's putting out the highest overall PpD, both stock and OC'ed solutions?
2) Which card(s) have the best PpD per Watt?
3) Which card(s) are the best PpD per dollar (so like PpD/inital cost)?

I'm just asking this for all the new, would-be folders out there who are thinking of starting their own farms.

1) GTX295.
2) GTX295.
3) Probably the 9800GX2, although they're hard to find. Next best thing would be a GTX260 as others have suggested.
 
I think another number we should be looking at is point per watt of heat :D I love my gx2's and 295 but if i had to do it again I probably would go with 260's mostly because of the ppdpwh ;)
 
1) GTX295.
2) GTX295.
3) Probably the 9800GX2, although they're hard to find. Next best thing would be a GTX260 as others have suggested.

Are the 295s really be best PpD per watt? Wow, i didn't know that. What kind of PpD are people getting with 295s and 260, since those seem to be of greatest importance now.

I think another number we should be looking at is point per watt of heat :D I love my gx2's and 295 but if i had to do it again I probably would go with 260's mostly because of the ppdpwh ;)

Very true. PpD per watt doesn't take into account the wattage needed to cool the cards.
 
my 295 will do stock clocked 10-14k ppd (14 unless 511's are plaguing me) however after chimp challenge i will probably be winding down my folding box for a couple of months as today it was in the 100's outside and that's a lot of heat to overcome. (I will however probably be building a 260 based boxen and sticking it at a clients server room once it's built so once it starts cooling back down I hope to get to 100k ppd or so.
 
Are the 295s really be best PpD per watt? Wow, i didn't know that. What kind of PpD are people getting with 295s and 260, since those seem to be of greatest importance now.
To be honest, I haven't done any real calculations. However, it's based on logic. The GTX2xx cards are more power-efficient than 8800/9800 cards, especially with the new 55nm process. Plus, dual-GPU cards are more power-efficient than two single-GPU cards, since they have less components. So it stands to reason that the GTX295 would be the most power-efficient card for folding. If that is not the case however, I would be interested in knowing what really is.
Very true. PpD per watt doesn't take into account the wattage needed to cool the cards.
Well, if you're talking about the fans you need to deal with cooling, that is pretty much negligible. If you need external cooling (like A/C), that would be a different story, and certainly worth consideration. However, you can't really factor that into the normal PPD/Watt metric since the cost for that would be different in each situation.
Does a GTX260 beat a GTX285?
No. A GTX285 will produce more PPD than a GTX260 due to the greater number of shader units and higher clock speeds.
 
my GTX285 (i'll have to check clocks when i get home on Sunday) gets up to 10500 PpD and as low as 7800 PpD (511).

my nezt folding box will likely be GTX295 (or single PCB variant). 9800GX2's are too hard to find from trusted resources. GTx295 allows RMA if i run it down.
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my GTX285 (i'll have to check clocks when i get home on Sunday) gets up to 10500 PpD and as low as 7800 PpD (511).

my nezt folding box will likely be GTX295 (or single PCB variant). 9800GX2's are too hard to find from trusted resources. GTx295 allows RMA if i run it down.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

With PpD like that, why not just go quad 285s? Is the increase power and heat really worth 14k? Maybe you could mix it up with 2 285s and 2 295s, spacing them accordingly so that each get's ample amounts of air. Thus, you'll be running betwee 40-45k PpD from a single box and there's no issue about shader counts being mixed.

On that note, any news about shader counts being mixed? Has this problem been solved? I know Nvidia just released their 185.85 WHQL drivers which have support for CUDA 2.2. Do we know if the shader mixing issue was F@H related or driver related?
 
The reason for GTX295's is I am limited to 2x per box due to heat. These have to reside in a Norco RPC-470. Ok air flow, but 3x9800GX2 was too much and I'm thinking 3xGTX295 will only be worse.

I'll be running 2xGTX295 on a i7 platform. I've already got the i7 and eVGA x58 MoBo (spares for my main build). The GTX295 will be purchased within the next few months. Will probably wait for the single pcb version (may also make it easier to run 3x, but we'll see.

 
The reason for GTX295's is I am limited to 2x per box due to heat. These have to reside in a Norco RPC-470. Ok air flow, but 3x9800GX2 was too much and I'm thinking 3xGTX295 will only be worse.

I'll be running 2xGTX295 on a i7 platform. I've already got the i7 and eVGA x58 MoBo (spares for my main build). The GTX295 will be purchased within the next few months. Will probably wait for the single pcb version (may also make it easier to run 3x, but we'll see.


Theyre gonna make a single PCB revision?
HOLY COW my dream has come true
 
That is the rumor. Check our nVidia Forums as well as the eVGA Forums for more details. Unknown when it will come out, but it may come in the next couple of months.

edit: The "sandwich" solution makes for a TERRIBLE airflow solution on both the 9800GX2 and GTX295. A single PCB version will obviously still have the same heat, but with a two slot fan solution has got to be better
 
ahhh by that point ill just wanna wait for GT300
/thread hijack
 
ahhh by that point ill just wanna wait for GT300
/thread hijack

No one knows the cost of the GTX300. I have to assume the GTX295 (single PCB) may be cheaper than the current iteration. For a dedicated folder & my current requirements, it is likely the GTX295 will still be the best solution.
 
The GTX 285 is a nice card, and the temps are low enough that I run mine at default fan speed to keep the noise down. As far as PPD per $, you can buy two GTX 260s for the price of one GTX 285, but if you're trying to maximize the PPD out of a single box, the GTX 285 is a decent alternative to the GTX 295 -- it's cheaper (and easier to find on sale), produces less heat, and the PPD is not that much less (capreppy's numbers look right).

Personally, I wouldn't buy four 285s or 295s, because it's just too much money, especially for tech that will be outdated in a couple years. If I was building a new folding box I'd go with quad 260s. However, I'd like to get a second 285 for my microATX box when the price drops a little, not only for folding but also for SLI gaming.
 
I'm running a total of 4 280s and a single 285 in my desktops. Both systems were built to game, but I caught the "MORE D!!" bug. :eek: :D

If building a folding rig from the ground up, it would be of the 295 flavor or multi 260 setups. :)
 
I think another number we should be looking at is point per watt of heat :D I love my gx2's and 295 but if i had to do it again I probably would go with 260's mostly because of the ppdpwh ;)

I don't really understand where you're going with this. Watts of electrical power consumed = Watts of heat generated. Now since we're getting into the warmer months, if you're talking about the cost to remove all of that heat from your house, you can just double the Watts consumed since you're using power to generate the heat and using roughly that much power again for your AC to remove that heat. So the relative PpDpW of various cards stays the same.
 
I don't really understand where you're going with this. Watts of electrical power consumed = Watts of heat generated. Now since we're getting into the warmer months, if you're talking about the cost to remove all of that heat from your house, you can just double the Watts consumed since you're using power to generate the heat and using roughly that much power again for your AC to remove that heat. So the relative PpDpW of various cards stays the same.

lol sorry i wasn't so much going for a very scientific formula or anything but i was wanting to make sure people realized that especially with the summer months arriving that heat is deff an issue.
 
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