Question Anybody used an S9300 X2 data center graphics card in F@H ? 8192 cuda cores ?

Icecold

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
1,090
1,008
146
I have one. It puts up around 650,000 PPD in Folding@home, and does okay but not great on some BOINC projects. It should be basically 2 R9 Fury X's on one card, maybe with some clock speed differences. It's very difficult to cool since it's a passive card, I had to break apart the heatsink and then zip tie/hot glue 80mm fans to it.

I was running that plus a 3GB "mining" GTX 1060 3GB equivalent I got on the cheap on eBay for a combined ~1 million PPD in the December F@H race, so it's definitely not great for Folding.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Assimilator1

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
25,483
14,434
136
I have one. It puts up around 650,000 PPD in Folding@home, and does okay but not great on some BOINC projects. It should be basically 2 R9 Fury X's on one card, maybe with some clock speed differences. It's very difficult to cool since it's a passive card, I had to break apart the heatsink and then zip tie/hot glue 80mm fans to it.

I was running that plus a 3GB "mining" GTX 1060 3GB equivalent I got on the cheap on eBay for a combined ~1 million PPD in the December F@H race, so it's definitely not great for Folding.
Thanks ! Not at all what I expected with 8192 cuda cores....The 2080TI only has 4352 cuda cores, and those get 5 million ppd.

@crashtech .... I have a 3080 on order (if it ever comes in). This going to be a stopgap, but not the way I see it now.

I turned off 7 video cards and only went from 40 million ppd to 32 million with 6 2080TIs crunching. I have to close the windows on the house to stay warm ! But the over $800 electric bill was just too much. We will see next bill what this does for me.
 

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
10,521
2,111
146
Even with cheap electricity, efficiency matters on some level. I always figure in two years of electricity cost when comparing prices of parts. Even at 11 cents per KWh, a single1080ti for example costs nearly $500 to run.
 

Icecold

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
1,090
1,008
146
I'm not a video card architecture expert or anything, but I think the AMD video card 'cores' aren't directly comparable to CUDA cores on an Nvidia card. The Firepro is also >5 year old technology. Now that Folding has the client that is optimized for CUDA it's unlikely in my opinion that we'll see any AMD cards that are competitive with Nvidia for Folding both in points and in PPD/watt any time in the next several years.

It's also a dual GPU card, so it's running 2 separate tasks at a time the same as if it were 2 video cards, so it's getting less quick return bonus than you might expect if it were one single card with that much processing power.

It's really not a bad card knowing all of that, but I definitely wouldn't suggest it for Folding@home. I definitely empathize with the electric bill and all of that, though - if you can turn off 7 video cards and only lose 8 million PPD depending on what the cards are / power usage that definitely seems like a win. If you decide to sell any video cards it's a great time to sell them too, for the same reasons it's hard to buy new ones.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
25,483
14,434
136
Even with cheap electricity, efficiency matters on some level. I always figure in two years of electricity cost when comparing prices of parts. Even at 11 cents per KWh, a single1080ti for example costs nearly $500 to run.
I turned off 4 2060's, 2 1080TI's, a 1070TI and a 1060. The heat output is noticeable, we will see on the power bill. I still have 1000 cores crunching, and 6 2080TI's.
 

Endgame124

Senior member
Feb 11, 2008
954
669
136
I turned off 4 2060's, 2 1080TI's, a 1070TI and a 1060. The heat output is noticeable, we will see on the power bill. I still have 1000 cores crunching, and 6 2080TI's.
I think this is in the same direction as my current plan - 2 generation old hardware doesn’t make a ton of sense to keep running on a performance per watt perspective. I may cave and buy a 3090 to replace my 1080ti if I could find one for 1600 or under. I had another chance to buy a 3090 SUPPRIM yesterday, but this time it was 2200 due to the tariff increase and I cheaped out again (for that price I would upgrade my 2700x to a 5959 and have a bunch of money left over).
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
I turned off 7 video cards and only went from 40 million ppd to 32 million with 6 2080TIs crunching. I have to close the windows on the house to stay warm ! But the over $800 electric bill was just too much. We will see next bill what this does for me.
Mark, I know that this may be an unpopular opinion and comment in this particular sub-forum, but ... have you ever even considered "mining"? Rather than shut off those 7 video cards, why not set them up to mine ethereum (either directly, with a pool, or through NiceHash, which is DEAD SIMPLE to set up, and pays out directly in BTC), and then those 7 currently-unused cards, would be: 1) Doing something useful, and 2) Paying the electric bill for themselves, as well as the rest of the cards, or at least significantly offsetting the electric bill.

I'll break it down for you a bit.

I use Nicehash. I have 9 rigs crunching.

I have two server chassis, one with:
1) 5x GTX 1660 ti cards, and
2) 4x RX 5700XT cards.

I also have 5x gaming PCs with 2xGPUs in each, I've got a mixture of RX 5700/5700XT, GTX 1660 ti, GTX 1660 Super, RX 5600XT, and GTX 1650 (those last ones don't mine ethereum, they mine Ravencoin, because they have 4GB or less memory).

I also have a number of Ryzen 6C/12T CPUs CPU mining Monero.

Altogether, my little farm is pushing $100 USD / day in revenue. It probably uses $10 / day in electricity. (2800W)

However, I have electric heat, and I'm heating my apt. this winter with my rigs, so I would normally be using nearly that much power just heating my apt. this winter, anyways.

Something to consider, really, in today's environment (BTC and ETH prices relative to Fiat / USD are sky-high right now). Why idle cards, when you could be running them, and they could MORE than pay for themselves. In essence, their profit would be subsidizing the other cards running F@H. You could have BOTH a Folding and mining farm going on, and heating your house with both.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
PS. I'll buy your four RTX 2060 cards next month, if you're interested in selling them.
That is, if my disability check doesn't get pulled, because I made too much mining this month. :|
 

StefanR5R

Elite Member
Dec 10, 2016
5,459
7,718
136
then those 7 currently-unused cards, would be: 1) Doing something useful
"Something useful": They would create crypto tokens. There is capital being pumped into buying these crypto tokens. The buyers obviously consider such tokens more useful to them than, for example, investments, taxes, or negative interest.