GCN Radeons for crunching

dkm777 · 04-04-2012, 11:26 PM

Hi guys,

Is it possible to use GCN based cards for DC yet? I'm currently considering whether to get myself a HD7870 and can't find anything related to DC performance on GCN cards. Before launch AMD touted them as vastly superior in computing to old VLIW Radeons. Is there a project that added support recently?

Sunny129 · 04-09-2012, 03:10 PM

i know Milkyway@Home runs on 79xx/78xx/77xx series GPUs. but keep in mind that MW@H makes uses of double precision (FP64) calculations. as such, only a 79xx series card is going to be faster than the older VLIW4 and VLIW5 architectures b/c its FP64 performance isn't crippled like it is on a 78xx/77xx series GPU. like the VLIW4 architecture, the FP64 performance of the 79xx series is 1/4 of its single precision (FP32) performance. the FP64 performance of the 78xx and 77xx series is limited to 1/16 of its single precision (FP32) performance. for comparison, a 77xx/78xx series GPU would have to be ~3.2 times more powerful than an HD 5870 for its FP64 performance to match that of the HD 5870's VLIW5 architecture (who's FP64 performance is only 1/5 of its FP32 performance). so if you plan on participating in a project that requires double precision (MW@H is the only one i know of right now), you can use a 78xx series GPU, but it'll be far less efficient than an HD 58xx/69xx series GPU. to get a raw comparison of double precision floating point compute power, take a look at these ATI GPU comparison charts.

i think Collatz Conjecture is now running on 7xxx series GPUs, and perhaps PrimeGrid and GPUGrid, but you'll have to visit their websites to confirm it.

dkm777 · 04-12-2012, 08:23 AM

Oh well, got a GTX570 instead, because it was cheaper.

Sunny129 · 04-12-2012, 08:27 AM

that's great! a GTX 570 is a quite powerful cruncher on a number of projects...

blckgrffn · 04-12-2012, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunny129

that's great! a GTX 570 is a quite powerful cruncher on a number of projects...

Indeed!

Very nice

We'll be looking for you in the upcoming PrimeGrid challenges that heavily favor GPUs!

dkm777 · 04-13-2012, 01:04 AM

I gave it a workout with Folding before leaving for work. Let me tell you those 7000 series projects are big bastards. FAHMon says it will take over 12 hours for my GPU to finish. Prime Grid is on BOINC, right?

Sunny129 · 04-13-2012, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkm777

I gave it a workout with Folding before leaving for work. Let me tell you those 7000 series projects are big bastards. FAHMon says it will take over 12 hours for my GPU to finish. Prime Grid is on BOINC, right?

yes, PrimeGrid is a BOINC project.