Hi, I'm only a casual folder (not 24x7) but would still like to maximise my PPD so was interested on how many SMP clients you would suggest running. My PC specs are: Core i7-920 CPU (No O/C) 6GB RAM Windows 7 (64 Bit) Currently I only run a single SMP client but was wondering if running multiple clients on this setup would be an advantage to me. Thanks for any advice.
I thought you just run one smp client and use -smp # for the amount of threads you want to run. On my i3 540, i run smp -4 as its a dual core with hyperthreading
Thanks for the info. I'm running with just -smp argument currently I will look into the additional number of threads parameter you've mentioned. Hopefully this will give me boost..
If you're already running with the -smp flag, adding a number after it won't help. Or at least I don't think it will as it'll already be using all your CPU's logical and physical cores (8 cores in total). The only reason you'd need to add a number is if you were GPU folding as well, then you could dedicate one core to running your GPU's. For instance -smp 7 would leave a core spare for GPUs. I'm sure someone on these here forums could advise you on that if you wanted to run GPU folding as well. Best way to get more PPD would be either to leave it as it is, or overclocked to 3.8GHz+ and run it 24/7 on BIGadv. Hope that helps
@noizdaemon666 As you say CPU is maxed out on all cores with my current config so maybe I'll go for an OC and investigate the bigadv units.
You should get a nice PPD bump from bigadv but you would need to run 24/7 at 3.8GHz just to meet the deadlines, and that'll be cutting it close I believe. Just wish my electric bill was lower so I could start folding again lol
Your understanding is correct. Whether the units complete in time can vary, but as a rule of thumb 3.8ghz is usually enough on a 4 core 8 thread machine. It does mean that you will have to have your machine on 24 hours for 3 days solid before you will record ANY points. First of all, you have to submit 10 units with your passkey, within a prescribed time-frame. If you are only a casual folder, then best to leave it as it is, or experiment with the ADVMETHODS flag. The BIGADV ones take a while to chug through...
Probably not be going for bigadv units at home then, have a couple of xeon test servers at work folding so they might work better on those, although no OC possible for them. Glad to see my bonus points have kicked in now so it makes the PPD look a bit more healthy, can't believe I've not had that setup before now.
I just want to add that on a Core i3 540 CPU in my farm running the 6.34 SMP client, the -smp flag didn't max out all cores, in fact it was only utilizing one. The CPU has HT enabled so it has 4 logical cores. To enable the client to use all of those cores, I have to set the flag as -smp 4. That pushes all 4 logical cores to 100% load and obviously yields the best processing rate (which, btw, isn't very much compared to the i7's or even i5's. The i3's are a little weedy when it comes to folding ).
Also, just because nobody has explained it thus far and the OP asked about it, the whole idea of SMP (which stands for Symmetric Multi-Processing) is that a single client can utilize all the available CPU cores (both physical and logical) in your system to get the work done as fast as possible. Before SMP, you'd have been running several standard CPU clients, one per core, to achieve the maximum possible PPD from a multi-core CPU. Some developments were made with the SMP client and at one point the most efficient way to fold on a VT enabled quad core CPU was to run two virtual Linux machines, which both ran an SMP client on two cores each, yielding more points than a single client could get out of all 4 cores. The "modern" (read: current) SMP client with the A3 or newer A5 core is capable of using multi-core CPUs to their maximum potential, and obviously the faster the core clock and the more cores you have, the faster the unit will be completed. The faster the unit is completed (i.e. before the unit deadline) the larger the points bonus you are awarded for that unit, provided you have completed and submitted the necessary 10 Core A3 units with a Passkey to enable your user name to receive bonus points. Just letting those who may not fully understand the SMP client and the system behind it know what's what Knowledge is power!
