Hardware What is the best graphics card for folding?

Huh? Your points per watt graph clearly shows both the GTX 470 and GTX 480 doing better than the GTX 295.

Also, you should point out that although the GPU2 client will not download work units when used with 5000-series ATI cards (because it doesn't recognize them properly - this can be fixed by using the -forcegpu ati_r700 flag), the GPU3 client will still use the GPU2 cores when folding on them, because GPU3 is CUDA-exclusive at the moment.

 

That's true, but the sentence is talking about performance, not performance per watt, and by that metric the GTX 480 is the next card down from the GTX 295.

GPU3 isn't CUDA exclusive - it supports ATI cards too - all it does is allocate WUs from the ATI server so you don't have to muck around with forcegpu flags.

 

"My GTX 460 brings all the girls to the yard, and they're like, it's better than yours, damn right, it's better than yours!"

But yeah, Nvidia really have nailed it with the GTX 460 - brings all the benefits of Fermi's new architecture while fixing the original problems of high power consumption and heat output. And it retails at a very tasty price too.

 

I have to go to stanford twice a year.. I walked through the science wing once and it was all asians xD yeah they love nvidia over there

 

This only shows the software is NOT optimized for ATI GPUs cards AT ALL!

 

The sentence specifically states that the GTX 295 is more power efficient than the GTX 480. Power efficiency is the same thing as performance per watt.

The GPU3 client supports ATI cards. The GPU3 core does not. Using the GPU3 client (honestly, it's not really a separate client, it's just version 6.30 and up of the GPU client executable) with ATI cards will only result in the client downloading GPU2 work units, because the current GPU3 core (fahcore_15.exe) is exclusive to CUDA. Stanford is working on the OpenCL version of the OpenMM core, but it is not ready and neither are AMD and nVidia's implementations of OpenCL in their drivers.

For more information on this, you can read about it on the F@H forums or on Vijay's blog: http://folding.typepad.com/

 

The problem with articles like this is that "folding" has become synonymous with "distributed computing" when it in fact refers only to one type of distributed computing project: protein folding.

Neither GPGPU implementation is superior to the other, they are just different. NVIDIA dominates F@H and a few other projects, ATI dominates MilkyWay@Home and a few others.

 

I would love a dedicated folding client, but i would rather build a better gaming machine if I had the funds
Power wise doesn't seem to bad.
Maybe one of the motherboard manufactures needs to put together a low cost multi card folding only motherboard with no extras on it.

 

Sure, i don't mind BT giving some attention to distributed computing, but why ONLY folding? Why does this get a feature article while the i5-760 (successor to the immensely popular i5-750) gets just one line in a newspost? Why is this a feature article, and not a word (aside from a newspost a while back) on the OCZ RevoDrive? THAT is my objection. Testing a 5870, a 5850 AND a 5770 in an article about Folding? Really?

An excellent point. If you had all thse cards together, why limit your test to just folding? An article that also covers the alternatives would be much more deserving as a main story.

And yes, the willy-waving-for-the-pious may be a bit below the belt, but don't tell me it's not also true.

 

GTX465 done fairly well, Hopefully a few people want to upgrade from their old nvidia hardware. Hope to pick up a couple of second hand GTX260's for gaming and folding. Can't afford new hardware atm =(

 

I dont get the hate for the GTX480 i was skettical, but then bought one, its awesome and quiet, compared to my 5970. Also its nvidia, so drivers work

 

What about workstation cards? I don't know anything about it but just curious as to how they'd perform as (in my head) folding is the kind of thing they're designed for?

Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about, but certainly curious. It would be cool to see how a Quadro 6000 folds, or even an FX380

 

Just compare the w/s cards to their consumer counterparts and you will see. PPD/Dollar will be crap though.

Put it this way, I softmodded my 4850 into a Firepro equivalent and my PPD went down!

 

Workstation cards don't produce more PPD than the consumer version. It only depends on the amount of shaders and the clock speeds that the cards have, not on whether they are Quadros or Geforces.

 

Yeah, the drivers work... you know, when they aren't killing cards or anything.

Workstation cards are identical to their desktop counterparts with the exception of drivers and binning, so I wouldn't expect to see much difference (if any).

 

I use a passive GT240 from Zotac. It's not the fastest thing on earth, but power consumption is awesome.
i5 + 5870 = 118W idle
i5 + 5870 + GT240 = 130W idle (=+12W when there is no load on anything)
i5 + 5870 + GT240 running F@H = 154W (=36W total load power consumption of GT240)

True, it's only 1833-2444 points per day, but for 36W it is a pure win. Even more if we consider i bought it for PhysX (if there is a rare game requiring it) so running F@H at ~70C load temperatures is nice.

And that is what i miss from the review - the GT240 .

Ehm... The drivers debate is long time over, both drivers are equal quality, if there are problems then they are usually at nvidia drivers side (last one was the "we don't ramp up the fan speed for any reason").

Btw, guess what happened when i had nvidia drivers installed, took out a GTS250 and put a GT240 in it's place ? A nice, fatal BSOD of nvidia driver resulting in OS reinstall.

 

glad someone pointed this out... for how much power that is used, i see this as anti-good rather than a benefit to society. too much in one direction and not broad enough

 

My gtx480 has run at 45 degree (centigrade) idle and 65 degrees on load since i purchase it 3 months back, never was that hot in the first place,

my old 8800GT card use to run at 95 degrees load (70 idle) ... so its far improved and there are either some very badly made samples or some very one sided fanbois reviewing

 

Intriguing - what card/cooling and case are you using, and what is the card doing under load at 65C?

 

Interesting, I'd like to get my hands on a GTX 460 or two.