Primegrid Winter Solstice Challenge Dec 18-22 with GPUs!

[Ken g6]

12-hour stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
74_____357326_____petrusbroder
164____182034_____Uppsala9496
187____165179_____Robert Everly
245____111243_____zzuupp
288____94388______Larry
290____94388______biodoc
328____80904______kimmyl
371____67420______Chokko
377____67420______Ken_g6
443____50565______SlangNRox
504____37081______Peter_Trend
528____33710______RussianSensation
693____16855______Rudy Toody
877____6742_______rune-san
983____3371_______GLeeM

Rank__Credits____Team
19____1648419____Russia
20____1587741____Keep The Fire Alive!
21____1463014____Aggie The Pew
22____1368626____TeAm AnandTech
23____1277609____BOINC@Taiwan
24____1196705____UK BOINC Team
25____1183221____SwissTeam.NET

I guess lots of people have lots of fast GPUs. I suspect that Peter's output is the equivalent of 3 GTX 580s, for instance. And RussianSensation clearly isn't running his 470, or he'd be beating me.

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks for the stats, Ken_g6!

 

[wayliff]

Just joined an AMD PHII quad and an ATI 3850 for the challenge. That's all I can! Hope it helps.

 

[Smartazz]

Hmm, I was wondering where I was on that list, but I don't think boinc uploaded the work it completed yet. Is there a way to do this more often.

 

[waffleironhead]

These units are a lot longer than I remember. 3 hours of crunching done and only 10% complete. Wishing I had a cuda or opencl card at the moment.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Thanks for the stats.
I'm running 1 GTX460, 2 GTS450 and 1 GT440.

 

[Ken g6]

Just joined an AMD PHII quad and an ATI 3850 for the challenge. That's all I can! Hope it helps.

The ATI 3850, sadly, doesn't do OpenCL, so it won't help with this race. Sorry.

 

[Smartazz]

Just so I'm clear, we should be running "PPS (Sieve) v1.39 (cuda23)" if we have nvidia hardware right? They're also worth 3,371.00 credits too?

 

[Ken g6]

Just so I'm clear, we should be running "PPS (Sieve) v1.39 (cuda23)" if we have nvidia hardware right? They're also worth 3,371.00 credits too?

Yes, and yes.

 

[wayliff]

The ATI 3850, sadly, doesn't do OpenCL, so it won't help with this race. Sorry.

Well I'll finish the WUs that got started and then move back to MilkyWay@Home.

I have a 4850 but I need to test that box with GPU crunching before it letting crunch 24/7. I have not had time for that.

Edit: Dang it, I re-read the first post and now I noticed we want OpenCL capable cards...duh. Need to improve my reading.

 

[GLeeM]

What you need to participate: One or more fast x86 processors. (Even slow ones will do!)

Are you sure slow CPUs will finish these WUs in time for the end of the race? Will a fast CPU even finish in time?

 

[Uppsala9496]

Are you sure slow CPUs will finish these WUs in time for the end of the race? Will a fast CPU even finish in time?

My X4 @ 2.7ghz would not have completed the WU's in time. My X6 @ 3.36ghz would get a unit done in some 54 hours. Just didn't seem worth it, so I left the cpu's to fold.

 

[blckgrffn]

I keep trying to get all of the CPU projects unchecked in PrimeGrid but it persists in leaving the "Focus" project and one other checked and so I am gettting a lot of CPU projects even though I just want GPU ones.

Am I the only one with this issue?

Just put another GPU in, know "racing" with:

2x GTS 250
1x GT 240

It's not awesome but it's something I guess...

 

[RobertE]

In the overall preferences, I have CPU set to no, Nvidia GPU yes (dont have any ATI so doesnt matter for me).

Then under projects, I have both GPU & CPU selected for PPS seive.

What I found was, that with CPU selected for the overall project, it will select something if you select nothing. Deselecting that stopped that behavoir.

 

[Ken g6]

Are you sure slow CPUs will finish these WUs in time for the end of the race? Will a fast CPU even finish in time?

You're right, slow ones won't do. Fixed. A fast CPU will finish in time. Be sure to estimate time yourself based on elapsed time and progress; don't use BOINC's estimate. Also see below...

My X4 @ 2.7ghz would not have completed the WU's in time. My X6 @ 3.36ghz would get a unit done in some 54 hours. Just didn't seem worth it, so I left the cpu's to fold.

You may have hit a bug with Phenom processors. See, I have two different CPU algorithms. One works very well on Intel but not well at all on AMD. The other works almost as well on Intel, but very well on AMD. I added a short benchmark (1s or so) at the start to determine which algorithm to use. It so happens that Phenoms are very close to the borderline. I'm running one and it seems to be OK, though.

If you hit a WU that's acting slow on a Phenom - based on elapsed time and progress, not BOINC's estimate - then you can try not keeping suspended WUs in memory, and suspending and resuming that WU.

 

[blckgrffn]

In the overall preferences, I have CPU set to no, Nvidia GPU yes (dont have any ATI so doesnt matter for me).

Then under projects, I have both GPU & CPU selected for PPS seive.

What I found was, that with CPU selected for the overall project, it will select something if you select nothing. Deselecting that stopped that behavoir.

That seems to have done it, thanks!

Wow, the GTS 250's crush the GT 240 - ~8,400 Seconds to for the GT 240 versus EVGA GTS 250 @ 600/1500 (~5,400) and the MSI GTS 250 (600/1750) (~5,000).

BTW, I am not in the stats above?

 

[RussianSensation]

And RussianSensation clearly isn't running his 470, or he'd be beating me.

No, I am not. I sold the GTX470 and HD6970 is massively struggling in this. Not only am I getting awful performance, but it keeps crashing every so often at just 75-78% usage. I don't understand what the problem is since the card is 100% stable in games, MSI Kombuster, BitCoin mining and when 99% loaded in MilkyWay. Hmm....

 

[Ken g6]

36-hour stats (half way!)

Rank___Credits____Username
84_____1206818____petrusbroder
205____546102_____Uppsala9496
226____509021_____Larry
231____495537_____Robert Everly
238____485424_____zzuupp
251____444972_____biodoc
399____266309_____kimmyl
447____229228_____Ken_g6
448____229228_____Chokko
453____229228_____SlangNRox
636____124727_____blckgrffn
643____121356_____Peter_Trend
720____97759______GLeeM
789____80904______RussianSensation
895____60678______Rudy Toody
1215___26968______Joseph
1307___20226______nathaniel
1401___16855______rune-san
1797___3371_______Joe

Rank__Credits____Team
19____6057687____XtremeSystems
20____5605973____BOINC@Taiwan
21____5204824____BOINC.Italy
22____5194711____TeAm AnandTech
23____5069984____BOINC@Poland
24____5046387____Aggie The Pew
25____4948628____Keep The Fire Alive!

I'm in a tight race! Looks like the race is tight for many teams, too, including ours. I'm starting to agree with the decision to encourage people to use their CPUs on this race. I've already done 6 WUs with CPUs.

 

[SlangNRox]

I will get in an additional 16 wu done with my cpu so thats the equivalent of another 10hrs of running my gpu

 

[Smartazz]

Thanks for the stats! It looks like we can take the 21st spot.

 

[Ken g6]

Thanks for the stats! It looks like we can take the 21st spot.

More like we had the 21st spot taken from us. :\ BOINC@Poland is likely to take our 22nd spot too.

 

[blckgrffn]

Ha, the people around me in the standings are running single GTX 460's

Too bad we didn't get MarkFW in here, he would have lit it up with all of his nvidia GPUs.

 

[RussianSensation]

We aren't doing too bad, considering we are competing with whole countries such as Poland and Italy! I wish I still had my Fermi cards for this task (I had 2x GTX470s). Good thing I now know that Fermi cards are amazing at PrimeGrid.

I fixed my crashing problem. For some reason when I would run Google Chrome + Prime Grid, the system would crash. I switched to IE9 for the time being and the problem disappeared. Too bad this 6950 is so weak.

 

[blckgrffn]

We aren't doing too bad, considering we are competing with whole countries such as Poland and Italy! I wish I still had my Fermi cards for this task (I had 2x GTX470s). Good thing I now know that Fermi cards are amazing at PrimeGrid.

I fixed my crashing problem. For some reason when I would run Google Chrome + Prime Grid, the system would crash. I switched to IE9 for the time being and the problem disappeared. Too bad this 6950 is so weak.

What made you change besides the massive difference in power consumption and noise? Hah. Actually, that probably would have been enough for me to make that switch

Honestly, I hope that AMD steps to the plate on the computer side next gen or I might find that heavily weighing on my upgrade decision about a year from now...

 

[zzuupp]

I thought I had loaded up some CPU tasks before work today. I was halfway successful. I oopsed on one box and had clicked on TRP instead. Oh well