7th Annual Holiday Season Race in Folding@Home

[petrusbroder]

OK, here we go again ...

It is the time of the year 2012 when we should start organizing ourselves for the

7th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race!

Just the bare facts:

1. Start: December 3, 2011, 19:00 UTC
2. End: January 1, 12:00 UTC
3. Short intermission: December 18, 11:11 UTC - December 21, 11:11 UTC (The Winter Solarstice PrimeGrid Challenge)

Here are the rules:
1. Have fun.
2. Let others have fun.
3. Crunch as much as you can, as often as you can and as efficiently as you can.
4. Assimilating computers, adding members to the teams, switching teams
   and borghing is allowed.
5: (Sid's rule) Whistle while you work; DON'T whistle while you sip.
6: (Sid's rule) No pouting.

Please post here if you intend to take part. Our Folding@Home tream number is 198.
I'll put the teams together 1 day before the race but the discussion about who will race against whom is open.
Please remember: joinng and recruiting is allowed. But I decide into which team the new members go.

The primary goal: TeAm AnandTech should climb in the ranks!
The secondary goal: The TeAm shall have a lot of fun!
The tertiary goal: (there isnt one; if there are too many goals, then none will be fullfilled).

Here are those who have already decided to take part:

Anandtech name ____ F@H name
blckgrffn _________ blckgrffn
biodoc ____________ biodoc
brownstone ________ wingding
FullMetal Chocobo _ FullMetal Chcobo
geecee ____________ geecee
GLeeM _____________ GLeeM
HutchinsonJC ______ HutchinsonJC
Icecold ___________ Icecold
Ken_g6 ____________ Ken_g6
Markfw900 _________ Mark_F_Williams
PCTC2 _____________ Paulnt04
Peter_Trend _______ Peter_Trend
petrusbroder ______ TAS-Petrusbroder
Pokey _____________ Pokey_TA
Rattledagger ______ Baldurs_gate
salvorhardin ______ salvorhardin
Thump553 __________ Thump533
Uppsala9496 _______ Uppsala9496
WildW _____________ WildW
T_Yamamoto ________ T_Yamamoto
ZipSpeed __________ ZipSpeed

Those who want to participate, please post your names (the AnandTech name as well as the Folding@Home name) in this thread too.

The day before the race (December 2, sometime in the evening UTC) I will compose the two teams as well as I can.
Then part 1 of the race starts - and please remember, in the firts part is the time to assimilate, recruit, borgh ...
Until the Prime Grid race I will see how every one is doing.
During the Prime Grid race I'll even out the teams one last time.
After the Prime Grid race part 2 of the F@H race starts and the members of each team will stay in their team.
However, borghing and assimilating and recruiting is allowed during the whole race.

Usually the race is quite even ...

Team building:
I have looked at the participants sofar and matched them as good as it can be done just now ...
The teams are:

The Folding Firecats:
geecee ___________ geecee
Icecold __________ Icecold
HutchinsonJC _____ HutchinsonJC
Ken_g6 ___________ Ken_g6
PCTC2 ____________ Paulnt04
Peter_Trend ______ Peter_Trend
Pokey ____________ Pokey_TA
Rattledagger _____ Baldurs_gate
Uppsala9496 ______ Uppsala9496
WildW ____________ WildW
T_Yamamoto _______ T_Yamamoto

The Lightning Folders:
biodoc ___________ biodoc
blckgrffn ________ blckgrffn
Brownstone _______ Wingding
FullMetalChocobo _ FullMetal Chocobo
GLeeM ____________ GLeeM
Markfw900 ________ Mark_F_Williams
petrusbroder _____ TAS-Petrusbroder
salvorhardin _____ salvorhardin
Thump553 _________ Thump533
ZipSpeed _________ ZipSpeed

The names can be changed within the next 3 days - they are just my proposal.
The composition of the teams will change as members are recruited, reassigend (by me) or when they want to change team (allowed once and once only!)

[petrusbroder]

I am also calling the racers of the previous races:

TheAnimal
Gravity
Mike90
Pokey-TA ________________ is in!
PeterTrend ______________ is in!
TurtleBlue
RTThurman
FullMetal Chocobo _______ is in!
Insidious
Wingding ________________ is in!
Xbassman
Tom_philippart
paulNT04 ________________ is in!
CupCak3
Caferace
Uppsala9496 _____________ is in!
Silverthorne
[TA]Assimilator1
VirtualLarry
jonesthewine
Hurricane_Andrew
Desslok
kb3edk
dajeepster
Slider76
MadMurph
Cutthroat
Neurodog
Filibusterman
Zensal
SalvorHardin ____________ is in!
DainBramaged
XPBlackdragon
m1ldslide1
MechEng
amd_borg
Baldurs_gate ____________ is in!
OrangeKid
Rebel_Alliance
Alyyx
SlangNRox
Christian_Depold

and all the other racers, who I may have forgotten ...(please don't be put off or offended - I am bad at names) - to take part in the race.

This race is also the one and only TAS-event. Those who remember TAS, please join, those who don't, well search the DC-forum for the old, old TAS-threads, the monthly projects, challenges or ask some of us oldies ...

[petrusbroder]

Monthly Production
Month ___ Points _____ WUs
12.12 _ ??????????? __ ??????
11.12 _ 26,436,278 __ 10,971
10.12 _ 30,721,480 __ 13,798
09.12 _ 24,741,859 __ 10,471
08.12 _ 21,996,091 __ 10,055
07.12 _ 30,006,537 __ 14,720
06.12 _ 30,939,728 __ 16,614
05.12 _ 29,824,515 __ 15,399
04.12 _ 32,873,388 __ 14,877
03.12 _ 39,723,816 __ 19,982
02.12 _ 34,716,765 __ 21,999
01.12 _ 44,068,841 __ 26,944 --> after race effect
12.11 _ 56,257,283 __ 36,233 --> 2011 Holiday season Race
11.11 _ 30,199,895 __ 19,421 --> before the race ...

Can we beat this?

BTW: here are the last years stats!

[T_Yamamoto]

I guess I'll be in
I'm not contributing that much though

[ZipSpeed]

Thanks for organizing the race Peter! My contributions won't be nearly as much as it was the previous years. Couple rigs... thinking the i7 970 and 2500K. I will starting folding on them soon to give me a chance to make sure things are nice and stable.

[Rattledagger]

Originally Posted by petrusbroder

I am also calling the racers of the previous races:

Baldurs_gate

Ok, I'm in this year too, but will have a delayed start...

[biodoc]

I'll start crunching F@H in a couple of days. All my hardware will be in the race.

Thanks for setting this up, Peter!

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Pinned as requested, and my primary machine is working on it. Others will be added as they come available.

[HutchinsonJC]

Add me. I'm the same name on fah as here on anandtech.

[blckgrffn]

Wooohooo! I won't be bringing the ppd I did last year, but hoping for ~60k ppd.

[Uppsala9496]

Count me in. Much less firepower this time around. Down to 20 cores and 3 gpu's. Not sure if the gpu's will be going the entire time or not. Depends on the noise and heat.

Starting some units now to see how well my aging machines can handle things.

[blckgrffn]

REMEMBER -

You need to use a passkey if you want anything but base credit.

[Uppsala9496]

Someone talk me out of spending money on a new video card.
I'm thinking of replacing my GTS450 with a GTX650ti. 192 cuda cores versus 768.
Seems like it would be a massive jump in PPD.

[Markfw900]

Originally Posted by blckgrffn

Wooohooo! I won't be bringing the ppd I did last year, but hoping for ~60k ppd.

Well, I am stuck at 145k ppd, until it gets colder, or I run the AC when its 50 degrees outside

[blckgrffn]

Originally Posted by Uppsala9496

Someone talk me out of spending money on a new video card.
I'm thinking of replacing my GTS450 with a GTX650ti. 192 cuda cores versus 768.
Seems like it would be a massive jump in PPD.

I think its safe to divide Kepler core counts by ~3 to get the resulting Fermi compute power.

You may not be so impressed... but power efficiency should be excellent.

[Markfw900]

Originally Posted by Uppsala9496

Someone talk me out of spending money on a new video card.
I'm thinking of replacing my GTS450 with a GTX650ti. 192 cuda cores versus 768.
Seems like it would be a massive jump in PPD.

My 660ti cards are doing the same ppd as my 560ti cards. I think its new client thats inefficient. I would get the fermi 560ti cards are my latest buying experience.

[Uppsala9496]

Ugh. For the money I think I'd be better off waiting for my local MC to get the 3570K back in stock.

[blckgrffn]

Kepler just doesn't have the cojones when it comes to compute that Fermi has, plain and simple. Anandtech's initial review of the GTX 680 was really forceful in that regard.

Kepler is the 48xx series from Nvidia, really good at being video cards on pretty small die with good efficiency. Compute is there, but de-emphasized.

Big Kepler is a different beast, but unless you are going to drop some serious coin on server cards, its pretty niche.

[ZipSpeed]

Originally Posted by blckgrffn

Kepler just doesn't have the cojones when it comes to compute that Fermi has, plain and simple. Anandtech's initial review of the GTX 680 was really forceful in that regard.

Kepler is the 48xx series from Nvidia, really good at being video cards on pretty small die with good efficiency. Compute is there, but de-emphasized.

Big Kepler is a different beast, but unless you are going to drop some serious coin on server cards, its pretty niche.

Ain't that the truth. Looks like I'll be holding on to my current video cards for awhile.

[Peter Trend]

I'm in! Also probably much lower firepower this year but will see what if I can "borrow" any work PCs

[brownstone]

I'm in...same story here...far less firepower, but they say it's not the size that counts...

Folding under wingding.

[biodoc]

All 4 of my rigs are crunching FAH.

Welcome to all that are joining the race!!

[T_Yamamoto]

my name is under T_Yamamoto

[petrusbroder]

List of participants in OP updated.

[brownstone]

Originally Posted by petrusbroder

List of participants in OP updated.

I'm one of those pesky guys with a different folding name than my forum name. (folding name = wingding)