amd or intel?

Jord
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RE: GPUs are overloading

Message 80881 in response to message 80880

Quote:
GPUs are overloading SETI@home with too many results/hour so the admins must shutdown the servers three full days a week.


Uh, no they aren't. This is how wrong information gets into the world.
The main reason for the 3 day outage at Seti is, for them to be able to go through the data they have collected from us for the past 11 years, to see which are candidates that need revisiting.

Because this runs on the servers and uses the database quite heavily, they can't also run the project and have computers report work and get new work at the same time. Expect the outages to continue for a long time; the last estimate Matt made was that it could take 2 years of full time being off line, before all the data was looked at.

The other things they're doing during the outage is work on the servers, shuffle them around so the oldest and most crash-prone are finally gotten rid of, and add the new one that some Seti users have brought together with very generous donations.

If it were what you say it is, then they'd have those problems the other 4 days of the week, since all those machines will need to upload & replenish all their work somehow.

The air conditioning breaking down last weekend was because of Murphy peeking in. ;-)

tullio
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All I know is that I cannot

Message 80882 in response to message 80881

All I know is that I cannot get any work. No work available.
Tullio

Jord
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It's more like no bandwidth

Message 80883 in response to message 80882

It's more like no bandwidth available. Be glad though... for when you do manage to get work there, expect blistering download speeds like 0.21 KB/sec while the best I saw was 0.04 KB/sec. ;-)

tullio
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My average download speed in

Message 80884 in response to message 80883

My average download speed in SETI is 566.33 kB/s.
tullio

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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RE: GPUs are overloading

Message 80885 in response to message 80880

Quote:
GPUs are overloading SETI@home with too many results/hour so the admins must shutdown the servers three full days a week. Do we want the same thing to happen at Einstein?
Tullio

As I already said in the other thread: overloading the database can easily be avoided by packing more work into each WU. And I think Bruce joined in and explained that Einstein is currently packing 4 independent data sets into one WU. This could easily be increased if neccessary. And could easily be done by SETI, if they wanted to (and if it would actually help them).

What SETI can't fix via software is the bandwidth problem. However, if it's the bandwidth that's satuarated it means that the project is running at full blast. It's not being overwhelmed, it's just running as fast as it can. And the project doesn't care if the work is being done by CPUs or GPUs. The environment and peoples pockets, however, do care: it takes CPUs more energy to do the same job (otherwise the GPU app wouldn't be released). So actually you should be grateful that these chips are doing the work for you and you can use your precious CPUs for other projects, which can't port their code to GPUs as easily and thus have to rely on CPUs.

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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Orchid, may I point your

Message 80886 in response to message 80879

Orchid,

may I point your attention to host number 9999 in the top hosts stat? It's a mere Core 2 Duo pushing an RAC below 800. I'm sure your Phenom can handle this, even though it's an AMD ;)

And otherwise: buying a 3k - 5k Xeon server for crunching would be downright stupid. The sweet spot has always been "buy single socket systems and the CPU which gives you most cores for a still reasonable price and overclock it modestly without huge voltage increases".

In this light the AMD 6-core is a very strong offering, since BOINC is probably the application which can make best real world usage of these cores. For my personal machine I'd still go for the Intel, though, as it's much better single threaded performance still decides over how fast the machine feels. It's different for a dedicated cruncher, though.

And your comparison of a stock i7 920 to an OC'ed Phenom II is not fair due to the following reasons:

- the i7 can reach 3.5 - 4 GHz just as well and actually gains more performance due to this than the AMD (since it's starting from 2.66 GHz instead of 3.4 GHz)
- currently the i7 930 would be the one to get (133 MHz more for free)
- the i7 870 is a very strong CPU and can use cheaper board and less memory modules and costs about the same
- the i5 760 is a similar chip without HT and matches the AMD price. OC'ing this one will be tough for AMD to beat, even regarding "bang for the buck"

And on the other end of the AMD chain: the Athlon II X4 chips are also interesting budget alternatives. I'd probably still go for the 6-core if I'd build an AMD cruncher because there is a power overhead or baseline which each system draws just to feed the CPU. So I want less system, but want these to be reasonably fast. That means I'd rather run 2 6-core curnchers than 3 4-core crunchers due to better power efficiency and less cost for motherbords, memory etc.

Edit: you may be delighted that a stock 2-core Core i5 660 gets ~44 credits/cpu-hour. That's with HT on, i.e. 4 of those WUs are running in parallel! Sure, it's a rather expensive CPU and not to be bought for crunching, but it shows the power of the core architecture quite well. And my stock i7 920 gets 38.6.

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

tullio
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I am running 6 projects 24/7

I am running 6 projects 24/7 (plus LHC if available in Linux) on my Opteron 1210 at 1.8 GHz. Only 2 of them could use a GPU board (SETI and Einstein). So if I put a GPU board (Nvidia or ATI) this would increase my power consumption which is now of 6 kWh/day, all appliances included. I shall be waiting for the new generation of CPUs (Fusion or Sandy Bridge) which should have also GPU capabilities.
Tullio

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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The GPU in Sandy Bridge can't

Message 80888 in response to message 80887

The GPU in Sandy Bridge can't crunch, otherwise it looks like it will easily become the best 4-core CPU available. The GPU in Fusion might be nice, but don't expect any miracles. A GPU needs tons of memory bandwidth if it does major work. Discrete GPUs have up to 150 GB/s now, whereas Phenom II scores around 10 GB/s, which is shared between GPU and CPU. So even if Fusion featured many shaders, they'd be starved for bandwidth.

Sure, if you add a GPU to your system power consumption will increase. However, you'd be doing much more SETI work at a better power efficiency. Subsequently you could allocate more of your CPU time to other projects.

I'm not saying you should do so. Just that "But a GPU consumes power!" is not the full story.

MrS

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Konis
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I use Intel, as I had only 1

I use Intel, as I had only 1 laptop... so I tried to squueze everything out of 1 comp, luckily i got my moms old computer to crunch some more data (2 - 3 years old laptop.. intel too btw). I am planning to put together desktop, but i am wondering should I AMD it, or Intel again... it is long term plan, as i have no hurry to make desktop to myself...

But i agree AMD is chep way to crunch data, but Intel is my opinion more sure not to *sproing* up in use.. Aanyhow as prosessors have at least 5 years warranty and motherboards 1 year at least, i may turn to AMD side with my desktop... it remains to be seen..

Happy Crunching everyone, I got half-mil already crunched!

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ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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If it's just for crunching

Message 80890 in response to message 80889

If it's just for crunching you might want to get a used part. Nothing below a Quad, though. Otherwise: it's important what project you want to run. As I posted earlier: the current AMDs just aren't very fast per core and clock at Einstein, so even the 6 core will have a tough stand against an i7, es pecially if both are reasonably overclocked.

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

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