Hey all, I folded for a while on a server with two quad core xeons a while ago but now I am back with a vengeance. Just build a system with two x5670's in (I am aware that CPU folding is not that great anymore, but this system was sat in my man cave doing nothing) and I have two GTX 970's arriving either Monday or Tuesday. This will all be ran 24/7 and will hopefully be able to make a big improvement to my currently rather small contribution. Currently I am running windows 10 on the system because it is so easy for me to remote administer (I love Chrome remote desktop!) How much of a difference on this system would I notice if I moved to Linux? I have heard several numbers mentioned around the 10% improvement for linux on nvidia, is that still the case? I know things change quite a lot in the folding scene. Also contemplating letting my gaming laptop (i7 and 980m) fold when I am not using it, as it managed to pull in almost 200k ppd which isn't bad for a laptop. Q
Welcome back both I have found in the past that running nVidia on Linux was more productive, but I've not done a study recently. All my Folding machines are now running Linux by default.
Thanks guys, docjones all your machines are in your house though aren't they? My folder will be remote and I'm not sure I can get over how awesome chrome remote desktop on my phone is for controlling it heh. Is there much point in fiddling with flags and changing settings on the v7 client, given that it detects all cores and GPUs automatically?
Welcome back On my 2 970's in win7 I get roughly 250k each I use team viewer on my phone while at work to check my 4 machines
Yeah, I am hoping for over half a million per day with the two xeons folding as well, if I can get roughly that I will stick with windows I think.
Yep, they are all around the house - I use TightVNC or Remmina to access them usually (rather than running round the house!), and Teamviewer when I'm away. The v7 client is pretty good these days - you should just be able to leave it at the default settings it picks. The only change I make is for running the Gro_A5 core (i.e. the old core used for -bigadv) on my 48 core machine.
Thanks, if I look into Linux I will use one of those for remote administration. I doubt my xeons would be up to bigadv stuff, they are pretty old. Does that yearly event still happen when everyone tries to fold as much as possible for a week or a month?
The Chimps Challenge - Don't think there was last year, but they have had them in previous years. Not sure what the plan is for this year .. anyone?
Hey, nice to have you guys back in the team. Sounds like you are going to be posting some big numbers there. 250k per 970 card seems massive . Maybe I should have bought those rather than my two 290X's?, but they were damn cheap and I couldn't resist. Pete
I seem to be getting around 500k PPD total, but that is with two xeons folding as well. So all in all it looks to be a bit less than 250k per GTX 970. I can see that the top card is not turboing to it's max speed as it is running hotter than the bottom card, due to reduced airflow of having the cards next to each other. If I can remedy that next time I work on the machine my numbers should increase slightly. I also run Windows 10 on it, instead of Linux which means I take a bit of a PPD hit there.
Having two GPU's next to each other can be a problem in terms of temps - I've made sure, when I've bought new mobo's, that there is always one spare slot gap between two dual-slot GPU's. Even then, the top one will run hotter ...
... but you can be so much more productive (and efficient) with more than one per machine Edit: I also tend to use Silverstone Raven 02 cases, so that the mobo is at 90's to normal - these are great at cooling GPU's and allowing heat to vent easily.
yeah, I kind of threw this folding machine together with what i had, and the pci-e spacing leaves a lot to be desired, but the next one i build will be much better
You are correct, there was no Chimp Challenge this year. While some people, including me, enjoyed it, it caused a lot of arguments. It started as a race between two big American teams. They were unbeatable when the challenge was expanded to 5 and more teams. A handicap system was introduced and allowed a smaller team to win but this displeased the big teams who had scored 4m times as many points but lost. Also, one year a small team had another team join them and won but it had not been taken into account in the handicapping that they would have help. Some folders who were in their Challenge became angry at other who did not join in. The rules changed a lot each year but seemed to leave a lot of people feeling hard done by. More folding got done, because enthusiasts persuaded friends to fold during the contest and some bought time on commercial servers. I don't think it will be run again, though.
Well that is a shame, as folding needs something to get inactive people back to folding within the team!
