ideas for another system

[twoodcc]

ok, here's what i'm thinking:

get a tower that can hold 4 video cards, and run 4 x gpu2 on it in windows.

or, an i7 machine running bigadv units?

the problem with the i7 machine is that i can't really use the system while it's folding, and i7 machines aren't cheap.

if i ran 2 nice video cards or more, i could still use the system as a nice computer.

what do you think?

[PatonB]

AMD Quad and tri-sli some gtx 285s

The big units aren't garrenteed to be around.

[twoodcc]

now how much do those gtx 285s run these days anyways?

also, i have a 2006 mac pro that i run as a server. could i throw in some videos cards in there? right now i'm running the smp for os x and it's giving me around 3,500 ppd, which isn't much at all for the heat it produces

[PatonB]

Well, 3500 for smp is normal... probably.

Don't think you can gpu2 on OSx. Though it can be done in wine, so maybe...

Re the 285s... you never spec'd price..., theyre pricey still, but 260's are under 200, as low as $164 on the egg, and mine can do 8000ppd.

If you go with a 4 way board, or one with aan onboard card, you'll be able to use it, with barely any noticing the folding.

[DriveEuro]

Originally Posted by PatonB

The big units aren't garrenteed to be around.

True, but I've read something at FoldingForum saying that the bigadv will stay around quite a while. Not necessarily saying it will go away though.

Don't forget, smp 8 is still possible on regular SMP WUs. An i7 OCed tears through SMP units with the smp 8 flag set.

Honestly, I'd buy the i7 and OC to 4ghz. The bigadv may not be around forever, but it seems that it won't just die off tomorrow.

I'm doing ~20k PPD on each of my i7s. Take 2-3 vid cards to do that.

[twoodcc]

well here's the thing: i have a 2006 mac pro. i know it can hold 4 video cards. (not all 16x i think though) so could i put 2-4 video cards in this thing and fold on all of them in windows?

[PatonB]

Ugh..... yha, you could boot camp it, and run can't you.. If you can get Mac gpus, I think you can get a 285 card for it.

The new ones come with 120gts.

If you can get cards, it'll be your xcheap option... any chance its a dual cpu mobo?

[twoodcc]

yes it's a dual cpu system. also, i can put pc cards in it i think for windows. it's got 4 x pci express slots, but not all are 16x though.

[PatonB]

Yha, its unproven that the speed matters much. It'll do 8x wehich is more than enough.

Bonus on the dual... That might be able to big adv units.

I'd say, as you have the prime platform for a pimp out.

See what the ff.org has for ideas, and go that way.

[twoodcc]

ok. i just came up with an idea. i have an i7 machine that doing bigadv units in ubuntu, and it has a gtx260. so i'm gonna give that card a shot in the mac pro and see how it does

[PatonB]

Yha it'll be intresting to see , as i really am Mac clueless

[twoodcc]

well i just got back from the store:

i got 2 x 9800GT 1 GB for only $70 each. i also got a GTS 250. how will these do with folding?

[jevans64]

9800 GT at stock clocks will do 3300 to 5800 depending on work units. I haven't seen 511-pointers in a while, so that 3300 PPD is probably not an issue anymore -- with the newer units expect 4700 to 5800. My GTS 250 and 9800GTX+, which are basically 250's, do 5200 to 6400 PPD. My 9800GTX+ SuperClocks do almost 6800 on the 353-pointers.

Here is my 353-pointer PPD for my various cards. All on WinXP or Win7 ( just the first 9800GTX+ ) and using 190.38 or 191.07 drivers. I'm testing 195.xx on the GTX 295 and PPD is unchanged from 190.xx and 191.xx drivers.

9800GTX+ ( 738, 1836 ) -- 6630 PPD
GTS250 ( 738, 1836 ) -- 6630 PPD
9800GTX+ SC ( 778, 1890 ) -- 6777 PPD
GTX 280 ( 602, 1404 ) -- 8472 PPD
GTX 285 FTW ( 702, 1584 ) -- 9838 PPD
GTX 295 ( 594, 1296 ) -- 8026 PPD per core

[PatonB]

My 8800gt OC get 6-6.2kppd too, its doing 5k on 787 right now, and 4600ish on 1888s

You'll get some great ppd off running all that, niced haul.

[twoodcc]

well i have all 3 going right now. so far:

both 9800GTs - about 2,900 ppd
GTS250 - about 6,200 ppd.

so thats a little over 12,000 ppd with all 3.

here's a question though. i still have another video card slot in my mac pro. should i put another 9800GT in there? or would that be too much heat?

oh, and my 9800GTs are the power efficient ones, so they don't need an power connectors on the card

Additional Comment:

well here are the temps:

GTS250 - 73 C
9800GT1 - 65 C
9800GT2 - 60 C

all running stock. considering that heat, should i go for another 9800GT ?

[PatonB]

Thats not bad for heat.

What are the clocks on the 9800's? Thats extremely low for a standard 9800.

You should use the new cores for them as thres issues with mismatched shaders. The new cores fix this.

http://www.stanford.edu/~friedrim/FahCore_11.exe is the new 11. wait till they've completed the wu, then dump this one into the dir.

[twoodcc]

well the 9800GTs are the power efficient ones, so no power connector needed. so i think they are a little underclocked. core clock is 550 mhz. memory clock is 900 mhz. shader clock is 1375 mhz.

Additional Comment:

well i ended up adding another 9800GT. got it folding now also. we'll see how it does overnight

Additional Comment:

so i've got a couple of systems folding, and was thinking of building another really nice system. i was thinking about this motherboard.

what do you think? i'm not sure about the other parts yet though.

[PatonB]

If it's for folding, I believe, there is no difference between x8 and x16, so if you want to can cdheap out there.

It'll be a beast for sure. As per a dedicated rig, the i7 920, and OC'd decently, it'll blast out the big units.

[twoodcc]

well i was thinking this would a cool system to build. but is there any cheaper mobos out there that can hold that many gpus?

[PatonB]

If you want the intel not to much.. Theres basically 2 models.

ATI has a few options though, but you lose the brute force mobo. ATI boards are dirty cheap starting at 90 bucks.