Question PrimeGrid: Help AnAndTech while testing your thermal cooling

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Skillz

Senior member
Feb 14, 2014
926
951
136
So you've got a fancy new, high core count CPU w/ a nice AIO cooler to show off? Want to make sure that cooler is doing a proper job of actually cooling your CPU doing some of the most strenuous calculations your fancy CPU will most likely ever see? Want to help advance the sciences of Mathematics in the process? Help Team AnAndTech to boot? Well, keep reading.

PrimeGrid is a BOINC project that, as you might have guessed, searches for Prime Numbers. There are thousands (possibly an infinite amount) of Prime numbers. Thousands of them are known primes, but there are still new Prime numbers that haven't been discovered yet. You could find yourself a Prime number and be credited in the scientific community as the person who discovered the number. I've found 3 myself. One day I plan to print one of them on a large piece of canvas and display it in my flat for everyone to see, but it's over 950,000 digits long, so I gotta be creative on how to get it to fit.

Anyway, back to PrimeGrid. PrimeGrid is currently running a 10-day long Challenge that searches for Prime Sierpinski Problem LLR Primes which the last one found was over 3 years ago. You could be the one to find the next one!

The team, as of this post, is currently in first place, but that could change.

1629037883199.png

We have a little over 7 more days to go on this, so we could use some help in keeping us in first place.

What do you need to do?
Well, first and foremost you need to install BOINC. https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
For this project, you do not need to install the Virtual Box version, but it wouldn't hurt if you do.

Then you need to head over to www.primegrid.com/ and create an account. Then join the team https://www.primegrid.com/team_display.php?teamid=132

Then, you need to go into your preferences https://www.primegrid.com/prefs.php?subset=project and select the
Prime Sierpinski Problem LLR (PSP)
Once In a Blue Moon Challenge project
Make sure you ONLY select this project for the contest. Do not check any other projects.

Then head over to this thread: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/primegrid-challenges-2021.2589211/page-17
Post what CPU(s) you are going to run on this challenge and one of the Team members will let you know the best configuration for your particular CPU as each one is different. The tasks consume a LOT of L3 Cache, so you can only run 1 or 2 tasks per CPU on the project, but you'll want to make sure all the cores/threads or half of them are running the task at the same time as well. No need to worry, just post your CPU model/make and we'll help you along.

Once this is done, you'll need to attach PrimeGrid to the BOINC software you installed in the first step. Simply click Tools | Add Project search for PrimeGrid and select it. You'll use your email address and password you used to sign up for PrimeGrid to attach the project. Do not attach the project until you've set a specific task limit and thread limit per work unit or the tasks may end up running for so long it wouldn't complete before the challenge ends.
 

Skillz

Senior member
Feb 14, 2014
926
951
136
Probably too late for most people to join now and their WUs finish in time to count towards the Challenge unless they've got a top tier CPU such as a 5950x.

# RankUserTeamCredit
1 2SkillzTeAm AnandTech54,021,790.44
2 5xii5kuTeAm AnandTech27,109,385.30
3 8parsnip soup in a clay bowlTeAm AnandTech15,424,476.39
4 11crashtechTeAm AnandTech14,385,011.20
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11 111HutchinsonJCTeAm AnandTech983,079.94
12 117Ken_g6TeAm AnandTech939,792.92
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14 177Lane42TeAm AnandTech499,912.37
15 185thigobrTeAm AnandTech469,799.79
16 189cellarnoise2TeAm AnandTech446,935.75
17 243SlangNRoxTeAm AnandTech172,783.05
18 274KiskaTeAm AnandTech124,477.28
19 285HowdyTeAm AnandTech84,887.81