What's "Hot" for GPUs these days, for DC work? Useful capabilities? (DP still useful? What about Int8?)

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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I haven't been keeping up.

Are current "modern" GPUs like RTX 2060 and up, or GTX 1660ti, good for DC too, besides gaming? What about Vega, and Navi?

Last I know of anything "special", was the 1/2 or 1/8 or whatever DP capability of the 7950 cards, that I used for MW@Home for a year or so.

Currently have a bunch of RX 570 cards, spread out over a couple of machines, mostly doing mining and whatnot.

Looking at maybe getting either a (discounted) RTX 2060, RX 5700XT (Sapphire Pulse looks good), or maybe a GTX 1660 or 1660ti, if I don't have more funds. Next month.

Also looking to upgrade a couple more PCs with Ryzen R5 3600 CPUs, maybe 3700X if I can afford it.
 

ao_ika_red

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Aug 11, 2016
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I don't remember the project, but I know a project that doesn't go well with RTX cards, but RTX is still champ on Folding@home.
Folding@home GPU benchmark
Milkyway and Einstein are still leaning on DP performance.
But mostly, Pascal GPUs are still dominating.
 

crashtech

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Jan 4, 2013
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I haven't looked that hard for info on how Navi performs on any DC project, nor does it seem readily available. There aren't any on the chart ao_ika_red linked above. Also, it seems as if that chart, which I have used in the past to make purchasing decision, may be getting obsolete. Note that the sample sizes of the newest GPUs are mostly very small.
 

burninatortech4

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Jan 29, 2014
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Depends on the project right? Modern cards are great for DC but you can find cool niches for older ones (see Tahiti)

Comparing my Reference Vega 64 (@ 1000mhz HBM and core undervolted to 1090mv) to an eBay Firepro W8000 (Tahiti)

v64 gpgpu.PNG

Vega 64 [FP64 1/16 Ratio] - 834.5 GFLOPS

W8000 [FP64 1/4 Ratio] - 836 GFLOPS (there are used ones on eBay for less than $175)

W9000 [FP64 1/4 Ratio] - 1024 GFLOPS (if you can actually find one for a sensible price)

Throw 2 of these in with a cheap B350/200GE (but not a cheap power supply) and edit the BOINC files to slave the CPU to supporting the GPU tasks. That's one hell of a Milkyway@Home machine.
 
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ao_ika_red

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Aug 11, 2016
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Hmm. I mis-read the title, but shall answer anyway: 85C for Nvidia, 99C for AMD. :D
AMD seem didn't learn from the past (probably intentionally) so they used another blower cooler in 2019 for consumer card and even went a bit further by explaining that running it in 110ºC is in spec (it's Fermi all over again). Fortunately AIBs come to the rescue and currently PC's Red Devil is at the top of performance/price chart.

edit:
@VirtualLarry there's still problem between Navi cards and OpenCL. It's reported in einstein@home forum.
https://einsteinathome.org/content/all-things-navi-10
 
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VirtualLarry

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Thanks, I think next month, or whenever I have the funds, I'll pick up a GTX 1660ti card, if I am able. Looks promising for PrimeGrid.
 
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