P5-133XL wrote:Putting a cap on the points is contrary to the points being proportional to the science for there is no corresponding cap on the science value. All a cap does is create a distortion in the proportionality.
From a purely theoretical point of view, that might be true. However, the exponential curve of the current forumula makes the very far right end of the curve too extreme. It is NOT proportional, it is exponential. The far right continues on to infinity, and that's not feasible in any way. It cannot continue on to infinity, so it has to be capped somewhere.
Return a 6901 in 2 days, get 41567.11 PPD. In 36 hours, get 63996.76 PPD. In 1 day's time, get 117569.55 PPD.
The first 12 hour jump is only 20K+ points. Are getting the results turned in another 12 hours sooner really worth 60K+ extra points?
What if you could complete the WU in 12 hours? 332,536.91 PPD. Is that next 12 hours really worth 200K+ PPD?
What if you could complete the WU in 6 hours? 1,185,236.55 Is that next 6 hours really worth almost 1 million PPD?
3 hours? 3,352,355.2 PPD
1 hour? 13,251,347.45 PPD. Is that 2 hour difference really worth 10 million PPD? Does the value of the science REALLY go up 10 MILLION PPD in two hours time?
IMO, the answer is no. The curve of the points graph is too steap as it moves to the right. That's why there should be a cap in SMP bonus points that is eqivalent to the core count contributing the work. More cores equals higher potential bonus. The points should be, in some way, tied proportionally to the hardware donating to the project.
P.S. Yes, I said core counts. And yes, that is a somewhat simplified view, but not overly simplified. One does not need to count threads, which only contribute a few extra percentages of performance. An oversimplification would be to call the processing units of an NV GPU "cores."
I could have said FPU count, because the FPU does the majority of the work. That way both Intel and AMD are on level ground. But if people want to give Intel chips a higher potential bonus because they use HT, we can discuss that too.