GPU's for FAH

[Ricorocks]

Looking at Amazon or others from same mfg:

A evga1070 can range from $400 - 450, all the same GTX1070!

What's important for FAH, hate to waste $50 only to find FAH can't use it.

What's important & what's not in choosing a GPU for strictly FAH

[JimboPalmer]

This is my understanding, others will cheerfully chime in to correct me!
Included free games will not speed up folding.
Currently all WUs fit in any reasonable amount of memory, while certainly this will grow, it does not appear that spending extra for more memory is worthwhile.
It also seems true that faster memory does not have much effect on PPD, I would not spend extra for some rare memory technology.
The number and speed of shaders seems the dominant factor in folding speed within a family. (You can compare Nvidia Pascal class chips to each other but not to the earlier Maxwell chips, nor to AMDs chips) Unless Nvidia messes with our heads, all GTX 1070 will have the same number of shaders, only the speed varies.

Odd cooling technology will not help 95% of us, but if your case runs hot, you may wish to spend cash on water cooling, or remote cooling.

[Sn1ken]

If you choose the cheapest 1070 vs the most expensive you will end up about the same PPD if your case do not run past 80 degrees F. In addition to this you need a minimum of CPU 3,4Ghz and PCIe 2.0 x8 to take full benefit of the GPU. PPD about 600 - 700k

[Ricorocks]

80 degrees refers to what? How does lesser than 3.4Ghz cpu, not take full advantage of the GPU? Requirements listed for the 1070, do not mention cpu, but want 8ghz mem, also pcie x16.

I'm curious as to how the cpu (lesser than 3.4), slows the gpu.

I have a dual 960, 1060 machine, found the right combo of fans, to keep the heat down, would the 1070, put out that much more heat, that fans won't do the job. Water cooling is a deal breaker, what's remote cooling?

Thanks

[JimboPalmer]

Many programs can report CPU, Drive and case temperatures. In Windows, I use Speccy, but many exist http://filehippo.com/download_speccy/

This example uses remote cooling amazon.com/dp/B01MA0YHN

[Ricorocks]

I have speccy, I see OS, cpu, ram, mb, gpu, storage, optical drive, & audio. The 80 degrees, refers to????? Is this referring to CPU or GPU? "if your case do not run past 80 degrees."

amazon.com/dp/B01MA0YHN I get 'Sorry Can't Find That Page'

[foldy]

The GPUs with dual fan run more silent then single fan. The 80 degree must be the GPU, if it gets too hot then it will down clock its boost and so run slower and get less PPD. Some case fans help as you know

[Ricorocks]

More CFM's = More noise = More Cooling! The 1070 per NVIDIA say's not to exceed 94 degrees. What was confusing was the term, "if your case do not run past 80 degrees." That comment implies, the air surrounding the hardware, which is not directly measured. So, do you dangle a probe inside the case & monitor, so as not to exceed 80 degrees?

What's still confusing, is the minimum 3.4Ghz cpu, so as to take full advantage of the GPU; I'm new to this & would like to understand more thoroughly! My current understanding is a cheap machine, perhaps less than 3.4Ghz cpu, increase the CFM of, of the cheap PC's fans, & get a GPU.

Foldy - Thanks, for the earlier clarification regarding, which way to go on 'folding' bang for the buck! Also on that same issue Thanks Nathan!

[Nathan_P]

If you choose the cheapest 1070 vs the most expensive you will end up about the same PPD if your case do not run past 80 degrees. In addition to this you need a minimum of CPU 3,4Ghz and PCIe 2.0 x8 to take full benefit of the GPU. PPD about 600 - 700k

The CPU part is not true, I run a 1070 and 1080 on a xeon E3-1230L, max all core turbo boost is 2.4 and I see no ppd hit at all compared to the 3.2ghz from my x5670's

[foldy]

Maybe the CPU 3,4 Ghz was meant for old single core CPUs, modern dual or quad core cpus are faster even with lower 2.4 Ghz clock speed.

[Ricorocks]

Thanks! Messrs Foldy, Nathan! Now back to the hunt for a cheap PC & spruce it up, got a couple of potential deals, in the fire. This can become a little addictive.

All
Merry Christmas

[bruce]

Maybe the CPU 3,4 Ghz was meant for old single core CPUs, modern dual or quad core cpus are faster even with lower 2.4 Ghz clock speed.

Not really accurate.

Software that is written to take advantage of multiple threads in a single CPU (such a FAHCore_a4, _a7) can accomplish more processing per unit time. A 4-threaded CPU at 2.4 GHz can complete several (less than 4) times as much work as a single-threaded CPU at 2.4 GHz. Software which is written as a single-threaded application can still use only one of the threads at a time and one thread of a 3.4 GHz processor will potentially get more work done than a single thread of a 2.4 GHz processor.

The task assigned to the CPU when you're using FAHCore_18, _21 is a single-threaded application since it's job is to move data to/from the CPU, relying on the GPUs capability to perform hundreds/thousands of FLOPs in parallel. In this case, the amount of work the CPU can accomplish on a GPU WU is limited primary by the speed of the PCIe bus, not by the characteristics of the CPU.

The general recommendation for CPUs provided you're only considering GPU folding[/u] is that there's no reason to have a fast CPU. If you're going to fold on your CPU then the speed and the number of threads supported by the CPU absolutely does matter.

[FldngForGrandparents]

Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 AMP Extreme (ZT-P10700B-10P) at Amazon for $420 is the best bang for the buck. Can easily be overclocked to 2100Ghz. Which based on my current 1070 will do around 750k PPD+ depending on project.

[Ricky]

Ricorocks,

EVGA has different speed grades on their GPUs. There is the standard speed which has no suffix. There is the SC suffix for 'supper clocked'. There is the FTW for 'for the win'. then there can be kingpin and classified. Look at the clock specs, they are different.