• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

PrimeGrid Challenges 2020

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Day 3 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
8______2370146____xii5ku
58_____543742_____biodoc
59_____543662_____crashtech
99_____270693_____Icecold-Team Anandtech
120____230979_____Orange Kid
137____188232_____emoga
142____173065_____VirtualLarry
163____137382_____SlangNRox
165____136983_____Ken_g6
198____86452______waffleironhead
261____53563______zzuupp
462____5867_______Howdy
578____1237_______amd.borg

Rank__Credits____Team
5_____12649003___Ultimate Chaos
6_____9698554____SETI.Germany
7_____7001635____[H]ard|OCP
8_____4741929____TeAm AnandTech
9_____4283003____Crunching@EVGA
10____3402151____Sicituradastra.
11____2542892____The Scottish Boinc Team

@crashtech and I are in a tight race!
I am too. If I hadn't done a few hours of video encoding I might have caught SlangNRox.

Edit: Hey, wait, the challenge ended already?! Somehow I thought it would be four days.
 
Here is a look back at what went down last Saturday at the home of a friend of a friend:

dual 14c BDW-EP @2.9 GHz . . . 126 kPPD . . . 385 W (0.33 kPPD/W)
dual 22c BDW-EP @2.6 GHz . . . 177 kPPD . . . 462 W (0.38 kPPD/W)
dual 32c Rome @≈2.4 GHz . . . . 283 kPPD . . . 297 W (0.95 kPPD/W)
 
Bump for the next challenge. It overlaps a Formula BOINC sprint by 1-2 days, but this challenge is for GPUs. Yes, it's time to roast us out of house and home, unless you live in Australia like @Kiska. 😉

Optimization tips here if you can access them. :smilingimp:
 
In the past, they used to update the challenge stats every 15 minutes. During the previous challenge which had fairly short tasks, hence temporarily inflated the database, they could not maintain this frequency of stats updates during parts of the challenge. Will they have tuned their server for the upcoming challenge?
 
I didn't want to wait for the start of the Challenge to fire up my boxes. I've got two boxes, each with a Ryzen R5 3600 CPU (6C/12T, AVX2 monster), and a GTX 1660 ti GDDR6 card, which isn't that bad either.

I only got two CPU tasks on one of the PCs, and none on the other, after going to the PrimeGrid site, selecting the challenge project exclusively, for CPU and CUDA, and then saving, opening BOINC on both PCs, selecting PrimeGrid, and then Update, Allow All Tasks, and Run with Preferences. Compute preferences are set to 100% CPU time, 100% CPU cores.

Are they saving the CPU tasks for the challenge? Why am I not getting CPU tasks yet, for some reason?
 
It was my "max number of PrimeGrid Tasks" setting. I had that set to 3. I thought that only applied to LLR CPU tasks, but I guess it applies globablly to primegrid, so the current GPU task, plus two waiting GPU tasks, used up that limit of 3 PrimeGrid tasks. (Meaning, that's not even a limit of ACTIVE PrimeGrid tasks, but instead, the TOTAL IN QUEUE AS WELL.)
 
Day 1 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
17_____10797313___xii5ku
25_____8188159____biodoc
33_____6930776____crashtech
36_____6711661____Howdy
48_____4972225____emoga
84_____2979964____Orange Kid
103____2427120____VirtualLarry
105____2346216____Lane42
198____822524_____far
224____620264_____Ken_g6
236____546102_____zzuupp
265____407891_____waffleironhead
314____219115___10esseeTony
397____77533______geecee

Rank__Credits____Team
3_____69499907___SETI.Germany
4_____69004370___UK BOINC Team
5_____62548905___Aggie The Pew
6_____48046863___TeAm AnandTech
7_____46786109___[H]ard|OCP
8_____40462113___Sicituradastra.
9_____36288815___The Scottish Boinc Team

Not bad! I hear the FB sprint is Rosetta, so we can keep those GPUs firing. 🙂
 
Hmm, I've got two Ryzen R6 3600 CPUs, each with a GTX 1660 ti 6GB card, firing away at this. I didn't engage the RX 5700, because I wasn't sure if it was supported yet, and there was some talk about the Navi cards "polluting" DC results, when their wingman was also a Navi card, so I wanted to avoid that.

However, I do have another PC in another location, with 3x GTX 1660 ti 6GB ITX-style cards, running at a reduced power budget to keep temps down (with three cards in one box, kind of have to). I don't have immediate access to that location, so haven't tried setting those up for BOINC / PrimeGrid. Maybe that would be worthwhile, if we hope to beat Aggie The Pew.

Edit: I do have a third PC here, with yet another GTX 1660 ti 6GB card, which I could, in theory, fire up, but that one's not on a UPS, and tends to trip the breaker when all of them are running. 🙁 (So I've got that one shut down for now.)
 
I didn't engage the RX 5700, because I wasn't sure if it was supported yet, and there was some talk about the Navi cards "polluting" DC results, when their wingman was also a Navi card, so I wanted to avoid that.
Ha! PrimeGrid is the one project where I can tell you, for sure, that your card won't "pollute" anything. The AMD version of PPS Sieve has extra checks to make sure the computation was done successfully. You'll either run that card just fine, or your CPU will max out for awhile and the WU will abort.
 
Ok, now it's time to "play chicken with our circuit-breaker". 😛

I'm just waiting. Got the A/C on "fan only", got my window fan on the other room on exhaust. Got both Ryzen 3600 rigs running PG, both GTX 1660 ti cards on those rigs, the Ryzen 1600 rig, the GTX 1660 ti on that rig, AND my newest build, an Athlon 3000G OCed to 3800 @ 1.300V, with a GTX 1650 D5 4GB card, which I've just installed BOINC on, rather than mining with it.

Oh boy.
 
Day 2 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
14_____25167886___Howdy
15_____25002707___xii5ku
35_____14343605___biodoc
37_____14060441___crashtech
67_____7867914____emoga
93_____6000380____VirtualLarry
94_____5902621____Orange Kid
100____5528440____Lane42
169____2656348___10esseeTony
214____1611338____far
240____1267496____Ken_g6
255____1078720____zzuupp
320____579812_____waffleironhead
429____158437_____geecee

Rank__Credits____Team
3_____163719357___UK BOINC Team
4_____148293661___SETI.Germany
5_____134661337___Aggie The Pew
6_____111219403___TeAm AnandTech
7_____94779036___[H]ard|OCP
8_____94509356___The Scottish Boinc Team
9_____91772104___Sicituradastra.

Looks like everybody upgraded their GPUs but me. 🙁 At least we're in a comfortable 6th.
 
Think that we can beat Aggie The Pew? I'm thinking... possibly.

Edit: Well, seems like we're still as far away as we ever were. Sigh. They might even take 4th place (!).

On the plus side, I've gone from 93rd place in the challenge to 75th place, and may pass emoga. *friendly wave*. 🙂
 
Last edited:
Now I'm thinking, if I were MORE "hard-core", I'd take the two SFF Gaming PCs that I built recently, and hook them up to my "A/C circuit" in the living room, and pull out my LCD monitor that's BNIB with dual inputs, and get them going. One has a GTX 1050 3GB LP, the other has a GTX 1650 4GB D5
LP. The CPUs are an Ivy quad and a Haswell quad, respectively. Both have 16GB of DDR3 and an SSD. Sigh. I think I *am* that hardcore, let me get going on that project.


Edit: And they're off and running. Another Ivy quad with a GTX 1050 3G LP, and a Haswell quad with a GTX 1650 4GB D5 LP card. Hopefully they won't burn out, and I won't sweat to death in this room. 😛

Edit: Ivy Bridge rig with GTX 1050 3GB LP, CPU temp 75C, GPU temp 83C, GPU fan RPM 3500RPM, whoa.
Edit: THIS, my friends, is why you don't want a SFF for really demanding compute tasks. Get something BIG, that can BREATHE. (Ambient has got to be 85-90F in this room, even with a dual-fan window exhaust, and the windows opened in the other room for intake air, as well as the A/C set to "fan only" as an intake.)

Edit: I'm no-where near as hardcore as Markfw, though, EPYC though he may be. 🙂
 
Last edited:
Ambient has got to be 85-90F in this room,
Same at my home, but thankfully only at day, not (yet) at night, and especially not in my bedroom in which I don't have computers.

even with a dual-fan window exhaust, and the windows opened in the other room for intake air, as well as the A/C set to "fan only" as an intake.
I am still getting by with single-fan window exhaust, and just open windows as intake. It helps that I don't need any insect screens at this place and time of year.

I do have a third PC here, with yet another GTX 1660 ti 6GB card, which I could, in theory, fire up, but that one's not on a UPS, and tends to trip the breaker when all of them are running.
I don't know how far you have tweaked your setups already, but: More GPUs with reduced power limit are better than fewer GPUs at factory settings.
 
Its getting hot in my place as well, but I also am getting by with a window fan and the back door open. I don't have any AC so its either suffer or turn stuff off.
 
Back
Top