Buying a Mac Studio. Good Folder?

[uclajd]

Just curious if the new Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra will be a decent folder, or is CPU folding just so far behind GPU it isn't significant? My laptop (Alienware i9-9980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz with an RTX 2080) is pooping out about 825,000 PPD, and it would be over a million if I didn't use my laptop 8 hours a day. Pretty darned efficient for under 200 watts.

I'm getting the top of the line Apple M1 Ultra with 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine.

Supposedly the Mac Mini M1 does about 69,000 PPD. It has 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine.

Which cores does F@H use on a Mac (CPU or GPU)?

[JimboPalmer]

For largely historical reasons, only CPU folding is supported on the MacOS.

[calxalot]

With cpu:16 and a passkey for bonus points, you should see up to 8x the ppd of an M1 mini.

That will vary a lot.
My M1 mini saw 60 to 120 kppd depending on WU assigned. Usually 83k.

[toTOW]

No Mac will ever beat a nVidia GPU in FAH ...

[cdpage]

Now that M2 chips are a thing, is there any chance we'll see an update to F@H for Macs in the nearish future?

[Joe_H]

Now that M2 chips are a thing, is there any chance we'll see an update to F@H for Macs in the nearish future?

Maybe. The current version of the client, 7.6.21, was created before the Apple Silicon based Mac's were widely available. It is the final version 7 client, they are working on a version 8 client at the moment. A Beta version may be out later this year or early next year, and I am assuming they will compile for both versions of Mac hardware then.

However most of the CPU time is spent processing a WU in a folding core. I have no idea when they may release one compiled to use the native ARM instructions of the M1 or M2. Such a release would need to include testing to see that the code created is valid scientifically.

[daiko]

With cpu:16 and a passkey for bonus points, you should see up to 8x the ppd of an M1 mini.

That will vary a lot.
My M1 mini saw 60 to 120 kppd depending on WU assigned. Usually 83k.

A late followup to this topic. Following the suggestion above, on a Mac Studio with the 10 core M1 Max:
After folding for months on the default cpu:10 setting, I saw your post and set my cpu:8 to prioritize the performance cores.
(I think that’s how this should work?) I’m currently seeing about 125kppd on the current WU, seems about a 20% boost.

Overall CPU load hovers around 70-80% at Folding Core Priority: Lowest possible.
Is there any merit in using the "Slightly higher” Priority setting to push CPU use further?
Currently, the fans are inaudible and core temps about 75-80°C.

[calxalot]

Do you have a passkey? I think someone reported getting over 220 kppd on an M1 Max.

[daiko]

Do you have a passkey? I think someone reported getting over 220 kppd on an M1 Max.

Something odd here...
I’ve been folding (off and on) since 2005. If I click on my oldest running machine, it shows a 32 digit INTEGER number in the passkey field, which I had subsequently copied to each new machine. This correctly shows my user and team identities as well as my total points earned. I dug back into my gmail history to find TWO passkey emails from FAH, dated April 2020 and March 2022, showing two different 32 digit HEX numbers. If I enter that 2022 code into my client software I show a grand total of 3400 points under Points Earned in the client, but if I click on 'See Stats' it shows the correct total for my username. It seems I was getting some bonus points with the integer key, as I would occasionally see an unexplained credit, so I assumed the system was working as it should. But now I question that assumption. Any suggestions to resolve this discrepancy? Thanks...

[calxalot]

My passkey is a 32 character hex value.

[daiko]

Thanks for your reply regarding the use of a passkey. I was able to sort this out; I thought I had been receiving bonus points, but now that I am using a proper passkey I have seen a huge uptick in my PPD. Still, 220 kppd seems unlikely for most WUs. The best I’ve seen so far is about 160kppd on one of the cancer projects. https://folding.lar.systems/cpu_ppd/brands/apple/ shows an average of 136kppd in its somewhat limited db for M1 CPUs.

I don’t often use Chrome as a browser on my Mac, but I like the extra info available through the FOLDING AT HOME IN THE DARK extension. Probably old news for most here, but worth a look if you haven’t.

[calxalot]

You will need to finish 10 WUs before the bonus kicks in. And maintain an 80% success rate.

[dirspb]

https://folding.lar.systems/cpu_ppd/brands/apple/ shows an average of 136kppd in its somewhat limited db for M1 CPUs.

These stats are very wrong. I'm getting ~100k on MBP M1 Pro 10 core running it all day in background, but it shows 50k for it. Even for standard 8 core it's too low.

[daiko]

Very late reply, but Yes, you’re right it’s low for some reason. Of course it varies per project. I’ve seen a high of 300kppd on some WUs. Generally closer to 200 on average lately. This is specifying cpu:8 to prioritize the performance cores, as suggested by calxalot above. Running 24/7 here in the background.

[send2devnull2]

I have a intel 2019 MacPro, with 12core xeon W processor, and I am only seeing ppd of 43044, with the cpu set at 23.
Does is that normal? I have a passkey in the client.