Bringing a new System online What do I need to do?
19 Nov 2013 8:36:26 UTC
Topic 197278
(moderation:
Currently have an Nvidia 580gtx system online.
Built a new system going with crossfire, what do I need to know?
Any settings I need to change to get everything working?
AMD A10-6800K Richland 4.1GHz (4.4GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop Processor - Black Edition AMD Radeon HD 8670D
ADATA XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2600 (PC3 20800) Desktop Memory Model AX3U2600W4G11-DGV
CLUB 3D royalKing CGAX-R928X7O Radeon R9 280X 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card x2
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 1500 Classified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified 1500W Active PFC ATX12V v2.31/EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire ...
Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit - OEM
ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X (Bolton D4) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
Bringing a new System online What do I need to do?
)
Depends on what you want this one to do.
I see you have it loaded with 35 tasks of different types so maybe if you want it to only do GPU tasks you can set those on your preferences and you can have it run both GPU versions or just one version (such as the Perseus Arm Survey)
Your particular quad core would run those GPU tasks even faster if you didn't run the CPU tasks at the same time.
Just check " Your account" and take a look at your Preferences for this project Einstein@Home preferences
(example)
Run only the selected applications Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo): no
Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Arecibo, GPU): no
Binary Radio Pulsar Search (Perseus Arm Survey): yes
Gravitational Wave S6 Directed Search (CasA) : no
Gamma-ray pulsar search #2: no
I'm on here to learn :P So
)
I'm on here to learn :P
So yeah would love to maximize efficiency.
Wow took your advice made a
)
Wow took your advice made a huge difference went from
+.16% to +.61%
RE: +.16% to +.61% Is
)
Is that GPU utilization going from 16% to 61%? That would not be unexpected and a massive boost indeed. Next thing to do would be to run 2 WUs on each GPU by adjusting the "GPU utilization factor of BRP apps" in your Einstein profile settings from the default 1.0 to 0.5. That will increase individual runtimes but improve throughput. You could experiment with 3 WUs as well (setting it to 0.33).
Afterwards I'd try to use the GPU integrated into your CPU as well, assuming it's not already contributing. But only after you know how much performance you can extract from the main GPUs, since you don't want to loose more performance there than the iGPU might give you.
MrS
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002
RE: Depends on what you
)
I tried the said settings, my computers end up waiting for work and idle doing nothing. This can't be correct.
That setting is only for your
)
That setting is only for your NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 that you mentioned and it is running tasks right now (I checked)
It also works with any other pc that has the ability to run GPU tasks.
Of course you also have settings on your Boinc Manager to set to get a certain amount of tasks.
On mine I make sure each pc has 5 days or more.
(Boinc/tools/computing preferences)
I will give you a screen shot when I get on one of my other pc's
RE: RE: (example) Run
)
Well, you have to take some responsibility for what might happen if you let other people select your settings for you :-).
You didn't mention that you have a bunch of other computers that don't have GPUs so if you set all the 'CPU' projects to 'no' as in the above example, it's no real surprise that the others can't get new CPU tasks. I presume the above reference to "waiting for work" only applies to hosts needing to do CPU tasks?
If so, you need to take advantage of the 'venues' mechanism in BOINC - default, home, school, work. You can set different preferences for each venue. Leave the hosts that don't require special preferences in the 'default' venue. Put your new dual GPU host in say the 'home' venue and set the special preferences for that host only on that venue.
Because that new dual GPU host has quite powerful GPUs, you would be wise to set the preferences for the 'home' venue (if you choose to use that venue) to allow 'simultaneous' crunching of multiple GPU tasks. Those GPUs have 3GB memory so there's plenty of RAM to hold multiple jobs. By all means, start out with a single task on each GPU to make sure everything is working correctly. Then change the `GPU utilization factor of BRP apps' setting from the default '1' to '0.25'. This would allow 4 tasks to be loaded on each GPU. This will give a significant increase in throughput, even though individual tasks will be taking a lot longer to crunch. They will certainly be taking a lot less than 4 times as long.
When running '4x' like this, the tasks tab in BOINC Manager will show that each task requires "0.5 CPUs + 0.25 AMD GPUs" and there will be a total of 8 GPU tasks running. Since '8 times 0.5 CPUs' equals 4 full CPU cores, BOINC will not even attempt to start CPU only jobs, even if your preferences allowed CPU only tasks. Under these conditions, if you had any CPU only tasks left in your work cache you would need to abort them since they would otherwise never get processed and eventually would time out.
Please don't just blindly change preference setting if you don't understand them. Please do some reading or ask specific questions first so that you know what is supposed to happen. And please do try to give full information about your setup when you ask for advice.
Cheers,
Gary.
Gary is correct, In your
)
Gary is correct,
In your Einstein preferences you have 4 different settings "Primary","Home","School",and "Work"
That is so you can set up computers with different settings to do different tasks such as some running only CPU tasks and some with GPU tasks and even running both CPU and GPU if they also have a GPU ability.
You can look on your Einstein account page "Computers on this account" which shows all your running computers and by checking the "Details" on each one at the bottom of that page you can see where you can set them to run at the preferences of your "Home"School" and "Work" settings so yours can run just those GPU tasks or just CPU tasks or both.
I hope he won't be too
)
I hope he won't be too disappointed at the performance he'll get from his GPUs in that config on Einstein@Home.
The AsRock Extreme6+ does have 16x PCIe 3.0 slots, but in dual config (2 Cards) they will run both at 8x PCIe (chipset limitation, see AsRock Specifications page ).
And since PCIe 3.0 is only usable with a FM2+ CPU (the A10-6800k is a FM2 CPU and only supports PCIe 2.0, AMD hasn't released an FM2+ CPU yet AFAIK), he will end up running both R9 280x @ 8xPCIe 2.0 ...
That'll literally cripple those cards on Einstein@Home, he'll end up getting less than 50% performance while the GPUs will draw full power from that heavily oversized 1500W PSU which @ ~35% load will at best reach 80+ Bronze efficiency.
(nice gaming rig thou, that won't be affected much)
RE: I hope he won't be too
)
Thanks for the help guys!
separated Work and Home.
When a new FM2+ chip comes out I'll be sure to toss one in to take full advantage of the GPUS!