The 12th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race

[StefanR5R]

I'm at ~1.9 M PPD currently, from 3 Pascal GPUs.
2 more GPUs to come as I find time to put it all together.

With all stops removed, the 3-GPU host may be good for ~2.3 M PPD at a bit less power efficiency, but dramatically increased coil whine. The latter is a problem. I am thinking about rearranging which hosts are in which rooms to maybe run the GPU host in the noisier mode for extended time.

I'll put CPUs towards F@H only temporarily as a test. I think last year they reached circa almost Maxwell efficiency (PPD/W) with the right WU types; I want to find out whether it's worse or better this year. (Edit: In F@H, near GPU-like efficiency on CPUs is only possible with high core count servers and requires Linux, such that a single folding slot occupies all hardware threads.)

The new 2-GPU host is meant to be running Linux; if this turns out workable I may set up a Linux partition on the 3-GPU host too. Also I am thinking about pulling the Xeon from it and putting an i7 in there, like it had originally before a sad accident, but am still undecided.

 

[FoldingSolutions]

I'm in! Username = FoldingSolutions

 

[Markfw]

@TennesseeTony I did linux once, and it was a nightmare, I can add another card to cover what ppd I may be loosing, worth my sanity.

 

[IEC]

I'll devote at least one GPU to this.

IEC is my username. New username.

 

[Markfw]

I'll devote at least one GPU to this.

IEC is my username. New username.

Silly question. Did you join team 198 yet ? have you turned in any units ? I can't find you.

 

[IEC]

Silly question. Did you join team 198 yet ? have you turned in any units ? I can't find you.

Literally just joined. Crunching my first ones on the new account now.

I just checked the stats on my old account which I've lost my passkey for. Started folding 1/1/2004, quit in Aug 2009.

Amusingly, I will probably exceed my old account's points in a matter of days because GPUs are so much faster now versus when I was using old Celerons and Athlons to fold. And that one old Pentium D I used as a space heater one winter.

 

[Markfw]

So what GPU are you devoting ? curious on what PPD we can expect. And let us (me) know when the first unit finishes. And what PPD does FAHcontrol say you are expecting ?

 

[IEC]

So what GPU are you devoting ? curious on what PPD we can expect. And let us (me) know when the first unit finishes. And what PPD does FAHcontrol say you are expecting ?

1080 Ti, FAHcontrol says approx 1M PPD. I see a couple of WORK_ACK entries in the log but no stats on my user page yet.

 

[IEC]

Okay, I see it now after the hourly update:
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=IEC

 

[Markfw]

Great IEC, and those are great cards ! Now if we just had 10 more cards extra in our fold......

 

[IEC]

Great IEC, and those are great cards ! Now if we just had 10 more cards extra in our fold......

I like to under-promise and over-deliver. All I will commit to starting Dec 1 is ~1M PPD. It will probably be more than that, on average.

 

[Markfw]

I like to under-promise and over-deliver. All I will commit to starting Dec 1 is ~1M PPD. It will probably be more than that, on average.

I really mean that if 10 more members could each get a 1080TI....But thats unlikely.

 

[Smoke]

TA_Smoke

is in!

 

[UsandThem]

I really mean that if 10 more members could each get a 1080TI....But thats unlikely.

I'll gladly take and use a 1080ti.....as long as you're buying.

I haven't looked at any DC stuff since probably 2000, just checking out what's new.

 

[crashtech]

F@H stats on Free-DC haven't updated in many days, will the teams be able to be divided properly?

 

[Markfw]

Use EOC stats. https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/individual_overtake.php?s=&u=93494

 

[Pokey]

@Markfw , I'm preparing a guide for installing Linux with Nvidia GPUs, thanks to hiigaran of Brony@home. (You can just follow that guide though instead of waiting on me) My 1080's jumped at least 150k ppd!!! (650k to 827k on 9415 tasks) You really really really need to try it on a system or two, it is worth the downtime, even during a race.

Well, thanks Tony, (I think) for the link to the Linux guide. After cogitating on it for a while I bit the bullet and converted my 24/7 rigs to Linux again. It proved to be a pretty deep rabbit hole for me for various reasons, but hiigaran's guide helped a lot. I won't bore you all with the details but it does look like a worthwhile effort, for me at least. I will know better in a few days but right now it looks like about a 25% jump in points. YMMV

 

[StefanR5R]

I really need to try Linux on my Windows 7 + Xeon E5 @2.8 GHz host. GPU utilization with F@H is a bit low (80 % or something, I'm currently not near this PC). GPU utilization is similar on my GTX 1080 and 1080Ti, so this doesn't look like a scaling problem of fahcore itself. Hence I am curious if it's due to the low single-threaded performance of the host CPU, or due to Windows 7, or Windows in general.

 

[Markfw]

I really need to try Linux on my Windows 7 + Xeon E5 @2.8 GHz host. GPU utilization with F@H is a bit low (80 % or something, I'm currently not near this PC). GPU utilization is similar on my GTX 1080 and 1080Ti, so this doesn't look like a scaling problem of fahcore itself. Hence I am curious if it's due to the low single-threaded performance of the host CPU, or due to Windows 7, or Windows in general.

All of those could be a factor. My E5-2695v3 runs about 80% GPU utilization, (1080TI,win10), my 6700k with dual 1080's runs 88%(win10) , and my E5-2683v3 and dual 1070's runs 84% (win7). So it appears that any of those could be a factor, with slow cores being the biggest factor ? Will check my TR's.

Edit: TR's with dual1080TI's are running 82%

Note: All are running less than 100% total CPU, but all have BOINC running except the 6700k. Could be a factor ? I tried suspending it on the E5-2695v3, but it made no change, but I did not exit it.

 

[TennesseeTony]

My1080s jumped from 84-88% to 99% on Linux.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Hi Tony, my sincere apologies for this taking so long to get back to you.

Was a race with your DC counterparts at Tom's ever organized? If so, I'd be happy to run a front-page announcement for all of the AT readers. And I imagine the TH crew would be as well. Otherwise, what might you need from me?

-Thanks
Ryan Smith

 

[Markfw]

My1080s jumped from 84-88% to 99% on Linux.

Well, only one problem there. I have 8 hours to do 12 machines, and 2 of them are my primaries. But that is interesting, and I may go that way next year.. That might give me 1 million more ppd (10% of my current 10 million). But that a lot of work.

Edit. I have a CPU coming next week, maybe that can be my ginnea pig system. But do I choose the x86 version or the 64-bit (AMD64 it says). Isn't the x86 one 64 bit ? Whats the difference (lubuntu)

 

[StefanR5R]

I was just browsing last year's thread for a bit. Here is petrusbroder's post at the end of the 7-day race against Tom's: page 26, post #637

 

[crashtech]

@TennesseeTony , too late?

 

[Markfw]

And how do you make a bootable lbuntu USB from an lbuntu iso image ?