Uncle sam needs your 8 or 9 series nvidia card folding !!!!!

[powerarmour]

Hey guys, if I were to build a dedicated multi-GPU folding rig , which components would be most cost effective?

CPU = ?
Mobo = ?
GPU = 2 X 9600GT?
RAM = 512MB? Planning on installing XP Home

For 'cost' i'd go with the following :-

CPU = Anything, doesn't matter as long as it's got SSE2, cheap Intel C2D/AMD X2 would be fine.
Mobo = Anything SLI/Crossfire from Asus or Gigabyte IMHO, mind you I use two GPU's on a non SLI/Crossfire board, just as long as there is a spare PCI-E x4 slot your usually fine to put another card in there, PCI-E x1 is too slow and would cripple the performance too much.
GPU = Best 'bang per buck' would be 8800GT's, they have dropped a lot in price recently. But ATi 4850/70's are producing similar PPD now with the newer WU's.
RAM = You'd get away with 512MB in XP Home I reckon, would feel safer with a 1GB though.

[caz223]

For the GPUs there a few good choices, in a few different price ranges.
8800GS is good for about $90 a piece.
8800GT is also a good choice, although it seems to run a bit hotter than the 8800GS, and if you OC the 8800GS, it really almost does as many PPD.
9800GT ultimate. Asus makes a EN9800GT ultimate that is basically a factory overclocked 8800GTX that is a dual slot card and they will school a 8800GT because they have more shaders.
AFAIK, the asus 9800GT ultimate is the only 9800GT that has the extra shaders, so buyer beware.
For me the 8800GS gets about 4700PPD. (96 shaders at 1800) $94
The 8800GT gets around 4950 PPD. (112 shaders at 1750) $118
The EN9800GT ultimate gets about 5700 PPD. (128 shaders at 1900.) $134 (After rebate.)
Those are current prices at newegg.
The routinely offer sales on any and all, so price advantage of any of those are subject to change.
Also, the 8800s are both single slot cards, and the asus EN9800GT is a double slot card, you may not have room for 2 of them, depending on your mobo and your other cards.
Your overclocking results may also vary, none of my 8800GTs hit 1800 and hold it for very long without erroring or getting too hot, even with the fan at 100%, the others are more OC friendly for me. Both of my 8800GTs are Evga superclocked models. My 8800gs is a evga cheepie, but it overclocks like a banshee.
Evga just fired me an email, they are advertising B-stock mobos at reduced prices.
http://www.evga.com/products/bstock.asp

[Slapnut]

Hey fellas, long time.

I thought I'd give this GPU thing a go as I've had an 8800gts( original 320mb 320bit type) in my machine for ages. Just wanted to clarify a few things.
This cuda driver thing - i take it that its just a different type of display driver for the graphics card - so its just a case of out with the old and in with the new driver.
Then just an installation of the gpu client

Has the stats page at extremeoverclocking shut down or something. Is there a good alternative ?

You've probably noticed my output has become a shadow of its former self as of late. Due to still working interstate, and power going off and on while I'm away( and large power bills), I decided just to shutdown while I'm not here, then fire up for the days I'm here. Unfortunate but oh well. Hopefully I can get things geared back up at the end of the year.

Good grief powerarmour, over 3 million points
Nice to see such a small group of folders with a big output

[nightelf84]

hey slapnut,

yeah the installation process is still the same.

the extremeoverclocking stats page is still going strong.

Which state are u working at?

[powerarmour]

Hey fellas, long time.

I thought I'd give this GPU thing a go as I've had an 8800gts( original 320mb 320bit type) in my machine for ages. Just wanted to clarify a few things.
This cuda driver thing - i take it that its just a different type of display driver for the graphics card - so its just a case of out with the old and in with the new driver.
Then just an installation of the gpu client

Yep pretty much, I just use the latest 178.13 WHQL driver, they all come with CUDA (and PhysX) support now. GPU2 client is very stable and hassle free.

Has the stats page at extremeoverclocking shut down or something. Is there a good alternative ?

I use these three mainly, and flick between them as they cover all info :-

http://kakaostats.com/t.php?t=33432
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... s=&t=33432
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page ... team=33432

You've probably noticed my output has become a shadow of its former self as of late. Due to still working interstate, and power going off and on while I'm away( and large power bills), I decided just to shutdown while I'm not here, then fire up for the days I'm here. Unfortunate but oh well. Hopefully I can get things geared back up at the end of the year.

Good grief powerarmour, over 3 million points
Nice to see such a small group of folders with a big output

No worries buddy, good to see you back and anything you can produce will be a bonus. I know we both had a good run to that No.1 spot, my backside is still pretty sore even now...

Take it easy, PA

[Slapnut]

Thanks chaps.
Ok I appear to have the GPU client rollin' , although it seemed to be having some grief sending results and getting work - eventually worked itself out though.

Hi nightelf, working up in the NT, awesome bit of country.

Hmm must be a problem my end not being able to view the extremeoverclocking stats - havent been able to view the entire website for months now. Probably something simple I'm overlooking.

Hey PA, dam, you've left a trail of destruction with your output. Nice job mate

speak again in a month gentlemen

[powerarmour]

1.5Ghz VIA C7 meets...

... 8800GT !



Proof of the pudding that Nvidia GPU2 client doesn't give a rats ass about the CPU (at least on Vista anyway...).

[krips]

This is one of yours?

[powerarmour]

This is one of yours?

Yep, it's my office PC, was originally built to be super cheap/efficient to run 24/7, now it's a 24/7 folder...

This motherboard :-

http://www.idot.com.tw/en/products/mb-pc3500g/

But this is my main machine though (Q6600/9800GTX+/9600GT on a mATX motherboard):-



Only problem is the 9600GT which is slowed a bit by the PCI-E x4 slot is doing ~3100 PPD (would be nearly 4k normally...), but both GPU2 clients are running high priority and not locked to cores.

I also have another 8800GT running in my A64 3700+ box, so I've got 2x 8800GT's, a 9800GTX+ and a 9600GT in total running GPU2, and two other C2D's running Linux SMP, and one Windows SMP.

[krips]

That explains a lot.