That's another thing I forgot... 64-bit people on Linux get higher PPD; there's no 64-bit Windows builds yet so I'm definitely losing points (and folding time) due to this.
Realistically, if the Kepler core stuff is well-optimized, and a 64-bit CPU client is released, I may well be able to get over 100,000 points a day with dual 690s (which is 4 GPUs, I will note) and my overclocked 2600K.
Granted, the GPUs alone will set you back $2000 for two. Not an option for a lot of people, and if certain events in my life hadn't happened, it wouldn't be an option for me either.
RMouse wrote:Say a folder has to reach a certain threshold, to keep out the "riff raff". Once you hit that threshold (whatever it is), you then qualify for a small payment.
The more points you score, the higher your payment. That would put an incentive to those who can operate high powered fast machines. Me with my dinky laptop, not so much. But I fold because I know the science behind it. I'm an outlier. Dedicated folders like myself would be free to turn down such money and let it go to those who need such incentives to keep number crunching.
Of course, this adds to the Pande groups costs, but if it yielded more and more data, would that not be the entire point (using grant money to get results)?
...I don't know about that. To me that'd be an awful lot of bookkeeping for one, and for two, how the heck do you determine what is a "fair" amount? It obviously can't be too small of an amount or there would be no incentive anyway... but there are some people out there who have point values in the nine-figures range (one of them is on my team, in fact). What do you wind up doing, giving them hundreds or potentially thousands of dollars just because they somehow had either the time or the network to hit 8 or 9 digit figures easily?
Plus, really, I don't think Pande would have the sorts of resources/funding needed in order to do that. And it still doesn't solve that people may fold just up until they hit that threshold and then quit. Yes, they are still donating time and workunits, but it's, if anything, more abusable when something like that happens.
Not to mention it will make those donors who don't have rippingly fast hardware feel undervalued and underappreciated when they're making a few hundred or a few thousand points a day while some people can literally run circles around them because they have the latest and greatest, so they will wind up quitting, which is bad because there is still important science to be done even on the smaller units.
