PrimeGrid Winter Solstice Challenge December 18-21, with GPUs!

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Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
47
91
I'm late to the party but I've got my workstation laptop going. It has a Core I7 3520m @ 2.9 GHz. On a task by task basis it actually completes faster than my FX 8350 by quite a bit but only does 4 tasks at a time. It also has a dedicated graphics card Quadro K1000M which is doing a task in 25 minutes. I have my Core i5 4200m going on my home laptop also but it's got crappy intel graphics. I just started doing CPU tasks on my FX 8350. I haven't messed with the appconfig thing to get my R9 290 going on my FX 8350 rig. I have it doing einstein tasks. I will mess around on it later to see if I can get any work. I was looking into weeks ago for milkyway but didn't get it to work.
 

Plimogz

Senior member
Oct 3, 2009
678
0
71
Ah -- now I see.

Yesterday I tried to get work on my 290s and that didn't work, but now that I tried on my 7950s, I find that getting GPU work for those is no problem at all.

if anyone gets 290(x) working, I would very much appreciate some good instructions to try and get work for mine.

In the meantime I'll have a look at finding/making an app_info.xml for it, but I'm not particularly optimistic about my capabilities.
 
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Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
47
91
Ah -- now I see.

Yesterday I tried to get work on my 290s and that didn't work, but now that I tried on my 7950s, I find that getting GPU work for those is no problem at all.

if anyone gets 290(x) working, I would very much appreciate some good instructions to try and get work for mine.

In the meantime I'll have a look at finding/making an app_info.xml for it, but I'm not particularly optimistic about my chances.

Only project that seems to use the R9 290 without serious tweaking/work around is einstein once you get the right drivers that don't produce invalid work units. I haven't tried SETI@Home yet on it. I don't seem to ever get consistent workunits from SETI. I'm having some regrets at times even though the card is great for gaming. It also seems to be a bit faster in some Single Precision Projects than older ATI cards. I believe they crippled it somewhat for double precision projects like milkyway compared to the 7970. It does really good for me in Einstein@home which will by new home for GPU crunching. I burned out a good 5850 for milkyway back in the day. Even had a Zalman aftermarket and never got much above 60c.
 
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Plimogz

Senior member
Oct 3, 2009
678
0
71
You might want to check out Collatz: From what I can tell, it is above and beyond all the other projects as far as making the most of the Hawaii (290-290x) cards.

For one thing, it recognizes them with no problem at all, which is something that cannot be said for some other projects -- and that's nice -- and seeing as how it doesn't need powerful double precision (which is a common thread among the other Boinc projects that have been running best on AMD for a while) it makes great use of Hawaii; which chip actually isn't all that great in DP compared to, say, 7970/280x, as you say -- but does have substantially more single-precision compute.

Fair warning though: Collatz got my 290s hotter than anything else I've thrown at them so far -- a good 5 to 10 degrees C hotter, in fact.
 

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,218
3,796
75
Day 2 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
29_____5248647____Lane42
54_____3350774____GLeeM
128____1318061____zzuupp
150____1146140____Joe
157____1082091____Sgraffite
267____562957_____wayliff
364____306761_____SlangNRox
365____303390_____Ken_g6
419____215744_____plimogz
442____185405_____geecee
605____70791______Ryan
696____40452______Bradtech519
873____13484______mk

Rank__Credits____Team
9_____14114377___BOINC.Italy
10____14107635___Team China
11____13875036___Canada
12____13844697___TeAm AnandTech
13____11994018___Ukraine
14____11596240___The Knights Who Say Ni!
15____11036654___US Navy

Wow! Looks like everybody loves PPS Sieve! :) On this TeAm, and other teams as well. :\ We've fallen several places, but we're still very close to several teams.
 

Sgraffite

Member
Jul 4, 2001
86
0
66
Does enabling double precision via the Nvidia control panel help or hurt points in regards to this project?
 

biodoc

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2005
6,257
2,238
136
I jumped in with my GTX980 and GTX780Ti for the remainder of the race since you guys are in a tight race. Maybe too little to late but we'll see.
 

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,218
3,796
75
Does enabling double precision via the Nvidia control panel help or hurt points in regards to this project?
Probably does nothing at all, unless you're using a Titan. Then it might hurt somewhat. This project uses entirely integer math.
I jumped in with my GTX980 and GTX780Ti for the remainder of the race since you guys are in a tight race. Maybe too little to late but we'll see.
Thanks! I noticed last night that it was too late to add any more CPUs to the race; but GPUs are much, much faster. I'm sure it'll help. :thumbsup:
 

Plimogz

Senior member
Oct 3, 2009
678
0
71
Thanks!

The one posted by 288larsson works. The only issue is that it is running two WUs on one card and ignoring the second card.

Though I'm not sure if that's by design in the app_info or something to do with my cc_config or whatnot.

Still, good stuff. Thanks again!

Edit: I take it that 288larsson's app_info.xml is set to run two WUs simultaneously per card with <count>0.500000</count>. But my cc_config.xml does have <use_all_gpus>1</use_all_gpus> turned on. Leaving me to wonder why both cards aren't working.

Edit2: Found it! The app_info.xml has both <avg_ncpus> and <max_ncpus> set to 1 and with the Folding race I'd set Boinc to only use 25% of available processors. Now that I've given it unrestricted access to all cores in the computing preferences, the client has automatically fetched 2 WUs per device.
 
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Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
47
91
It worked for me too along with downloading primegrid_tpsieve_1.40_windows_intelx86__atiPPSsieve.exe

4 hours left time to sprint to the end! :D

No longer getting CPU tasks on my FX 8350 though.
 
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Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,218
3,796
75
The race is over! Day 3 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
31_____7830833____Lane42
53_____4989080____GLeeM
133____1995632____zzuupp
160____1655161____Sgraffite
166____1530434____Joe
211____1152882____plimogz
338____586554_____wayliff
370____478682_____biodoc
378____455085_____Ken_g6
379____455085_____SlangNRox
399____418004_____geecee
528____195518_____Bradtech519
717____77533______Ryan
837____40452______mk

Rank__Credits____Team
6_____57944119___Aggie The Pew
7_____24584703___BOINC@MIXI
8_____22437376___[H]ard|OCP
9_____21860935___TeAm AnandTech
10____21712611___Team China
11____21618223___Canada
12____21469899___BOINC.Italy

Thanks to that final sprint from Biodoc, Bradtech, and Plimogz, we've gone from 12th back to 9th! Well done! :thumbsup:

Technically, these are preliminary stats, but the chances of losing WUs are slim-to-none. Which also means Slangnrox and I are likely to stay tied.

Edit: Happy holidays to all! We'll get back to PrimeGrid racing...January 3. :eek:
 
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Sgraffite

Member
Jul 4, 2001
86
0
66
Probably does nothing at all, unless you're using a Titan. Then it might hurt somewhat. This project uses entirely integer math.

I'm using the original Titan, I just wasn't sure if faster double precision would have been any help for this particular project nor what to expect real world performance-wise.
 

lane42

Diamond Member
Sep 3, 2000
5,721
624
126
Sgraffite, performance wise your older titan just about hangs in there with my new GTX980 :thumbsup:

And thanks for the stats Ken g6
 
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Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
47
91
Awesome!! Wish I had my r9 290 going the full 3 days.


The race is over! Day 3 stats:

Rank___Credits____Username
31_____7830833____Lane42
53_____4989080____GLeeM
133____1995632____zzuupp
160____1655161____Sgraffite
166____1530434____Joe
211____1152882____plimogz
338____586554_____wayliff
370____478682_____biodoc
378____455085_____Ken_g6
379____455085_____SlangNRox
399____418004_____geecee
528____195518_____Bradtech519
717____77533______Ryan
837____40452______mk

Rank__Credits____Team
6_____57944119___Aggie The Pew
7_____24584703___BOINC@MIXI
8_____22437376___[H]ard|OCP
9_____21860935___TeAm AnandTech
10____21712611___Team China
11____21618223___Canada
12____21469899___BOINC.Italy

Thanks to that final sprint from Biodoc, Bradtech, and Plimogz, we've gone from 12th back to 9th! Well done! :thumbsup:

Technically, these are preliminary stats, but the chances of losing WUs are slim-to-none. Which also means Slangnrox and I are likely to stay tied.

Edit: Happy holidays to all! We'll get back to PrimeGrid racing...January 3. :eek:
 

SlangNRox

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,010
1
76
Technically, these are preliminary stats, but the chances of losing WUs are slim-to-none. Which also means Slangnrox and I are likely to stay tied.

Edit: Happy holidays to all! We'll get back to PrimeGrid racing...January 3. :eek:

Guess its a good thing that I upgraded by GTX 460 to a 750ti last month. Almost no increase in sieving speed, but it does cut down on power usage by a lot
 

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,218
3,796
75
Guess its a good thing that I upgraded by GTX 460 to a 750ti last month. Almost no increase in sieving speed, but it does cut down on power usage by a lot

You and me both! I'm curious, were you using any CPUs on this sieve? Did you use the app config I posted? Just wondering how we could have tired tied so exactly.
 
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SlangNRox

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,010
1
76
You and me both! I'm curious, were you using any CPUs on this sieve? Did you use the app config I posted? Just wondering how we could have tired so exactly.

No CPU and just using the stock config. Guess I should've used some cpu or at least changed my name so it appears before yours in the rankings ;)