Any recommendations for inexpensive secondhand GPUs?

[bruce]

Do look up whatever you bought on nvidia's driver page and confirm they still support it.

[ZePompom]

Well, I was (and still am) unable to find the P106 serie on nvidia's driver page, so I got worried ^^'

And when I look at supported products list of GTX 1050-1060 drivers, the P106 are not there.

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverR ... 9423/en-us

That's why I asked.

[JimboPalmer]

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/p106-090.c2999

The card is approximately equal to a GTX 1050 ti, I would load the latest driver by pretending it was a GTX 1050 ti. My GTX 1050 ti gets about 190k PPD. Expect about 75 watts of power draw.

Being Pascal based it should last a long time before F@H thinks it is too old. F@H still supports Fermi, Kepler, and Maxwell generation cards all of which are older than Pascal.

These guys discuss altering an older Nvidia driver (416.34) to display https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... e=emb_logo

(a great deal of hype, a very little actual work altering the .inf file They hint that it is not needed to fold in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4s35uULg4)

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/results/138697/

[ZePompom]

Thanks, yes that's why I wanted a fairly recent card, so no worries about it being not supported anymore in the near future.

But I didn't know/wasn't sure about the 1050 Ti regular drivers, nvidia could at least put the P106 in the list of supported hardware on their website ^^'


Now waiting to get it, then tests will begin (to see if handled well by PCIe 1.0 and by LINUX)

[puuteknikko]

The card can probably be overclocked for a nice little boost. My 1050 Ti makes about 220 000 PPD slightly overclocked.

[ZePompom]

Thanks!

But if the card works properly in a 10 years old PC I'll be glad already, I don't think I'll try to push my luck by overclocking it ^^'

[HaloJones]

I wouldn't worry about the age of the PC. So long as it can drive a PCIE gpu you don't need much.

I have a Z77 motherboard with a 9 year-old 2600K pushing two 1070s for over 1.8m ppd. I've had the CPU since new and it's still overclocking itself nicely.

Do report back on how you get on. I looked at these mining variants a couple of years ago but never found one cheap enough to risk.

[ZePompom]

Ok, I will, but it'll take some time to find its way to here, even more with the lockdown ^^'

But I'll try to not forget to come back once I get it.

I found one for around 50$ with shipping, so I told myself it worth a try, because if it works, the power/price ratio is very good.
( https://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-P106-90- ... 4689028104 )

On LTT forums someone using few of these for Folding said it works just fine. With PCIe 1.1, so yes it should work in my old PC too


I'll try to overclock the CPU if it's what cause a bottleneck (intel E5300), but for just one card it should be enough.

[BobWilliams757]

It will be interesting to see how that card does. Taking your approach you might end up with a really low cost science mining rig.

[ZePompom]

Yup, now I just have to wait to get the card, and it could be very long.

But yes, old PC gathering dust, running on linux and folding with dirt-cheap GPU nobody wants, it can make a very good low cost rig

And environment-friendly because only used parts

[HaloJones]

although not necessarily very green in its power efficiency...

[ZePompom]

Sure, but spending several hundred more $ to save few watts don't worth it on financial aspect, and let this PC and card go to trash and use ressources to make new ones ... Not sure it worth it for the environement either.

Trashing and manufacturing stuff is far to be pollution-free.


But I do agree, a modern PC with state of the art GPU would have a better power efficiency.

[Sarr]

Don't use GT 1030 cards unless you already have them or get it extremely cheap and just want to supplement your folding points. And with a card that weak you should leave it folding 24/7 if you want to make sure it completes it's work units, because it does them slowly.

That being said, the card IS still useful for folding. Just a far from optimal choice.

I have one of them running 24/7 and it's definitely getting the work units done on time, though just barely. I've seen it not get the bonus points, but it often does. (I assume that's on the smaller work units that it gets. Surely the software only sends smaller units to weaker cards and bigger ones to more powerful ones... is that the case? Anyway I've only seen it not getting bonus points a few times when I checked) Only reason I have it is it's the most that would fit in an old low profile case PC that I had, with a single slot available, and I got one for very cheap secondhand. I also do not pay for electricity right now, it's paid for for me, so I don't need to prioritize efficiency (though it is still important, and would be a factor in choosing what card to get if Im building a dedicated folding rig from scratch, as opposed to working with the limitations of what hardware I have laying around, and just getting that to fold.)

[ZePompom]

Thanks for the information.

So not good for my plan B, I planned, if I got my hands on both GT 1030 and the P106-90 to put the P106 in the old folding PC (probably running a lot) and put the GT 1030 as backup in my main/gaming PC.

But if I do that, regarding what you say the GT 1030 wouldn't run enough to finish the WU on time, that's infortunate

I take note of it, so now I hope I'll lose my ebay auction for that used GT 1030, lol.


I was tempted to build a folding rig from scratch, but I find much more gratifying to give a second life to my old PC gathering dust ^^
In addition to it being much more cheaper.

Maybe I'll build one once the old PC will die though. Something silly like an open frame ITX one.
https://content.instructables.com/FKY/U ... .LARGE.jpg

[ZePompom]

Don't use GT 1030 cards unless you already have them or get it extremely cheap and just want to supplement your folding points. And with a card that weak you should leave it folding 24/7 if you want to make sure it completes it's work units, because it does them slowly.

That being said, the card IS still useful for folding. Just a far from optimal choice.

I have one of them running 24/7 and it's definitely getting the work units done on time, though just barely. I've seen it not get the bonus points, but it often does. (I assume that's on the smaller work units that it gets. Surely the software only sends smaller units to weaker cards and bigger ones to more powerful ones... is that the case? Anyway I've only seen it not getting bonus points a few times when I checked) Only reason I have it is it's the most that would fit in an old low profile case PC that I had, with a single slot available, and I got one for very cheap secondhand. I also do not pay for electricity right now, it's paid for for me, so I don't need to prioritize efficiency (though it is still important, and would be a factor in choosing what card to get if Im building a dedicated folding rig from scratch, as opposed to working with the limitations of what hardware I have laying around, and just getting that to fold.)

I do have a question/favor.

Could you send me GPU-G print screen of your GT 1030 while it's folding?
I would like to see how much PCIe bandwidth it uses.
So I can see what is the minimum bandwidth needed to make it work properly.

Hopefully, if it's not that much I could put it in my old PC in addition of the P106-90. Even if I strongly doubt it'll be possible.

These two views :