14th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race

[petrusbroder]

Hi all, in a few months it will be December and that is when the 14th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race will start.
However, this race will be coordinated and managed by Biodoc and not by myself. There are several reasons for my retirement, the most important being my wife's and my health problems, which prevent me to engage with the energy needed for this event.
Please mark the date of December 1. 2019 for this race!
Let the tradition of the Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race continue and fold well, all of you ... and help Mark to find some cure for cancer!
Thanks, Biodoc, for taking over the organization of this race!

 

[Markfw]

Well, I kind of maxed my electrical budget, so 15 million ppd might be my max. I think last year I hit 18 million, but not sure if I can make it that high this year.

Note as to Peters comment. I lost my bladder, prostate, my hearing and balance last October, all over a period of 2 days, so I am determined to help in making sure that this never to happen to anyone else.

 

[crashtech]

I always look forward to the Holiday Folding Race, I hope we can find a good opponent!

 

[Orange Kid]

2 billion plus would be a great goal to shoot for.

 

[crashtech]

I'm all in, though I don't know what kind of increase I'll be providing over last year. It's not been a banner year here, and I rather inexplicably added CPU power instead of GPU this year. Well I did add a GPU in the form of an RTX 2060, then was promptly disappointed to realize that neither PG nor A@H support them. Bummer! But, the RTX seems to excel at F@H, so there's that.

 

[Ken g6]

Well I did add a GPU in the form of an RTX 2060, then was promptly disappointed to realize that neither PG nor A@H support them.

Say what now? PG supports RTX cards. Just not their ray-tracing or tensor features. Those are...rather specialized, I think.

Anyway, I'll probably use the hardware I have; just not sure if I want to add more or not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I'm all-in for Dec., assuming that I can make my rent this month and don't have housing issues. Anyways, I bought 2x MSI Ventus GTX 1660 ti 6GB GDDR6 cards, for my new "main rig" (with the Ryzen R5 3600 that I got last month), with a 240mm AIO WC.

So that stuff is all pretty new. But I'm getting rid of the old, just sold a couple of 4GB RX 570 cards, and will be selling off my whole collection, more-or-less, of my RX 570s and my lone RX 470 mining edition Sapphire card.

It had a solid showing last year, sort of, but it's not super power-efficient any more.

PS. I did buy, on a whim, an RX 580 4GB Sapphire Nitro+ (6+8 pin!), that was for another build, before I realized it took two PCI-E power cables. Not quite sure what it's capable of, the extra power cable seems like overkill to me. Probably should have saved my money. (Refurb from Newegg for $125.)

Once I get my debts and rent squared away, and get a handle on my spending, I might pick up a 2070 Super, I really want one of those too. Maybe before Dec., if I can swing it, no guarantees though.

I don't know how many PPD the GTX 1660ti OC cards put out, but I imagine it's better than the RX 570 cards, which weren't all that great at F@H, IIRC. (300K PPD last year, more or less, per card.)

Edit: They've been mined on, but if anyone wants the remainder of my RX 470/570 cards (470 is 4GB, 2x 570 are 8GB MSI), I'll cut you a good deal if your going to use them for the F@H race. (One might need re-pasting.)

 

[crashtech]

Say what now? PG supports RTX cards. Just not their ray-tracing or tensor features. Those are...rather specialized, I think.

Anyway, I'll probably use the hardware I have; just not sure if I want to add more or not.

Ugh, my bad! GPUGrid is the one, not PrimeGrid. I think they are fixing GPUGrid, though. Not sure what I was thinking there.

 

[biodoc]

I hope we can find a good opponent!

Do you have any suggestions? Perhaps our friends at [H] would be interested in a challenge.

 

[crashtech]

Do you have any suggestions? Perhaps our friends at [H] would be interested in a challenge.

I imagine [H] would prove a formidable challenge...

 

[Markfw]

I imagine [H] would prove a formidable challenge...

They have 78 active right now, and we have 31 active. Their 24hr ppd is 23m and ours is 20m, 10m of which is just me,.

Yes, I think their sheer numbers could kill us, not sure.

Toms hardware on the other hand is average 20m with 34 active. UNLike before, they are owned by Purch still while we are now owned by Future,

 

[lane42]

I think Purch is now owned by Future ",Future acquires the consumer division of Purch, a technology-enabled US-based media business with leading online brands in the technology and science sectors".

 

[Markfw]

I think Purch is now owned by Future ",Future acquires the consumer division of Purch, a technology-enabled US-based media business with leading online brands in the technology and science sectors".

The only thing odd, is we have Future at the bottom of our web pages, and Toms has Purch at the bottom of theirs.

 

[lane42]

The only thing odd, is we have Future at the bottom of our web pages, and Toms has Purch at the bottom of theirs.

I saw that. Maybe they just didn't change the name yet.

 

[Pokey]

I took it the same way. See row 6 and 7. Both are listed as Future PLC brands.
Future PLC Link

 

[StefanR5R]

I will be in.

The 2016 F@H race was the very occasion which got me stared with Distributed Computing. (This was the year with a three-way race with Tom's and Hardware Canucks, and of course the front page announcement of the 1-week race against Tom's brought me here.)

@petrusbroder, thank you so much for organizing this through all the years!
Get well.

 

[crashtech]

2016 was my return to DC as well. I'm very much in.

 

[biodoc]

The 2018 Holiday Race was an intrateam event where Team Anandtech members were required to sign up. Those who signed up were split into 2 teams based on projected PPD. Most of the Holiday races were set up this way. Usually 1 or 2 team adjustments were necessary so the race was competitive but at some point at least a week before the end of the race, the teams were finalized.

The 2017 Holiday Race was both an intrateam event for the month of December and an interteam event with Brony@Home that was December-January. Stats were complicated and I think most of us thought that 2 months was too long.

Proposed discussion points:

1) 1 or 2 months?
2) interteam or intrateam race? (I don't think both is a good idea but I'm willing to do both if that what most want)
3) No sign up required for an interteam race. All folders from both teams would be included (EOC stats).
4) Intrateam race would require sign up for participaion.
5) Suggestions for outside teams to participate in an interteam race. I think a race with [H]ardOCP would be fun and very challenging especially if their boinc guys jumped in. Another possibility is Tom's Hardware. Check out EOC stats for more suggestions for discussion.

 

[VirtualLarry]

1) 1 or 2 months?
2) interteam or intrateam race? (I don't think both is a good idea but I'm willing to do both if that what most want)
3) No sign up required for an interteam race. All folders from both teams would be included (EOC stats).
4) Intrateam race would require sign up for participaion.
5) Suggestions for outside teams to participate in an interteam race. I think a race with [H]ardOCP would be fun and very challenging especially if their boinc guys jumped in. Another possibility is Tom's Hardware. Check out EOC stats for more suggestions for discussion.

1) ONE month, please.
2) interteam might be fun again, I suggest [H]ard|OCP as opponents.

 

[Orange Kid]

I'll be in either way.

 

[StefanR5R]

The 2017 Holiday Race was both an intrateam event for the month of December and an interteam event with Brony@Home that was December-January. Stats were complicated and I think most of us thought that 2 months was too long.

It was great that Brony@Home asked us whether we would compete. They agreed to move their usual time frame, we agreed to expand our usual time frame. So that was a good compromise after all. But certainly, 2 months are too long for teams whose members work at a variety of projects, such as ourselves.

If we go around and ask other teams whether they'd like to have a competition, a 2-week or even a quick 1-week competition could be options too. The December 2016 and March(?) 2018 races against Tom's, each initiated by the site staff, were both just 1 week long, IIRC.

 

[lane42]

imo a month is to long. We see how long the wow event is at 2 weeks. Now this is just my
thinking, it means nothing, but maybe 3 weeks, or, Dec1 to Dec 25. Iam going in but
not for the whole month so it will hurt the team iam on.

 

[StefanR5R]

I think it's traditional that some of us aren't there for the whole time. Maybe @biodoc could take planned absences into account when the subteams are assembled.

 

[Ken g6]

I'm not sure what to do, because somebody stuck a 10-day PrimeGrid race in the middle of the holiday season.

 

[Markfw]

The 2018 Holiday Race was an intrateam event where Team Anandtech members were required to sign up. Those who signed up were split into 2 teams based on projected PPD. Most of the Holiday races were set up this way. Usually 1 or 2 team adjustments were necessary so the race was competitive but at some point at least a week before the end of the race, the teams were finalized.

The 2017 Holiday Race was both an intrateam event for the month of December and an interteam event with Brony@Home that was December-January. Stats were complicated and I think most of us thought that 2 months was too long.

Proposed discussion points:

1) 1 or 2 months?
2) interteam or intrateam race? (I don't think both is a good idea but I'm willing to do both if that what most want)
3) No sign up required for an interteam race. All folders from both teams would be included (EOC stats).
4) Intrateam race would require sign up for participaion.
5) Suggestions for outside teams to participate in an interteam race. I think a race with [H]ardOCP would be fun and very challenging especially if their boinc guys jumped in. Another possibility is Tom's Hardware. Check out EOC stats for more suggestions for discussion.

1) One month
2) both, we always have inter team, and a few years we were able to setup against another team.
3) yes
4) yes
5) Toms Hardware again is just a few million ppd ahead of us HardOCP is WAY above us.