Folding@Home Strikes Back: Tom's Vs Anand Part 2 (March 12th)

[petrusbroder]

Thanks for setting those up Ken g6! We haven't set a start time yet. Do you remember what time it started for the last competition?
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/guide-for-the-newcomers-to-the-folding-home-race.2490732/

We started at 18:00 UTC ... but any time is OK with me ... since I will not be doing the stats due to a trip out of country.

 

[Ken g6]

Well, I'm in, with a i5-7400 and GTX1060 3GB, at least. That's maybe all I can afford to donate this month, I had already budgeted including my mining income, kind of down to the wire.

My OEM NV GTX1060 3GB is only making less than $1 USD/day. It's almost not even worth running it.

Wait, Larry, that's all you're making with Nicehash? That's about what I'm making with FoldingCoin, not including what I could be making on the CureCoin team. Even despite the fact FoldingCoin has tanked over the past few days.

If you want to run FoldingCoin, you should set up your new username as soon as possible, and run your first 10 WUs on your CPUs since they don't count for much.

 

[ao_ika_red]

The article is live.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1251...ardwares-versus-anandtech-foldinghome-round-2
Thank you @Ryan Smith and @CommManagerJ .

 

[CuriousMike]

Is there any value in my CPU doing the work? I have a Ryzen 1700 and an RX460; it seems pretty under-powered for this kind of GPU intensive work?

 

[Markfw]

Is there any value in my CPU doing the work? I have a Ryzen 1700 and an RX460; it seems pretty under-powered for this kind of GPU intensive work?

Try it now, and see what the ppd is.

 

[ao_ika_red]

Ah, I forgot about the usual GPU Performance table.
Here you go.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vcVoSVtamcoGj5sFfvKF_XlvuviWWveJIg_iZ8U2bf0/pub?output=html

 

[CuriousMike]

I see you guys are 400k-1million+ ppd, my 32kppd seems like a waste of electricity.
fah2018 by Michael Coustier, on Flickr

 

[UsandThem]

I see you guys are 400k-1million+ ppd, my 32kppd seems like a waste of electricity.

You'd get better numbers by not using your CPU, and just using your GPU which should get around 85,000 - 88,000 PPD.

 

[Markfw]

I see you guys are 400k-1million+ ppd, my 32kppd seems like a waste of electricity.
fah2018 by Michael Coustier, on Flickr

Do you have 10 units done so far ? if not that 32k could become 300k

Edit: just saw the post above. You should use fahcontrol, to control whether CPU or GPU or both are used

 

[Ryan Smith]

The article is live.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1251...ardwares-versus-anandtech-foldinghome-round-2
Thank you @Ryan Smith and @CommManagerJ .

And if you guys need anything else, please let me know.

(I'm counting on you to shock & awe & shame John! )

 

[UsandThem]

And if you guys need anything else, please let me know.

Since you offering, a few GTX 1080ti cards will help us out quite a bit.

On a serious note, I was able to snag a GTX 1070ti ($609!!!!! ), and provided it's not DOA, I'll have it ready to go in time for the competition, and it should get my PPD up to around 2 million.

These GPU prices (and availability) are just absolutely insane right now.

 

[ao_ika_red]

And if you guys need anything else, please let me know.

(I'm counting on you to shock & awe & shame John! )

If you could drag Ian, Nate, and other AT staff into this race, that would be great!

 

[Ryan Smith]

If you could drag Ian, Nate, and other AT staff into this race, that would be great!

The rules of the contest are actually that the employees aren't allowed to participate. This is because using our lab equipment would be unfair for both sides. It would be like organizing a community basketball tournament and having Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry show up to participate.

 

[StefanR5R]

I see you guys are 400k-1million+ ppd, my 32kppd seems like a waste of electricity.

As others noted, after your host completed 10 WUs successfully, credits will go up because the project servers will start giving "quick return bonus", as it's then assumed that your host is reliable.

Re "waste of electricity": The actual amount of protein folding simulation done per kWh is about the same within a given GPU generation, regardless if the GPU is small or big. But it's true that credits/kWh to some degree gets better with larger GPUs because of Folding@Home's quick return bonus.

Re others' PPD: Currently, EOC's Team AnandTech stats and Tom's Hardware stats are showing the "average" PPD per user to be 390 k and 380 k, respectively. But keep in mind that this number is a little bit skewed: Before this race, this average is driven up because few but very dedicated folders are at work. Within the race, hopefully many contributors with more normal (and typically not as optimized) gear will show up.

Our performance will not just depend on the few guys who have several and big GPUs, but it will also depend very much on how many TeAm mates with just one and more commonly sized GPU will join!

PS,
folding on CPUs however is a different matter. The folding performance gap between CPUs and GPUs is so large that folding on CPUs would often be a waste indeed. Depending on a host's CPU(s)+GPU(s) combination, it may in the end be more effective to let the CPUs just serve by supporting the GPU slot. The GPU folding application generally profits from having one spare CPU core all to itself, from the CPU running at turbo, and from the CPU not having an AVX- and memory-intensive workload (like CPU folding) in parallel. Hosts with a Threadripper or dual-socket Xeons or the like might still do well at CPU folding though, during a short race like this at least.

 

[StefanR5R]

Currently, EOC's Team AnandTech stats and Tom's Hardware stats are showing the "average" PPD per user to be 390 k and 380 k, respectively. But keep in mind that this number is a little bit skewed:

The average is actually very much skewed by the biggest producers.
The median PPDs* are: 16 k for TeAm Anandtech, and 19 k for Tom's Hardware.

*) per-user weekly average, not counting users with 0 production this week

 

[ao_ika_red]

The rules of the contest are actually that the employees aren't allowed to participate. This is because using our lab equipment would be unfair for both sides. It would be like organizing a community basketball tournament and having Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry show up to participate.

Bummer. Really want to witness Titan V at work, but it's a fair rule and I respect that.

Depending on a host's CPU(s)+GPU(s) combination, it may in the end be more effective to let the CPUs just serve by supporting the GPU slot.

Is there any way to set F@H CPU client to let 1 or 2 core free for feeding GPU client?

 

[StefanR5R]

Is there any way to set F@H CPU client to let 1 or 2 core free for feeding GPU client?

Not explicitly. Just like in boinc you only can configure how many processor threads the CPU slot is allowed to use, but not which ones it is not allowed to use.
(In "advanced control" = fahcontrol, go to Configure -> Slots -> select the CPU slot -> Edit -> modify the number of CPU threads this slot may use -> OK -> Save.)

 

[ao_ika_red]

Not explicitly. Just like in boinc you only can configure how many processor threads the CPU slot is allowed to use, but not which ones it is not allowed to use.
(In "advanced control" = fahcontrol, go to Configure -> Slots -> select the CPU slot -> Edit -> modify the number of CPU threads this slot may use -> OK -> Save.)

Here I'm expecting some app_config equivalent, thankfully, it's much simpler than that. Thanks.

 

[Storm Vanguard]

Hello people. just like i did for the christmas race, i'm here to answer the call and am ready to crank out as many PPD as possible. i'm also better equipped than last year: i've now got a 1070 instead of double 970s. thing is, one of those 970s is still in my possession since i kept it as a backup card. unless F@H is a pain, i'll put her back in the case tomorrow and i should be able to have her fold 24/7. unfortunately i'll have to use the 1070 for some hours for gaming and stuff in the evening, but the rest of the day, i'll clock around 1 million PPD

BTW, any chance we may be able to set up an in-house race like last time? it was a lot of fun! although it seems that this one has been a bit sudden and maybe there's not enough time anymore. :/

 

[biodoc]

I finally got power back after the latest nor'easter moved through New England. Spending 36 hours huddled around a small space heater trying to keep warm was not an ideal family experience. My small generator failed (bad news) but the good news was it died an hour before the power was restored. I got my 2 rigs up and running and everything seemed to be ok so I decided to jump in on FAH early.

 

[Ken g6]

BTW, any chance we may be able to set up an in-house race like last time? it was a lot of fun! although it seems that this one has been a bit sudden and maybe there's not enough time anymore. :/

Our stats master, @petrusbroder is on vacation this time. I had planned to automate his individual stats, but I never quite got around to it. Not to mention the whole "picking two teams" thing he's so good at. So I don't think it's going to happen. Sorry.

 

[lane42]

Help, went to download F@H and get a "can't connect securely to this page" This might be because the site
uses outdated or unsafe TLS security settings. I have a fairly new install of win 10, what settings did I screw up.
I get on the main F@H page fine with my laptop. Stupid windows.

 

[Markfw]

Help, went to download F@H and get a "can't connect securely to this page" This might be because the site
uses outdated or unsafe TLS security settings. I have a fairly new install of win 10, what settings did I screw up.
I get on the main F@H page fine with my laptop. Stupid windows.

Well, download it to the laptop, then copy to your main rig.

 

[Ken g6]

@lane42 do you have the right address? https://folding.stanford.edu/start-folding/

Or you could try the FoldingCoin browser from https://foldingcoin.net/

 

[Thebobo]

I'm in what's our team number?