SR-X Folding - With Retail Chips

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Goatsongoats

Gawd
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Has anyone on here ordered an SR-X or is thinking about it? Bouncing around OCN, EVGA, and [H] forums it seems the folding community, including myself, is quite disappointed with the SR-X; which is 100% understandable considering everything.

I've seen some results of extra spicy chips folding in a 2P setup and the TPF is higher then that of a stock 4P 6174 setup. I'm just curious if anyone has yet, or has near future plans, of picking an SR-X and a pair of retail 2687W chips and bumping them up using the turbo and the small "~5% OC" that EVGA has mentioned might be possible.

Just trying to get some numbers down as so far it seems to be a huge disappointment. I myself was hoping to pick up an SR-X or more preferably, the 2P board that Asus is bringing to market. However if even using turbo and the small 5% OC and these setups aren't matching, or coming damn close to my 4P 6174 setup then there really is no point.

Before any "why would you even bother" comments come in the only reason I'm considering an 2P E5 setup is because my only current rig is a 4P 6174 and I've been looking at building a rig that can pump out some solid numbers but also allow me to use it for everyday application in Windows; hence the need for a 2P compared to a 4P.

Kind of sad a $3000 AMD setup is killing a $5000 Intel setup :rolleyes:

Thanks all!
 
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What most of us do is have a folding rig(s) and a daily driver.

Often what you want out of a gaming system or an internet box isn't what you need in a folding rig. Depending on what kinda GPU you want, a good daily driver box shouldn't be much over $500.

There is no difference between intel ES chips and retail for OCing as far as I know.

The chips intel is putting out are for enterprize class systems, not for us per se. TBH, I think intel is quite happy not having any real OC options for these chips.
 
I was thinking of getting an ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS or EVGA SR-X to replace my current workstation but after hearing that the chips are locked I think I will hold off a bit as the price is a bit high on chips if they don't over clock.
 
Kendrak said:
What most of us do is have a folding rig(s) and a daily driver.

Often what you want out of a gaming system or an internet box isn't what you need in a folding rig. Depending on what kinda GPU you want, a good daily driver box shouldn't be much over $500.

There is no difference between intel ES chips and retail for OCing as far as I know.

The chips intel is putting out are for enterprize class systems, not for us per se. TBH, I think intel is quite happy not having any real OC options for these chips.
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That was the backup plan if 2P E5 didn't pull through. I've been looking to build another dedi but I don't really have the space at this time to have to 2 dedis and a everyday machine. I had high hopes for E5 and the high cost was going to be justified to me by using it as an everyday rig and a heavy PPD producing folder.

I'm sure they are happy as now we are all forced to buy the most expensive chip so we can have the highest clock speeds. It's just unfortunate :/
 
So... as someone who will have had 6x E5's by the end of the week:

1. We need new SKUs for heavy overclocks. The Xeon E5-1600 series is going to be the OC xeon chip of choice I think, and the higher-end SKUs there are today's Core i7 LGA 2011 lineup.
2. With a dedicated rig, I would go for the i7-3930K... and in fact I did. One at 4.4GHz was faster than the E5-2687W... and 1/3 the cost. You can probably even fold on it if you wanted.
3. Until you get into the higher clock-speed chips, the numbers are not going to be awesome. On 6901's I think the PPD is around 250k with 2x E5-2690's. A 3-5% bclk overclock and holding turbo is not going to make them 500K ppd parts.
4. If you are going dual-mode, SR-2 might be the way to go actually. You can get higher core clock speeds and 12C/ 24T (including the motherboard, PSU, RAM, and cooling) for less than a single E5-2687W.
5. The i7-3930K is actually a great chip, but for most people, i7-2600K is probably ideal as far as workstations go.
 
So it sounds like the SR-X is a product to avoid at the moment? I was really thinking it could the platform for my file server, folding, general over the top tinker with box. With that goal in mind should be looking at a 3930K or something AMD?
 
Rabid Sloth said:
So it sounds like the SR-X is a product to avoid at the moment? I was really thinking it could the platform for my file server, folding, general over the top tinker with box. With that goal in mind should be looking at a 3930K or something AMD?
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If you want to get some folding done and the buget will allow, G34 four way ;)
 
I'd like to be under 3k for the CPU/s and mobo. Where does that fall in the grand scheme of things?
 
Rabid Sloth said:
So it sounds like the SR-X is a product to avoid at the moment? I was really thinking it could the platform for my file server, folding, general over the top tinker with box. With that goal in mind should be looking at a 3930K or something AMD?
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Rabid Sloth said:
I'd like to be under 3k for the CPU/s and mobo. Where does that fall in the grand scheme of things?
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Welcome to 4P goodness.

Look for 6174s on ebay. Someone can point you to a SM board (that can now be OC-ed) for around $650. Then add the other boxen bits you want.
 
Rabid Sloth said:
I'd like to be under 3k for the CPU/s and mobo. Where does that fall in the grand scheme of things?
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If you use Ebay for CPU's you could get a full 4P dodeca setup for under $3K loaded with 32GB ram.
 
pjkenned said:
So... as someone who will have had 6x E5's by the end of the week:

1. We need new SKUs for heavy overclocks. The Xeon E5-1600 series is going to be the OC xeon chip of choice I think, and the higher-end SKUs there are today's Core i7 LGA 2011 lineup.
2. With a dedicated rig, I would go for the i7-3930K... and in fact I did. One at 4.4GHz was faster than the E5-2687W... and 1/3 the cost. You can probably even fold on it if you wanted.
3. Until you get into the higher clock-speed chips, the numbers are not going to be awesome. On 6901's I think the PPD is around 250k with 2x E5-2690's. A 3-5% bclk overclock and holding turbo is not going to make them 500K ppd parts.
4. If you are going dual-mode, SR-2 might be the way to go actually. You can get higher core clock speeds and 12C/ 24T (including the motherboard, PSU, RAM, and cooling) for less than a single E5-2687W.
5. The i7-3930K is actually a great chip, but for most people, i7-2600K is probably ideal as far as workstations go.
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Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to your E5 testing whenever they come in.

For your 2p 2690 setup, is the 250k ppd including the credit change or not? If it's not, that's not bad... In terms price/ppd it's terrible compared to a G34 setup but 250k on a 6901 isn't bad. be interested to see a 6903/04.

Eh I had a 3930k/RIVE setup and I was not happy with the price/performance ratio. Even OC'd to 4.8Ghz it only produced about 140k ppd on a 6904. I owned my setup for about a week and then ditched for a 4p 6174 setup as I just wasn't impressed with the 3930k.

I've been considering an SR-2 for a while now, but like most, have been waiting to see the SR-X. :rolleyes: If the numbers you produce during your testing aren't that impressive that may just be my option.
 
I posted this in another thread:

Do you have any parts to recycle? Because you could get a 4P supermicro board for around $640 new, and a pair of dodeca's for around $400 a piece so about $1440 without tax and shipping. This would allow you access to the OC, and give you an upgrade path as the prices on chips fall. It is also close to the budget you want to stay in. $640 for board, $800 for CPU's, $120 for ram, $100 PSU, Fold naked $0, 4 Hyper 212's Musky modded $70-100. That is around $1760, and could be reduced if you already have some parts to use. Now you could get the 8 cores for around $100 per CPU which would bring you down to around $1360 for a fully populated overclockable 4P 32 core machine (up from 24 cores).

Edit: Magny-Cours CPU's
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Goatsongoats said:
Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to your E5 testing whenever they come in.

For your 2p 2690 setup, is the 250k ppd including the credit change or not? If it's not, that's not bad... In terms price/ppd it's terrible compared to a G34 setup but 250k on a 6901 isn't bad. be interested to see a 6903/04.

Eh I had a 3930k/RIVE setup and I was not happy with the price/performance ratio. Even OC'd to 4.8Ghz it only produced about 140k ppd on a 6904. I owned my setup for about a week and then ditched for a 4p 6174 setup as I just wasn't impressed with the 3930k.

I've been considering an SR-2 for a while now, but like most, have been waiting to see the SR-X. :rolleyes: If the numbers you produce during your testing aren't that impressive that may just be my option.
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Did the last WU (stopped in the middle for a few minutes of benchmarking) with just the -ck kernel so average was a bit higher due to the stoppage. When I do F@H bonus points calc 6901 @ 8 min TPF I get about 145k per WU and 260K ppd. Last WU dropped was worth 145,650 so seems about right.
 
Update: Got a 6903: looks variable with BFS but around 18:00. Letting it do a few more steps.
 
so thats about 350k, what chips/board is that one from?
 
I was doing some quick reading and the reviews were very mediocre for the 6174 on a non-dedicated folding box. Is that still true when compared to something like an SR-2 build?

Also, on the ebay front, do people usually go used or something like 'new other'? I haven't ebayed in a decade and I've never bought any second hand computer parts. The horror stories always freaked me out.

I appreciate the advice btw. I'm ok on HPC hardware, but the server stuff is totally new to me.
 
For single and dual threaded apps (most everything we use for day to day computing) the low clocks hurt the MC chips.

They shine with programs that scale well, like folding.

Use a seller with hundreds of positives and a no DOA policy. It is a CPU. It either works or is dead.
 
pjkenned said:
Update: Got a 6903: looks variable with BFS but around 18:00. Letting it do a few more steps.
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Pfffft 18:00 on a 6903. That's not even close to worth the $5000+ it would cost to build. Sounds like another 4P 6174 setup and maybe an SR-2 for me. Thanks for the numbers, appreciate it.

Rabid Sloth said:
Also, on the ebay front, do people usually go used or something like 'new other'? I haven't ebayed in a decade and I've never bought any second hand computer parts. The horror stories always freaked me out.

I appreciate the advice btw. I'm ok on HPC hardware, but the server stuff is totally new to me.
Click to expand...

Kendrak said:
Use a seller with hundreds of positives and a no DOA policy. It is a CPU. It either works or is dead.
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Basically this. No DOA is important and really all that's necessary for buying chips. It's definitely worth the $800+ you can save, per chip.
 
I was able to get a naked 4p system with 6174 cpu's for around $2500 that gets me 530k ppd on a 6903. Just got to take your time and look for deals. You can have 1 million ppd for the price of a SR-X system....
 
got mine with 68's (1.9ghz 12 cores) just under 2k, so yea, the deals are out there. its funny tho when you list 1 mil PPD for the price of an SRX at 350k ish lol

such a fail
 
Vaulter98c said:
got mine with 68's (1.9ghz 12 cores) just under 2k, so yea, the deals are out there. its funny tho when you list 1 mil PPD for the price of an SRX at 350k ish lol

such a fail
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You also have to consider that this is older hardware too... G34 is supposed to have a bit longer life after interlagos so we may see better performing chips that will be: flash pop n' swap. So overall it is a much better platform.
 
To add to the fail... with dual 2690s apparently getting around a 7:38 TPF on a 6901, I'm currently getting an avg TPF of 5:52 on an OC'd 4P 6174. Project has been officially buried until some better OC'ing chips come out.
 
Goatsongoats said:
To add to the fail... with dual 2690s apparently getting around a 7:38 TPF on a 6901, I'm currently getting an avg TPF of 5:52 on an OC'd 4P 6174. Project has been officially buried until some better OC'ing chips come out.
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What is even funnier is I have an 8P socket F board (circa 2008ish) loaded with 8 hexacores (circa 2009) that gets 6:13 TPF on 6901.
 
Goatsongoats said:
I love your 8P setup, I'm pretty jealous of it. What's the power consumption like?
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Approximately 850W good sir!
If I had faster internet the PPD/W would be better.
6903 is 13:51 TPF 514K PPD (not factoring upload) so 604 PPD/W
6904 is 18:37 TPF 540K PPD (not factoring upload) so 635 PPD/W
Zink said:
Even that 8p can't match a 14A hair dryer.
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Yes... it is about half of that. 120V x 14A = 1680W / 2 = 840W
 
So I'm still trying to get my bearings on the AMD server front. What am I missing in the 6174 vs 6274 choice?

6174 - 12 cores, 2.2Ghz, $1250 retail, $550-$700 ebay
6274 - 16 cores, 2.2Ghz, $650 retail, $650-$700 ebay

From my quick looking they both do quad channel ram, same cache, etc.

Also, does anyone around here use these for anything other than dedicated folding? I'm trying to find some reviews or personal experience in regards to the G34 chips vs a 3930K / SR-2 build for general home server use.
 
The 6274, if I'm correct, is interlagos, while the 6174 is magny-cours. The 6274 is 8 bulldozer "modules" , which have some sort of shared floating-point unit. Since F@H is mostly floating point calculations, that leads to some pretty significant overhead. They're just not as good at folding as the last gen, unfortunately.
 
Lord_of_Doors is correct,

For Folding: [email protected] == [email protected], mostly due to what he said above. IL has only half as many FP cores as Int cores (For 6274: 16xInt, 8xWide FP)

In the defense of IL, integer heavy operations are as fast at 6100@same number of cores & clock, but you get more cores for less money. (VM's and most Video Encoding are Int-heavy, for example)

tl;dr version

Folding: IL worse than MC (Per core and per clock)
 
But then Interlagos has AVX. If Gromacs ever adds AVX support that could pull the balance back to Interlagos' favor.
 
Punchy said:
But then Interlagos has AVX. If Gromacs ever adds AVX support that could pull the balance back to Interlagos' favor.
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Then again, if it has to go through Pande group, I think we all know what to expect there.
It'll go on the list right under good AMD GPU support, ETA sometime next never.

Edit: Then again, maybe not. Posted fairly recently on the F@H forums by bruce:

Many years ago, Gromacs worked exclusively with the x86 instruction set. The MMX extensions were introduced, but they were not really useful for scientific calculations (i.e.-floating point) Later, AMD introduced some new instructions called 3DNow! which were useful, improving the floating point performance by as much as 3X, but only if the code was rewritten. Prof. Lindahl rewrote the Gromacs code while maintaining both the old and new code path for those who didn't have 3DNow! hardware. Later, the industry adopted SSE as an extension with muti-vendor support (which actually was a minor change to 3DNow!+) and gromacs was rewritten to support SSE. Stanford upgraded the versions of code used in their FahCores and gradually replaced projects that couldn't use the optimizations with newer projects that could.

That much is history. There's no reason to expect that the upgrade to AVX will be any different.

I predict AMD and Intel will go through some (very) public competition but will eventually settle on an industry standard. I also predict that Prof. Lindahl and his team will rewrite key portions of the Gromacs code and provide an option to use AVX, while preserving the ability to run on hardware that has SSE only. Of course these are personal predictions that may or may not happen. They certainly won't happen as fast as those of you who have AVX hardware would like, but improvements like that do take time. Major changes like that have to be written, carefully tested, and then introduced with minimal the disruption. Those of us with "old" hardware have to be able to continue using the current capabilities without disruption.

I could give you a history lesson on the upgrade to SMP, just like the one I gave on SSE but I won't. In may be worth mentioning, though, that as multi-core computers became commonplace, the non-SSE code has been deprecated. All multi-cored CPUs have SSE, so the old x86 code-path is no longer supported if you're running FAH-SMP. Nevertheless, if you still have hardware that doesn't have SSE, it is still possible to run the x86 code on uniprocessor systems, though you'll only be earning perhaps 50 PPD while consuming as much electricity as many more powerful systems.
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I found a couple articles that were more along the lines of what I was looking for. In summary I'm back to being on the fence again while I do more reading and possibly wait for the next hardware Tic (Toc?). The itch is really starting to get me though

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5058/amds-opteron-interlagos-6200
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5279/the-opteron-6276-a-closer-look/1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/the-xeon-e52600-dual-sandybridge-for-servers/14

"And what about the Opteron? Unless the actual Xeon-E5 servers are much more expensive than expected, it looks like it will be hard to recommend the current Opteron 6200. However if Xeon E5 servers end up being quite a bit more expensive than similar Xeon 5600 servers, the Opteron 6200 might still have a chance as a low end virtualization server. After all, quite a few virtualization servers are bottlenecked by memory capacity and not by raw processing power. The Opteron can then leverage the fact that it can offer the same memory capacity at a lower price point."
 
Rabid Sloth said:
I found a couple articles that were more along the lines of what I was looking for. In summary I'm back to being on the fence again while I do more reading and possibly wait for the next hardware Tic (Toc?). The itch is really starting to get me though

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5058/amds-opteron-interlagos-6200
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5279/the-opteron-6276-a-closer-look/1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/the-xeon-e52600-dual-sandybridge-for-servers/14

"And what about the Opteron? Unless the actual Xeon-E5 servers are much more expensive than expected, it looks like it will be hard to recommend the current Opteron 6200. However if Xeon E5 servers end up being quite a bit more expensive than similar Xeon 5600 servers, the Opteron 6200 might still have a chance as a low end virtualization server. After all, quite a few virtualization servers are bottlenecked by memory capacity and not by raw processing power. The Opteron can then leverage the fact that it can offer the same memory capacity at a lower price point."
Click to expand...

If you have a spare kidney you can build a decked out E5 dual proc system.
 
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