Nvidia GTX 650 GPU dedicated to folding 24/7?

[dreamscape]

Hello all I'm back again.

I'm currently building a machine for 24/7 folding. It's very much work in progress and at the moment all I know is that it will have an Nvidia GTX 650 GPU.



It currently has no cooler but I've ordered the cooler pictured below so I can put it back to use.





Anyway the point of my post is.. I have a few questions.

1, Is the GTX 650 (Not Ti sadly but it is an MSI factory overclocked 1074mhz/5000mhz model) a good card for folding? I'm happy about its power use which is a fairly big thing for me as electric here is pricey. I have the same card in my main PC and it pulls 10,000 PPD on average.

2, I'm doing this on the cheap so I expect I will get a Core 2 Duo machine... IS there a minimum speed which I should avoid to stop the CPU bottlenecking my GPU?

Finally.. 3, I want to use the best OS for minimal effect on folding performance. I'm thinking Ubuntu server as it has no GUI but then I'm thinking will that work very well with my GPU folding and also would windows XP be just as light anyway? Which OS do you guys recommend? I'm familiar with both Linux and Windows so...

Thanks in advance for any info!

[bruce]

For NVidia GPUs, either Fermi or Kepler are good choices -- based on whatever you can afford. When NV finally fixes the Maxwell drivers, they'll be good choices, too, at a lower power cost.

The speed of the CPU has almost nothing to do with its ability to drive a GPU. Both the speed and number of cores matter if you're going to be using the CPU to fold, too.

The operating system really has very little effect on FAH. Sometimes a particular FahCore is better optimized for Linux or Windows, but that changes from time-to-time so it's not worth worrying about. For example, BigAdv is only available on Linux, but it's not suited for your CPU, and it will be discontinued next month anyway.

[dreamscape]

That's good to hear as my little 650 is Kepler based.

The speed of the CPU has almost nothing to do with its ability to drive a GPU. Both the speed and number of cores matter if you're going to be using the CPU to fold, too.

Really? I did wonder as my i3 540 on my main PC with a GTX 650 tends to use 1 logical core @ 25% while i fold on the GPU only. I just wondered if any lower end CPU would bottleneck the GPU or could i even go as cheap as a Pentium 4 or something like that for this project.

Ah ok, I shall just use whatever I have to hand when the time comes then.

Thanks for your reply

[davidcoton]

While GPU Core_17 will use a CPU thread at 100% full time, It's not actually doing much -- apparently polling for the GPU to complete. The limiting factor for high-end boards can be the data transfer rate, but any modern motherboard should keep the 650 going.

I use Ubuntu on my dedicated rig, normally headless but with shared monitor, keyboard for startup, and VNC for maintenance.

[dreamscape]

Oh really? That's rather interesting. Strange, but interesting. Yeah i guess data transfer rate could be an issue. I've just got a machine which I'm really hoping won't slow it down..

It's a puny little Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with Hyper Threading. Very old machine but it does have 3GB of RAM which isn't too bad. Ultimately this machine should suit this task well???? and it was free so...

The case is also Small Form Factor so a full size PCI express graphics card won't fit but I plan to get it in there some how.

For those interested, here is the machine in bits as i cleaned it up and got it ready.





It has the all important PCI-Express x16 slot!



Sure as hell isn't going to be anything over rev 1.0 but hey it will do the job hopefully.

I've ordered a PCI-E extension cable for the card so i can sit it flat inside the case.



I've also ordered some Molex splitter cables and a usb WIFI dongle. I've also decided I'm going to use Ubuntu Server with this machine.

More to come soon...

[uddarts]

More to come soon...

we quite often get caught up in the best, the biggest or the fastest.

i'm enjoying your enthusiasm and will be watching. your bringing back fond memories.


ud

[dreamscape]

Hi Uddart

Thanks yeah I am a keen contributor. Indeed this certainly isn't the fastest machine ever but it will help and every little helps right

I need a server for web dev work and also for a print server. This will be on 24/7 so why not make it work.

For any of you interested I will keep you updated with this along with any configs i use or trouble i run into. Might help someone set up their own stuff?

The new GPU cooler and RAM sinks have arrived!




All fitted and ready to roll! Just waiting for the PCI-E extension cable and a few molex splitters, new CPU and then we should be away!