How long should it take?

Allen
Allen
Joined: 23 Jan 06
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Topic 229796

Howdy all,

Just wondering how long it should take to run a "Gamma_ray pulsar search #5 1.08 (FGRPSSE)" task on an AMD processor running at 4+Ghz?

Mine are running over a day and a half which seems ridiculously long to me.  WU says it should take about 11 hours at first start, but then it runs well over a day before it's done.

Thanks,

Allen

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Allen wrote:.. how long it

Allen wrote:
.. how long it should take to run a "Gamma_ray pulsar search #5 ...

Provided you're talking about a relatively modern CPU architecture (eg Ryzen 7) and for a single task not overly having to compete for CPU resources, probably somewhere in the range around 10-16 hours.  I haven't run these tasks in quite a while but I don't think there's been any drastic change over the years.  Have you done the experiment of running just a single task (no other competition for resources) to get an idea of the best possible crunch rate?

If you're using all available threads, it will slow things down quite a lot since 2 compute heavy tasks will be fighting over the same resources from a single CPU core.

Allen wrote:
Mine are running over a day and a half ...

Which seems to indicate that you are over committing the available resources.  Nobody can give you a precise recipe for the optimum mix of tasks.  You have to do the experiments yourself.

I started to look at your hosts list - 4 Intels and 4 AMDs.  I wondered if you might be talking about the Ryzen 7 but then found that the FX-8350 was the one with the long crunch times.  That's a very old architecture that was quite slow even when it was first released - around 2012.  Because its per core performance was quite bad, and two integer units shared an FPU, it's going to give longer crunch times.  If you want to see more details, take a look at this Wikipedia article, particularly under the "Performance" sub-heading.  AMD was hit with a class action lawsuit for misrepresenting the core count - also mentioned in that article.

Cheers,
Gary.

Allen
Allen
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Thanks Gary!  No, actually

Thanks Gary!  No, actually it's the FX-8300 I was talking about.  It has 2 RX560 on it and is still only gettting about 138k per day.   It just seems strange since my laptop an i3-8130u does the wu's much faster, but yes, I am only running one wu's on the cpu and one on the gpu, which are of course, the same chip.  Pretty impressed with the i-3, since I'm getting around 46k a day.  Guess I will cut back on the FX-8300 threads, even though it has 16 gigs of memory.

Thanks again.

Allen

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Allen wrote:... it's the

Allen wrote:
... it's the FX-8300 I was talking about.

The FX-8300 has exactly the same architecture and would just perform a bit worse than the FX-8350 since it has a lower default clock speed and a lower power draw rating.  With the two RX560 GPUs, it should be doing a *lot* better than 138K.  If your CPU tasks take up to 1.5 days each and if you were running even 6 of them on the 8 threads, they would be contributing less than 3K to that 138K total if they were running continuously.

Whilst I've never used any FX-8xxx CPUs, I was donated a machine with an FX-6300 CPU some time ago.  The motherboard had a pair of PCIe x16 slots so I populated it with a pair of RX 460s - slightly lower performance than RX 560s.  I don't run any CPU tasks at all, just FGRPB1G at x2 on each GPU.  I have a script (called psa) installed on each machine to monitor parameters of interest to me.  I can launch this over an ssh connection from my daily driver to grab the current values and display them on my screen.  Here is what that script shows (host IDs redacted for privacy reasons) at the moment:-

[gary@fx_6300-04 ~]$ psa

Hostname: fx_6300-04   Host ID: xxxxxx   GPU: Baffin   Checked: Fri Jul 14 03:12:23 PM AEST 2023
Disk:  dos/Legacy   Size: 149.05 GiB   Root (Tot/Free): 20G/13G   Home (Tot/Free): 9.8G/9.1G
Up: 12d 18h 37m 24s  BOINC: 7.16.11  OCL: 20.40   Kernel: 5.15.16-pclos1  On_Frac: 0.985408

      4328 ?        00:25:13 boinc
    20473 ?        00:01:13 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.721525
    20480 ?        00:01:01 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.594273
    20496 ?        00:00:29 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.264961
    20504 ?        00:00:13 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.090315

Current credits:-  User Tot: 101.58B   User RAC: 56.2M   Host Tot: 329.1M   Host RAC: 566.2K

[gary@fx_6300-04 ~]$

I also have some even older machines with a single RX 560 GPU.  One of those has an E6300 Pentium dual core CPU from around 2009.  Once again, no CPU tasks - just FGRPB1G at x2.  For comparison, here is what the psa script invoked on that machine shows:-

[gary@e6300-02 ~]$ psa

Hostname: e6300-02   Host ID: xxxxxx   GPU: Baffin   Checked: Fri 14 Jul 2023 15:14:29 AEST
Disk:  dos/Legacy   Size: 18.65 GiB   Root (Tot/Free): 13G/5.9G   Home (Tot/Free): 4.5G/3.8G
Up: 4d 6h 39m 23s  BOINC: 7.16.11  OCL: 20.40   Kernel: 5.15.53-pclos1  On_Frac: 0.994960

     2421 ?        00:06:05 boinc
    15799 ?        00:00:57 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.726287
    15816 ?        00:00:27 hsgamma_FGRPB1G   Frac_done: 0.254601

Current credits:-  User Tot: 101.58B   User RAC: 56.2M   Host Tot: 571.2M   Host RAC: 301.0K

[gary@e6300-02 ~]$

As you can see, the single Rx 560 is giving a bit more than half the output (current RAC) of the dual RX 460s.

My advice to you is to not attempt to run Einstein CPU tasks at all on your problem machine and allow your dual RX 560s to show you how much better they can perform on their own.  They will still be constrained if you're running lots of CPU tasks from other projects.  Obviously, that's a choice for you to make.

Allen wrote:
It just seems strange since my laptop an i3-8130u does the wu's much faster, but yes, I am only running one wu's on the cpu and one on the gpu, which are of course, the same chip.

It's not strange at all.  A core from the 2012 FX-8300 could be well and truly 'out-performed' by a core from a 2009 Intel E6300 Pentium dual core.  Just imagine how much better a more modern i3-8xxx architecture can perform.  AMD only got back into the higher performing CPU game when they finally released Ryzen.

 

Cheers,
Gary.

Allen
Allen
Joined: 23 Jan 06
Posts: 75
Credit: 598,790,008
RAC: 1,177,033

Very true about AMD being in

Very true about AMD being in a rut for awhile.  I have just made some alterations in my configuration on this machine and will wait a short while to see what sorts out.  I did a couple of quick tests just to see what I could see.  It seems that when I cut my cpus threads down and increased my gpus by one additional task, the cpus really grunted and some even started the backward counting trend I spoke of before.  So, I increased my cpus and cut the gpus back that one wu and everything is moving forward, except that one cpu wu is waiting for memory.  BTW, I was wrong about this machine, it only has 8 gigs of ram. 

Also, there must be a glich in the software, somewhere, as when I stopped Boinc and restarted, those wu's that said over a day, returned to less than a day to finish.  "Screwy"

I should say hear that the software that is running the wu's seems VERY partial to nVidia GPU's.  I have a couple of very old systems with 1050i's that are kicking some really amazing numbers.  One is sporting a AMD X4 845 and the other an Intel Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz and I am not restricting any of their theads. 

Thanks again for all your help!

Allen

Allen
Allen
Joined: 23 Jan 06
Posts: 75
Credit: 598,790,008
RAC: 1,177,033

Seems very strange to me,

Seems very strange to me, seeing the Q6600 with the 1050i leading the pack .....

The FX-8350 has a RX580 and the X4-845 has a 1050i, the fx-8300 has the 2 rx560's , the Ryzen not only has the internal amd gpu, but also a 1050i and the A8-7600 has a 1050i.  I don't get it, unless it is the GPU tasks that they arre running.

 

                     
1 Intel(R) Core(tm)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40
GHz
1(4) Windows 7 Professional x64 Edition, Serv
ice Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
30,817,905 279,280 2,250,931 4,486,474 100,447 -   Detailed stats   ↕  
2 AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor 8 Linux 60,640,698 231,397 2,555,554 7,525,045 131,872 -   Detailed stats   ↕  
3 AMD Athlon(tm) X4 845 Quad Core Processo
r
1(4) Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition, Service
Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
38,133,782 191,995 2,347,918 6,124,293 120,878 -   Detailed stats   ↕  
4 AMD FX(tm)-8300 Eight-Core Processor 8 Windows 7 Professional x64 Edition, Serv
ice Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
75,716,700 185,658 1,012,011 5,746,469 62,020 365+   Detailed stats   ↕  
5 AMD Ryzen 7 4700G with Radeon Graphics 16 Windows 10 Core x64 Edition, (10.00.1904
5.00)
89,038,394 183,051 1,112,753 4,916,041 73,779 365+   Detailed stats   ↕  
6 AMD A8-7600 Radeon R7\\, 10 Compute Core
s 4C+6G
4 Windows 7 Professional x64 Edition, Serv
ice Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
24,601,267 105,402 933,966 4,450,045 57,446 -   Detailed stats   ↕  
7 Intel(R) Core(tm) i3-8130U CPU @ 2.20GHz 1(4) Windows 10 Core x64 Edition, (10.00.1904
5.00)
12,373,176 38,115 353,430 1,337,221 20,010 -   Detailed stats   ↕  
mikey
mikey
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 12,548
Credit: 1,838,697,204
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Allen wrote: Seems very

Allen wrote:

Seems very strange to me, seeing the Q6600 with the 1050i leading the pack .....

The FX-8350 has a RX580 and the X4-845 has a 1050i, the fx-8300 has the 2 rx560's , the Ryzen not only has the internal amd gpu, but also a 1050i and the A8-7600 has a 1050i.  I don't get it, unless it is the GPU tasks that they arre running. 

Are you using the "internal amd gpu" to crunch with as well? If so you need to stop as it's just the cpu and that could be a part of why that pc isn't doing as well as it should be doing. It's just like the Intel pc's having an Intel gpu in them, it's just the cpu doing double duty.

Allen
Allen
Joined: 23 Jan 06
Posts: 75
Credit: 598,790,008
RAC: 1,177,033

Well, if the Ryzen will let

Well, if the Ryzen will let me shutdown the internal GPU, I might try that since in all my other machines, the nvidia GPUs seem to be doing a good job.  I guess I could just restrict the AMD gpu in the settings.

Thanks,

Allen

mikey
mikey
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 12,548
Credit: 1,838,697,204
RAC: 12,924

Allen wrote: Well, if the

Allen wrote:

Well, if the Ryzen will let me shutdown the internal GPU, I might try that since in all my other machines, the nvidia GPUs seem to be doing a good job.  I guess I could just restrict the AMD gpu in the settings.

Thanks,

Allen 

Yes that's what most people do, you could also exclude it but just saying don't sent me amd gpu tasks is easier

Allen
Allen
Joined: 23 Jan 06
Posts: 75
Credit: 598,790,008
RAC: 1,177,033

Yes that's what most people

Mikey wrote:

Yes that's what most people do, you could also exclude it but just saying don't sent me amd gpu tasks is easier

 

But wouldn't that shutdown the nVidia gpu tasks too?

Keith Myers
Keith Myers
Joined: 11 Feb 11
Posts: 4,895
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Turn off the igpu in the BIOS

Turn off the igpu in the BIOS and you won't use it and BOINC can't see it.

Or exclude AMD gpus from BOINC with exclude statements in the cc_config.xml.

 

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