CPU requirement for GPU folding (NV)

[Ricorocks]

Hi Foldy

CPUs with AVX

Intel
Sandy Bridge processor, Q1 2011[9]
Sandy Bridge E processor, Q4 2011[10]
Ivy Bridge processor, Q1 2012
Ivy Bridge E processor, Q3 2013
Haswell processor, Q2 2013
Haswell E processor, Q3 2014
Broadwell processor, Q4 2014
Broadwell E processor, Q2 2016
Skylake processor, Q3 2015
Kaby Lake processor, Q3 2016(ULV mobile)/Q1 2017(desktop/mobile)
Cannonlake processor, expected in 2017

Note: Not all CPUs from the listed families support AVX. Generally, CPUs with the commercial denomination "Core i3/i5/i7" support them, whereas "Pentium" and "Celeron" CPUs don't.

The above require OS win7 sp1 or higher. And AVX 2 is either here now or soon.

Also (not sure how to run it)

You can use this C code to detect AVX and other features on the processor:

01
#define OSXSAVEFlag (1UL<<27)
02
#define AVXFlag ((1UL<<28)|OSXSAVEFlag)
03
#define FMAFlag ((1UL<<12)|AVXFlag|OSXSAVEFlag)
04
#define CLMULFlag ((1UL<< 1)|AVXFlag|OSXSAVEFlag)
05
#define VAESFlag ((1UL<<25)|AVXFlag|OSXSAVEFlag)
06

07

08

09
inline bool SimdDetectFeature(U32 idFeature)
10
{
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int EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX;
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cpuid(0, EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX);
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if((ECX & idFeature) != idFeature)
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return false;
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return true;
16
}


from: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums ... pic/282242

[Ricorocks]

Discovered & shared

From Intel "Power optimized lifestyle" CPU's

6th gen i7 6700T
i5 6600T
i3 6300T

4th gen i7 4770T

3rd gen i7 3770T
i5 3570T

2nd gen i5 2500T
i5 2390T

T= power optimized

The 2nd gen i5 comes in flavors K, S, T, & just plain old 2500 with no letter. see comparison of i5 2500 to i5 2500T

http://www.comparecpus.com/en/intel-i5- ... 36-1134-10.

Seems like 'T' is a lower cpu clock speed, generating electrical savings. Used machines with 'T' are found in small from factor & ultra small. I cannot find a 'T' in MT frame. Also to get two PCIE 2.0 x 16 slots, I've found in 'Dell' I would need to go at least 7010 Optiplex. Previous models have PCIE 2.0 x 16 & PCIE x 16 wired or half speed.

My most recent candidate for a folder with 2 1070's is:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product Any thoughts on this, could I do better cheaper, greatly appreciated

[Sven]

Don't forget too take a look a the power supply. As it's not mentioned.

It's probably not up to the task of two 1070ies

[Ricorocks]

Yeah! I'm prepared for that. Just looked again the optiplex has one pcie 16, the other wired

[Ricorocks]

Foldy wrote,

The only thing to check is the mainboard pcie slot speeds, you don't want to go below pcie 3.0 x4 on fast GPUs and pcie 3.0 x8 or pcie 2.0 x16 has max performance on Windows. For slow GPUs or Linux that doesn't matt

er.

So far seems Dell, Hp etc. supply only one PCIE x 16 & PCIE wired.

PCIE 3.0 was available Nov. 2010 (wikipedia) so if the machine is PCIE 3.0, the 2nd gtx 1070 is ok in a PCIE wired slot, on the (pcie 3.0 machine) not limiting the 2nd gpu?

What is PCIE 3.0 x8 is that the small one inch slot??????

pcie 2.0 but most mfg's have pcie 2 x16 + one wired pcie 16 slot <<<<<assume pcie wired = pcie 3.0 x4>>>>
____________

What's confusing is specifications, are not standardized. It's also difficult to match year built, to model number (Jan 2007 pcie 2.0, Mar 2009 pcie 2.1, Nov 2010 pcie 3.0 showed up)

[rwh202]

Most dell / hp / lenovo boxes won't be much good for multi gpu folding. The only exceptions are the full size precision / z series / think centre workstations.

Apart from needing beefier power supplies (often non-standard in size and connectors), they have often have poor airflow, cooling and slot spacing. Fitting dual width cards can be a pain with most of their tool-less designs too.

Google images for 'optiplex 7010 motherboard' doesn't return anything with suitable pcie slots for multi gpu use. Only the top 16x slot can hold a GPU. It blocks the next 1x slot, then there's an old PCI slot followed by another x16 physical, but no space for a dual slot card.

The small one inch slot is pcie 1x. pcie 8x is (unsurprisingly) half the length of x16, but physical x8 slots are relatively uncommon - slots are normally 1x or 16x physical, then just wired to 16x, 8x, 4x etc.

Also, don't worry too much about CPU efficiency - the metrics from comparecpu use the max TDP and assume the CPU is being worked hard. I use 55 W processors, yet supporting 2 GPU slots, they only draw 11 W at 100% utilization. The low tdp intel processors are often a waste of money - if you really need super low power draw, just underclock/undervolt to get the same effect.

[foldy]

@Ricorocks: I would recommend to go with only one fast GPU per PC because that is the easiest way.

The fastest GPU currently released is GTX 1080Ti but price is $700.

[Ricorocks]

Very Helpful posts!

I'll most likely go the easy way & one 1080ti.

But for understanding, this seems like it would work:

Most dell / hp / lenovo boxes won't be much good for multi gpu folding.

Found that out the hard way,


https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product

not sure exactly what pre insall win 10 means. No OS, ready for win10 or what.
Would this be non standard connectors, which say evga 500 - 600W gold, PSU, not be able to accommodate?
For cooling I planned on a positive psi, cooling.

The 1080 ti must be fairly new & seems to be flying off the shelves 'out of stock' many places

[rwh202]

not sure exactly what pre insall win 10 means. No OS, ready for win10 or what.
Would this be non standard connectors, which say evga 500 - 600W gold, PSU, not be able to accommodate?

I'd assume that it comes with win 10 pre-installed, ready to go (but might be worth double checking).
For the power supply, I think that a standard ATX supply will fit, but that the main 24-pin ATX style connector has a different pin out on HP workstations, requiring an adaptor or rewiring of the replacement PSU (remembering to permanently mark the PSU so it doesn't get accidentally repurposed on another machine at a future date and fry it!).
Although the included 475 W one has more than enough watts, a new PSU will more than likely be needed since I believe that they are distributed across multiple rails, with only around 200 W available for the GPU.

[foldy]

Maybe a Dell T3500 for $210 (did not try it myself)?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product

Uses standard ATX 525W power supply and Quad core CPU, 8 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD, DVD, Win 10 64-Bit, 2x pcie 2.0 x16
You will need a new power supply for the GPUs.

There is a problem with the default HDD mount so needs to be removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjK0gBb_AQ0

Both Z400 and T3500 will not work for dual GPU because there is not enough space between dual GPUs ???

The gtx 1080 non Ti is in stock.

[Ricorocks]

see pic https://s10.postimg.org/hs7gbzbe1/2017_ ... _37_45.jpg

In the video he broke off the blue thing hinged, which covers/over pci slots.

There is a problem with the default HDD mount so needs to be removed.

Hdd & card length, seem to be the reason for moving.

seems like this may solve the length/hdd mount problem, or just remove the interfering hdd. Removing one hdd seems logical as it will never be used

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product

Also have you seen this http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

[Ricorocks]

Messrs rwh202, Foldy:

Many thanks for your knowledge & guidance! Just placed the order for Dell T3500 mentioned previously. The spec. page did not state PSU wattage, I'm sure it's undersized. The PSU calculator, showing the proposed config. says 500W PSU & 850VA ups are appropriate. I also understand, that a small under-sizing, of wattage is acceptable, under the usage circumstances, for the machine. I'm usually not lucky so when it arrives, I'll bet, I have to replace the PSU. PSU purchase to be determined after arrival, & the 1070's will come, later.

The 32bit machine, with GTX750ti which will be retired, I got a as freebie. From a guy I play softball with, drove up to my driveway, ( I was washing the car ) & said here it's yours. The only thing wrong with it was it was massively "INFECTED" cleaned it nice computer, tried several times to return it, "you can use it as backup or spare, or for other function, such as FAH", he refused to take it back, so I put the 750ti in & it's part of the FAH farm. This forum answered questions, that led this machine, to a useful end. Nice things do happen, that put a smile on your face!

I'm already anticipating questions, before this un-shipped machine arrives, & eventually joins the farm. This morning my 130mil points, ranked me 1,666. This new machine with 2 1070's will, will be my last machine for quite awhile. & I'll go the route of cash donations to FAH. Remarkable learning experience here, while contributing, to cure disease.

Thanks Guys!!!!!

Looking fwd to being a billionaire

[Leonardo]

This forum answered questions, that led this machine, to a useful end.

Ah, now that's the part that brings a smile to my face.

[Aurum]

I believed the claims when I built my last rig that as long as the CPU has one core per GPU you'll get full performance. My experience seems to prove otherwise.
Intel Xeon E5-2603 v4 ($229, AVX 2.0, 6 cores & 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes) with CoolMaster EVO 212
https://ark.intel.com/products/92993/In ... -2603%20v4
Gigabyte GA-X99-SLI ($124, has four 16x slots that run x8x8x16x8 3.0 straight off the CPU)
http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X99-SLI-rev-10#ov
Quadkit DDR4 2666 G.SKILL Ripjaws 4
250 GB M.2 SSD
Corsair AX1200 PSU
Four Gigagbyte cards: GV-N1070G1 (x8), GV-N1070G1 (x8),GV-N1080G1 (x16), and GV-N1070G1 (x8)
Open tray, no case and NO risers.

I started folding for a few days expecting 2.4 million PPD and never saw higher than 2.0 million PPD. If the GPU Folding Projects - Performance database is to be believed I should've seen about 2.84 million PPD. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... utput=html
I then swapped out the 1080 for a GV-N1070G1 and saw the same level of PPD performance.
I then installed the Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming Engine and tried each of its 3 OC modes (Eco, Gaming & OC Mode) to all four cards. I saw no increase in PPD with OCing.

The weak link in the chain is the Xeon E5-2603 CPU. I picked it becuase it was the cheapest 40-lane CPU at $229. I tried folding on 2 cores and not CPU folding with no difference. I was watching the CPU Usage on Windows Task Manager and it was consistently about 86% with no core pegged at 100%. If I CPU folded on 3 cores it did max out at 100%.

(Note: My dual-GPU rigs are much more forgiving of the CPU.)

So I searched for FCLGA2011-3 CPUs with 40 lanes and had to look one by one as Intel does not search for that feature.
i7-6850K $610.00
i7-5930K $621.00
i7-6900K $1,050.00
i7-5960X $1,073.00
i7-6950X $1,650.00
Anyone know if there's a cheaper Xeon with 40 PCIe lanes

[Aurum]

@OP

You could see at ppd.fahmm.net for project 9414: a pentium G2020 at 2.9 GHz "outperform" a i7-6700 at 3.4Ghz, both with a 1080 and Linux . Unfortunate i don't know what the OC setting for both 1080 are (as not reported in log files) but I think it's fair to conclude that the CPU speed has less impact on the performance compared to the GPU itself.

I love the graphs and especially the ability to zoom in on the scale. But, when I select GTX 1070 Windows there are no 1070s on the graph.
My first reaction is if this is data from F@H and F@H never knows which card is which card then for mixed multi-GPU rigs it is inaccurate.
Note: I just read the footnotes and it seems to be a limited data set.