Article: Seeking The Best Performance per Watt for Folding@Home

[Wiz]

I found this to be an interesting read, so I thought I'd share:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/640

 

[petrusbroder]

Very nice read! Thanks Wiz!

 

[Foxery]

Hum. Their figures for the Radeons on page 4 are way, way off. The PPD should be 2x what they reported.

edit: I see it... they got a small protein, when 90% of the assignments this month are large ones. Granted, using the more common protein doesn't make ATI beat nVidia at the current time, but it would be nice if they hadn't made them look stupid. :-/

Page 5 is done with a more favorable work unit.

 

[Wiz]

I got the general feeling they were DC boobs (er - I meant noobs - but decided to leave it anyway)
Even so, it's good to see this kind of analysis and gives some general viewpoints that seem credible.
Efficiency is good - more work per monetary unit (bang for buck) is a great and worthy goal.

 

[Markfw]

Great read. I already came to the conclusion, many 8800 GT's in as few motherboards as possible, and efficient PSU's.

 

[Insidious]

I think the article is an interesting one. Thanks Wiz

I've got to admit, I only skimmed it. It did bring back thoughts I've had when I read other articles, threads, reviews, etc. written along the same lines.

I read these stories of cases with 5 fans, 4 video cards, a custom cooler for that massivly overclocked quad core CPU, 3 hard drives, 4 gigabytes of overclocked ram.... what's that somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500? But they can't afford the electric bill?

And my personal favorite.... the everpresent post that says the user... did their research and decided they needed a substation sized PSU to fire it all up. Where do these people think that 750W comes from?

Let's all hear it for the electron tree. :thumbsup:

And then I read.... I picked my video card because it uses less electricity than the fast ones....... WHAT? :disgust:

They could get ALL that back and more if they simply reduced their overclocks by a couple percent. Maybe try 2 hard drives instead of 3. Maybe 3 fans would be fine if I bought a decently designed case instead. But to cripple the most critical component to a high performance PC instead of those other choices?

Totally misguided. scrimp on that video card and make most of that $2,500 investment needless. You could simply get a PC for half the price and it will perform just as well as a machine with a mediocre video card.

[/rant]

 

[Markfw]

Sid, I got a totally different take from that

1) Efficient PSU can save a lot of $$$
2) GPU are better at PPD than CPU, even considering power usage.
3) 8800 GT is the best PPD/$

And last, take an efficient PSU, and multiple GPU's (8800 GTs) on the same motherboard for the best PPD/$

That matches 3 of my quads. (but only 2 cards each)

 

[Insidious]

Yeah, I think you're right Mark. I kind of got OT on a tangent thought

oops

 

[Foxery]

I didn't mean to come off sounding so negative... I take it for granted that I know entirely too much about all of the hardware in question. Props to the writer for testing all of that himself and writing it up in one place. There have been some exceedingly long threads on various forums that have come to similar conclusions, but they require a lot of digging to get all of the info you need to build a complete rig.

BTW, legoman666's spreadsheets on the FoldingForum for GPU performance/watt and performance/dollar are an excellent place to start.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
1) Efficient PSU can save a lot of $$$
2) GPU are better at PPD than CPU, even considering power usage.
3) 8800 GT is the best PPD/$

I would have thought that the 8800GS (9600GSO) would be a better PPD/$ card. It's 75% (1/4 disabled) of an 8800GT, for less than half the price.

Edit: I see, they didn't test the 8800GS/9600GSO.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Markfw900
1) Efficient PSU can save a lot of $$$
2) GPU are better at PPD than CPU, even considering power usage.
3) 8800 GT is the best PPD/$

I would have thought that the 8800GS (9600GSO) would be a better PPD/$ card. It's 75% (1/4 disabled) of an 8800GT, for less than half the price.

Edit: I see, they didn't test the 8800GS/9600GSO.

One other problem. I have not seen those cards for $50 without a rebate, only with. With 8 cards (or more) the rebate only applies to one card. My last 2 8800 GT'2 run at 720 factory OC, and cost $104 each.

So for me at least $100 cards are way better. Also, getting 33% more (going from 75-100% perf) for almost the same price (no rebate) works way better ppd for me.

 

[VirtualLarry]

To each their own I guess. I got in on three EVGA 9600GSOs, different models and different rebates, for $50AR (had to pay shipping for one of them), and two Asus 9600GSOs for $55AR, for which the rebate was limit two.