Milkyway@home TeAm competition - 10/15 to 11/15

[Icecold]

Day 2 Stats:

Name​	Current Total​	Since Yesterday's Stats​
crashtech​	10,479,499​	5,213,992​
phoenicis​	6,347,563​	3,217,965​
Icecold​	4,738,176​	2,412,805​
biodoc​	3,270,852​	1,645,409​
emoga​	925,077​	451,396​
waffleironhead​	597,881​	352,028​
rTd5yrwrQtUT7pMqidF9d2BhXsv​	415,458​	415,458​
Walrus of Apathy​	316,728​	182,140​
Lane42--​	301,279​	254,659​
Stig​	299,276​	155,651​
Fardringle​	272,757​	193,343​
flywaldo​	218,022​	109,771​
[TA]Assimilator1​	152,499​	152,499​
Brent​	145,459​	84,246​
IcefireQuickSilver​	124,088​	85,713​
Endgame124​	70,478​	68,658​
Silverthorne​	33,218​	32,763​
elfenix​	12,844​	5,945​
Christopher​	1,633​	1,336​
burninator34​	682​	682​
Shu Gao​	113​	76​

In pie form:

 

[Fardringle]

I assume that you're talking about your RX580. For the 580, best output is 2x. You can even undervolt it a bit and overclock the memory for efficiency. This is strictly for Milkyway

This was posted right after my comment, so I'll assume it was for me.

I'm running an R9 280X.

And I went back and grabbed several dozen results that were turned in before I switched to running 3x instead of 2x. It looks like the projected PPD is almost exactly the same for both with 460K at 3x and 454K at 2x. I'm thinking I might go back to 2x just to reduce the stress on the GPU slightly since the temps are a bit higher when running 3x.

Sadly, I can't undervolt this card unless I use a custom BIOS, and I'm not really prepared to do that (yet).

 

[Icecold]

Anyways, Milky is not in the way of current FB competition. So i thought I'd share some of my experiences on it for the fellow crunchers.

Thanks @VietOZ - the info is appreciated! Feel free to join in on this competition as well - all it would take is changing your team affiliation to TeAm Anandtech on Milkyway@home

 

[Assimilator1]

Fardingle
Good to know, I'll set my HD 7870 XT to 2 tasks then (and RX 580) I guess. [edit] That's if I can get any WUs, it's not allowing my main rig to get any atm [edit2] Nm, just got some , was only stalled for a few minutes.
Any idea how power usage compared between 1,2 and 3 tasks concurrently?

Regarding the app_config/CPU usage for MW, on AMD cards, MW uses almost NOTHING from the CPU, you can set that to .01 if you like. I could easily run 5 cards/15 tasks on a dual core CPU with room to spare. Also I found .33 GPU usage to be a good performer (3 tasks at once, versus 4), on my 280X cards. For the short time I owned a Radeon VII, I think I had about 36 tasks running at once, over 12 clients, and STILL ran out of tasks frequently, lol, that card is a DP MONSTER!!! 1X PCIE is plenty of bandwidth as well, with any card.

Is 3 tasks for the 280X the best performing combo?

I assume that you're talking about your RX580. For the 580, best output is 2x. You can even undervolt it a bit and overclock the memory for efficiency. This is strictly for Milkyway

A few years ago it used to be that MW didn't care about GPU RAM speed, I remember halving it on my HD 5850 and it made no difference to WU times and saved power. Is this no longer the case then?

 

[Assimilator1]

Running 2 tasks concurrently now on my RX 580, and total system consumption from the wall is about 226w, with 1 task it was ~220w.

 

[Icecold]

Running 2 tasks concurrently now on my RX 580, and total system consumption from the wall is about 226w, yesterday with 1 task it was ~222w.

Icecold
Btw, I'm getting this :-

Milkyway@Home: Notice from BOINC Missing </app_config> in app_config.xml 17/10/2020 17:44:48

Does your app_config have </app_config> at the end? It should be the last line.

 

[Assimilator1]

You were too quick , I realised I hadn't fully copied your post (the config) and corrected it, and edited out my question

 

[Endgame124]

For grins, I set my R250X to run 2 tasks. I don’t know if I have a good enough baseline to compare against, but I’ll check tomorrow to see if I did more, less, or the same amount of work

 

[Skillz]

That seems to be one of the oddities of Milkyway, and I would have mentioned it in the original post had I remembered that. Your advice was very informative and appreciated - Milkyway just handles it different for whatever reason

Milkyway doesn't do quorum 2 which is what most projects that require a "wingman" have it set to. Instead, they do replication which sends two tasks.

 

[Icecold]

I'll post actual stats in the morning, but so far it's looking like we're doing really well!

 

[Icecold]

This morning's stats:

Name​	Competition Total​	Since Yesterday’s Stats​
crashtech​	16,301,239​	5,821,740​
phoenicis​	9,491,413​	3,143,850​
Icecold​	8,667,249​	3,929,073​
biodoc​	4,928,457​	1,657,605​
emoga​	1,396,566​	471,489​
waffleironhead​	854,391​	256,510​
Kiska​	853,775​	853,775​
Fardringle​	596,553​	323,796​
[TA]Assimilator1​	590,675​	438,176​
Lane42​	575,916​	274,637​
Walrus of Apathy​	472,056​	155,328​
Stig​	400,783​	101,507​
flywaldo​	298,426​	80,404​
Brent​	245,718​	100,259​
IcefireQuickSilver​	157,016​	32,928​
Endgame124​	150,467​	79,989​
Silverthorne​	67,864​	34,646​
Ken_g6​	54,760​	54,760​
burninator34​	23,260​	22,578​
elfenix​	20,058​	7,214​
Christopher​	10,163​	8,530​
Shu Gao​	1,168​	1,055​
SuperTerra​	228​	228​

Current total in pie form:

 

[Endgame124]

Well, what do you know, 2 tasks each even on the old r250z + iGPU yielded a 33% increase in points

 

[Ken g6]

Milkyway is acting really weird for me. It gets a bunch of tasks; then it won't give me any more tasks until I run the queue all the way down to zero. I have to run a fetching script to keep it from stopping completely. Fortunately the bunches have been getting bigger.

 

[Fardringle]

Someone else was saying that it does that sometimes. I haven't seen it on my computer, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened - I just haven't noticed it.

 

[Skillz]

Well, what do you know, 2 tasks each even on the old r250z + iGPU yielded a 33% increase in points

How long have you been running MW? Just started the past few days (since this challenge started)? If so, then that 33% increase could be skewed due to the inconclusive tasks taking multiple days before they average out. IE: You'll look as if you're doing more and more for about a week before it finally levels off.

Milkyway is acting really weird for me. It gets a bunch of tasks; then it won't give me any more tasks until I run the queue all the way down to zero. I have to run a fetching script to keep it from stopping completely. Fortunately the bunches have been getting bigger.

Yes, I remember some of the guys over on [H] complaining about that.

 

[Assimilator1]

Ken g6
Yea I spotted that once on my main PC yesterday, weird!

Thanks for the stats Icecold
I'm working my way up

 

[Icecold]

Preview for tomorrow's stats update:



I'm down a card today due to a technical issue, with a replacement part coming in tomorrow, so hopefully this number just keeps going up! Great job so far everybody!

Milkyway is acting really weird for me. It gets a bunch of tasks; then it won't give me any more tasks until I run the queue all the way down to zero. I have to run a fetching script to keep it from stopping completely. Fortunately the bunches have been getting bigger.

As far as I know this is normal on Milkyway. I think it waits until all tasks are complete before requesting new work. It can cause some issues with fast cards because the work is completed so quickly then it sits there waiting for more before it downloads it. This was Biodoc's suggestion for limiting its impact:

The "time between reload" of new WUs is several minutes the last time I watched. My only workaround to minimize this issue is to run 4 boinc instances simultaneously on the Radeon VII. Ideally, while one instance is waiting for a reload, I have 3 others still feeding the card.

 

[lane42]

Are cpu's any good at M/W? Should have a 3950x going by
the middle of the week.

 

[Skillz]

No, not really. That CPU would be better suited towards a CPU heavy project.

 

[Icecold]

This morning's stats:

Name​	Competition Total​	Since Yesterday’s Stats​
crashtech​	22,574,252​	6,273,013​
phoenicis​	12,515,492​	3,024,079​
Icecold​	12,346,953​	3,679,704​
biodoc​	6,561,291​	1,632,834​
emoga​	1,880,332​	483,766​
waffleironhead​	1,342,037​	487,646​
Kiska​	1,252,275​	398,500​
[TA]Assimilator1​	1,052,820​	462,145​
Fardringle​	1,045,947​	449,394​
Lane42​	871,886​	295,970​
Walrus of Apathy​	644,230​	172,174​
Stig​	512,270​	111,487​
Skillz​	451,216​	451,216​
flywaldo​	412,607​	114,181​
Brent​	364,223​	118,505​
Endgame124​	231,132​	80,665​
IcefireQuickSilver​	158,903​	1,887​
Ken_g6​	133,137​	78,377​
Silverthorne​	69,506​	1,642​
IEC​	36,780​	36,780​
elfenix​	28,164​	8,106​
burninator34​	23,788​	528​
Christopher​	21,053​	10,890​
Shu Gao​	2,441​	1,273​
geecee​	1,886​	1,886​
SuperTerra​	228​	0​

Total in pie form:

 

[Assimilator1]

Onwards and upwards .

Thanks for the stats Icecold

 

[Fardringle]

Looks like results from my 280X are starting to show up.

Not getting the 450K PPD or so that it would if I let it run 24/7 instead of turning it off to play games for a while, but that number should increase during the week while I'm at work.

 

[Assimilator1]

Nipping at my heels, or about to blow past me?

 

[Fardringle]

Nipping at my heels, or about to blow past me?

Well, you just passed me, and have a bit more production that I do...

We'll see what happens when the stats catch up with our production, and if the numbers change during the week.

Then again, I just noticed that my 280X has started misbehaving in the last few hours, so I might not be able to keep up with you at all.

Radeon R9 280X stuck at 501 MHz GPU clock

I acquired a used Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce recently, that was reported in good working condition. And for about a week it has been running perfectly for me. I'm using it to run the MilkyWay@Home distributed computing project since that project makes very heavy use of double precision computing...

forums.anandtech.com

 

[TennesseeTony]

You have had a driver crash then recover. Windows? It got too hot, is my experience, gotta keep them under 98C for sure, although they are rated to 100C.