Folding Forum

Hi
can some one advise which is the most effective and productive SMP client V6 or the V7 - running on single 4 core and twin Xeon 4 core processors
Look forward to hearing from the experts - should have advised the computers will be used for nothing else only folding
Kindest regards
Tom

V7 is an all-in-one client, capable of running any number of SMP, uniprocessor, or GPU slots (analogous to the separate V6 clients). In terms of pure SMP performance, there's no inherent difference between V6 and V7; the cores are what actually process the WUs, while the client is only there to handle downloads, uploads, and starting/stopping the cores. The OpenCL AMD GPU core is the only one I know of that will only run in V7. There are a couple of things to note, though:

V7's FAHControl in XP may use a notable amount of CPU time for some reason, which would slow down SMP. If you're not running XP there's no issue. If you are running XP, you could always start and stop it via the command line to avoid this issue.

The Linux SMP core is more efficient than the Windows one and runs noticeably faster (I've heard 10-15% faster). This has nothing to do with client version, but if you're running dedicated SMP folding boxes you should probably switch them to Linux if they aren't running it already.

Hi Zagen30
Thanks once again for the info much obliged - never ever used Linux (only ever worked with DOS and Windows) and I beleieve there are several versions which should i use and where can i get it from also more importantly is it easy to use?
Kindest regards
Tom

V7, but just because of it's easier use. The performance is equal.

data wrote:I beleieve there are several versions which should i use and where can i get it from also more importantly is it easy to use?

Are you talking about the client versions or linux versions?

Hi iceman1992 - the Linux versions
Kindest regards
Tom

I personally use Ubuntu. It's great and very simple to use. You can get it here http://www.ubuntu.com/
Install it, install the FAHClient and then FAHControl, refer to this guide http://folding.stanford.edu/English/LinGuide
But really all you need to do is just download and install them. And you're good to go

When installing Ubuntu, it is an important rule to remember, use the ext3 filesystem. This saves nearly an hour at dowload / upload and the average of PPD are similar improved. The default filesystem is ext4, but it must therefore not be selected. Choosing to ext3 is done through advanced installation that you must choose yourself. Experts also say that Ubuntu v10.10 is the best for folding.

File system is not really an issue for regular SMP work units.

What will it be an issue for?

bigadv