What is the best Nvidia video card to get to fold the fastest?

[whocrazy]

Hello.
I'm going to exchange my Intel video card for an NVIDIA, and I am wondering which one is the best to use for both gaming and folding?
I had a Geforce 9600 gt on a PC many many years ago, but I'm sure they have come forward in leaps and bounds since then.
What do you suggest?
Thanks.

[Lazvon]

The fastest? 4090.

The best card price per “point”? Relying on someone else here.

The best watt of energy consumed per “point”? Someone else know?

[bikeaddict]

An RTX 4090 will do the most points, but will also cost $2,000 or more, not including a big power supply, draw hundreds of watts and produce a lot of heat and maybe fan noise.

My experience is with the RTX 4070 Ti and 4060 Ti. The 4070 Ti shows estimates of 9-17M PPD and draws 180-240W, depending on WU. The 4060 Ti estimates 5-8.5M PPD and draws 110-150W. But any GPU can be power or clock limited with MSI Afterburner or nvidia-smi if you want to reduce power, heat or noise and take only a slight hit in points.

The NVIDIA 4000 series is much more efficient than previous generations and doesn't even use the full TDP when folding.

The LAR Systems database shows PPD for all recent GPUs.

https://folding.lar.systems/gpu_ppd/overall_ranks

Techpowerup shows default TDP and recommended PSU of GPUs, but manufacturers rate each model.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/

[bikeaddict]

Should have also noted that the 4060 Ti isn't a great gaming GPU with just 8GB of VRAM and limited memory bus. But I got one for $350 on sale and it has impressive folding performance.

Also, the 4080 and 4070 Ti are supposedly being discontinued and new 4070 Super, 4070 Super Ti (seriously stupid name) and 4080 Super models are rumored to be announced at CES in January.

[whocrazy]

wow. Lots to think about here. This will be going in my new machine which I purchased in October
Will process Lasso work on Nvidia cards as well?
Cheers.

[bikeaddict]

Will process Lasso work on Nvidia cards as well?

Process Lasso could be used to force the FahCore_22 (or _23) process to use only e-cores on Intel CPUs. One CPU thread is needed to feed each GPU and it doesn't need the speed of p-cores.

[whocrazy]

Hi there.
Is there another application that does what MSI afterburner does? I use a screen reader and when I start up the application, I can't use it because the screen is rendered in a way that screen readers can't make sense of.
out of interest, the Screen reader I use is free and open source, and is called NVDA project, nonvisual desktop access, so anybody can download and try it out for themselves. I would dearly love to know if NVIDIA smi works better with screen readers, does it use standard windows controls or is the screen laid out in it's own custom format, IE, like GTK apps? if anybody with a GPU could install NVDA on their system and bring up the interface to change the clock speed, fan speed, ETC, and tell me how well it works with nonvisual desktop access, it would be great.
Thanks.

[bikeaddict]

EVGA Precision X1 is one alternative to Afterburner. It should work with any brand of NVIDIA GPUs, but not sure if it works on the RTX 4000 models since they discontinued their GPU product line.

The NVIDIA Settings app that is installed with the GPU drivers will allow underclocking if the Coolbits flag is set.

The nvidia-smi utility that is also installed with the driver is run at a command line in Windows. It would be run like this in a batch file or PowerShell script to set a 150W power limit and make the setting persistent:

Code: Select all

nvidia-smi -pl 150
nvidia-smi -pm 1

[whocrazy]

Hi. does EVGA Precision X1 run on windows 10?

[BobWilliams757]

Hi. does EVGA Precision X1 run on windows 10?

Yes, it does.

[whocrazy]

I wish I could try out the GUI interface of EVGA Precision X1 with NVDA screen reader but I don't have an Nvidia card yet, and the install process halted and was incomplete, with an error about fan mode.
My concern is that I'll pay big bucks for a Nvidia card and then find out whatever the software doesn't work with screen readers.
On my intel card, they've got something called ARC control software, but I couldn't use that one with my screen reader either.

[whocrazy]

seems I downloaded the wrong version, I had to choose standalone. This time it installed, but because it only works on Nvidia cards, I can't test the GUI interface. Back to the drawing board again.

[BobWilliams757]

Hi there.
Is there another application that does what MSI afterburner does? I use a screen reader and when I start up the application, I can't use it because the screen is rendered in a way that screen readers can't make sense of.
out of interest, the Screen reader I use is free and open source, and is called NVDA project, nonvisual desktop access, so anybody can download and try it out for themselves. I would dearly love to know if NVIDIA smi works better with screen readers, does it use standard windows controls or is the screen laid out in it's own custom format, IE, like GTK apps? if anybody with a GPU could install NVDA on their system and bring up the interface to change the clock speed, fan speed, ETC, and tell me how well it works with nonvisual desktop access, it would be great.
Thanks.

whocrazy,

I downloaded and installed the NVDA screen reader, and played with it a bit to check it out and figure out basic function. I don't think it will work for what you need using the EVGA Precision X1 software. The only audio input it provides is for toggles and such that don't help with the functions you would want to use.

However, most of the nvidia-smi commands are laid out in a way that you could execute them and use the screen reader to ensure that your commands were properly executed. Though I have not used nvidia-smi in the past I tried it and most audio feedback makes sense. In some cases it's not as clear, but you could still get the information. Since they are command line driven inputting them is fairly easy.

I did get an error trying to set the power limit on my GPU using the nvidia-smi, but most likely due to not being familiar with the use. I suspect some of the forum members more versed in it could talk me or you through any issues along the way. In my case I got a permissions related error that may have been due to the MSI Afterburner already running or other similar yet easy to fix reasons. I'm not sure if fan speed can be controlled through the command line, but some brief searching shows that many things can be controlled.

In any case most 4000 series GPU's seem to perform well with nothing other than a power limit set from what I've seen posted here and elsewhere. They are very efficient GPU's, and the higher up the food chain you get the more efficient for the most part. They do get pricey at the upper end, but the lower end products are very reasonable.

[whocrazy]

Hi.
When you change gpu options, where are the settings saved to, the registry? or a file?
Thanks.

[meltz511]

Nvidia RTX 4090 is best, and Nvidia RTX 4080 is 2nd best at the moment.