How to become a world class folder?

[RMouse]

I am trying to learn how to become a world class, championship folder. 3 weeks ago when I re-discovered folding I set out to be THE #1 folder. My dedication was unlimited and I decided to fold night and day. I've got top notch equipment and I figured that in only a short time I'd be at the top.

Well, 3 weeks have gone by where I have folded virtually around the clock and I am NO WHERE near being the top folder. I am not even in the top 10. So you can imagine my disillusionment. I thought that with 1 month of 24X7 folding I would be in the thick of things. Not ranked 500,000 as I am now. Very disappointing.

So I am wondering if I am folding properly. I have a laptop folding with a very powerful 2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo. It must be doing something as my lap top is nice and toasty hot day after day. I also have a nice video card. I asked my company at great expense to give me a top notch video card (NVIDIA Quardo NVS 160M). (I am folding on my work computer)

From what I see everything is running smoothly. Yet I read about people getting tens of thousands of points per day when I barely get 300. Am I doing something wrong? It's somewhat hard to tell if I am doing everything right so please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thank you very very much.

[iceman1992]

Can you specify what "top notch equipment" you are using for FAH?
The thing is, the top folders have many speedy machines and they've folded for a long time.

I thought that with 1 month of 24X7 folding I would be in the thick of things

1 month of folding can't get you to the top unless you have many many racks of multi processor rigs.

And are you getting bonus points?

[RMouse]

Can you specify what "top notch equipment" you are using for FAH?
The thing is, the top folders have many speedy machines and they've folded for a long time.

I thought that with 1 month of 24X7 folding I would be in the thick of things

1 month of folding can't get you to the top unless you have many many racks of multi processor rigs.

And are you getting bonus points?

I am not sure if I am getting bonus points. how can you tell?

[Ravage7779]

HP folded with an entire cloud server farm, many millions of dollars worth of hardware i'd guess, for two months, and didn't claim the top spot. The current top single user is folding on a bonafide supercomputer, and has been doing so for quite some time.

A core 2 duo is peanuts these days for points. A quad core i7 is middle of the road nowadays.

Keep folding tho, every unit done is progress, even if you aren't top of the heap. Most people have been folding for YEARS to get where they are.

[Jesse_V]

Good for you!
Some people have monster server-class hardware that is very, very expensive but is also EXTREMELY powerful. They may have multiple machines under the same username too and may have been folding 24/7 for 12 years now. Typically, the high-power gear is found in desktop, because they have more room for larger components, they run a lot cooler, and power draw usually isn't a big concern. If you're looking to upgrade hardware, name your budget and we may be able to point you towards some good info.

You should make sure you have a passkey set up, else you won't get bonus points.

Recruitment helps. And there are many ways to accelerate the project besides just computational contributions.

[RMouse]

HP folded with an entire cloud server farm, many millions of dollars worth of hardware i'd guess, for two months, and didn't claim the top spot. The current top single user is folding on a bonafide supercomputer, and has been doing so for quite some time.

A core 2 duo is peanuts these days for points. A quad core i7 is middle of the road nowadays.

Keep folding tho, every unit done is progress, even if you aren't top of the heap. Most people have been folding for YEARS to get where they are.

I have a Core 2 Duo and a high performance GPU folding. But I can see that this is not enough. I wonder how long it will take me to at least break into the top 10.

[RMouse]

Good for you!
Some people have monster server-class hardware that is very, very expensive but is also EXTREMELY powerful. They may have multiple machines under the same username too. Typically, the high-power gear is found in desktop, because they have more room for larger components, they run a lot cooler, and power draw usually isn't a big concern. If you're looking to upgrade hardware, name your budget and we may be able to point you towards some good info.

You should make sure you have a passkey set up, else you won't get bonus points.

Recruitment helps. And there are many ways to accelerate the project besides just computational contributions.

Right now I can only fold with my work laptop. From what I read, Mac computers dont fold as well as their GPU's are not used. Is this correct? I normally run a Mac at home so it will be disappointing if when I go to buy a new Mac, it wont fold as well as my Pee Cee.

[csvanefalk]

HP folded with an entire cloud server farm, many millions of dollars worth of hardware i'd guess, for two months, and didn't claim the top spot. The current top single user is folding on a bonafide supercomputer, and has been doing so for quite some time.

A core 2 duo is peanuts these days for points. A quad core i7 is middle of the road nowadays.

Keep folding tho, every unit done is progress, even if you aren't top of the heap. Most people have been folding for YEARS to get where they are.

I have a Core 2 Duo and a high performance GPU folding. But I can see that this is not enough. I wonder how long it will take me to at least break into the top 10.

First of all, I do not in any way want to discourage you from folding (ALL contributions are VERY valuable, no matter how high in the rankings they get you), but unfortunately you will never get anywhere near the top 10 with a core2duo. The reason is simply that there are many (several thousand) people out there who fold on more powerful hardware, so it is simply impossible for a core2duo to eventually outdo them, unless they stop folding completely.

I can only speak for myself, but I do not believe points or ranking should be a primary concern for folding. Think instead about how important this research is, and how many people it will eventually help. With that in mind, for me at least, it does not bother me in the least if I will never be topping (or even appearing on) any of the top lists.

Personally I fold on a desktop PC with a 6-core i7 processor, which produces a lot of points and useful work. I also fold on my PS3 Slim, which is a little outdated but still pulls pretty good work for its power consumption (just about 80 Watts where I live).

[RMouse]

HP folded with an entire cloud server farm, many millions of dollars worth of hardware i'd guess, for two months, and didn't claim the top spot. The current top single user is folding on a bonafide supercomputer, and has been doing so for quite some time.

A core 2 duo is peanuts these days for points. A quad core i7 is middle of the road nowadays.

Keep folding tho, every unit done is progress, even if you aren't top of the heap. Most people have been folding for YEARS to get where they are.

I have a Core 2 Duo and a high performance GPU folding. But I can see that this is not enough. I wonder how long it will take me to at least break into the top 10.

First of all, I do not in any way want to discourage you from folding (ALL contributions are VERY valuable, no matter how high in the rankings they get you), but unfortunately you will never get anywhere near the top 10 with a core2duo. The reason is simply that there are many (several thousand) people out there who fold on more powerful hardware, so it is simply impossible for a core2duo to eventually outdo them, unless they stop folding completely.

I can only speak for myself, but I do not believe points or ranking should be a primary concern for folding. Think instead about how important this research is, and how many people it will eventually help. With that in mind, for me at least, it does not bother me in the least if I will never be topping (or even appearing on) any of the top lists.

Personally I fold on a desktop PC with a 6-core i7 processor, which produces a lot of points and useful work. I also fold on my PS3 Slim, which is a little outdated but still pulls pretty good work for its power consumption (just about 80 Watts where I live).

Well, maybe i can fold more hours than those people to make up for my less than top notch equipment.

How may points/day do you get with your 6 core set up?

[csvanefalk]

Well, maybe i can fold more hours than those people to make up for my less than top notch equipment.

How may points/day do you get with your 6 core set up?

Overclocked at 4.2Ghz (which I consider reasonable for a machine running 24/7), my desktop pulls 60k-80k points per day.

[iceman1992]

Well, maybe i can fold more hours than those people to make up for my less than top notch equipment.

Not to discourage you or anything, but the top ones run folding farms. And as your rank gets better, it gets more difficult, because the more serious ones are up there.
To do that with a Core 2 Duo and a high performance GPU is kinda tough.
This is one example of a folding farm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOW5iW7dJQ
But do keep folding, as many has said, it helps. The original idea behind FAH was to get normal home PCs to fold anyway.
If you happen to have some money (and willing to spend it for FAH), you can get a 4P machine (new or used) to run bigadv, it will get you huge points.

[beer]

To get a little perspective. I have been folding for around 9 month and I am now in top 5000 and still increasing. All is done by folding on a decent dekstop mashine 8both SMP and GPU). My trick is being patient. If you are not patient you should by faster hardware.

[iceman1992]

To get a little perspective. I have been folding for around 9 month and I am now in top 5000 and still increasing.

Just curious, which stats are you using? Stanford's stats or 3rd party?
Because there's a 6500 rank difference between my rank in stanford's and in extremeoverclocking's.. Not sure why that happens..

[beer]

I use this: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/mai ... onasvejlin (current 4759 and raising) but 3th party is only around 100 in different see http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... =&u=569559

[P5-133XL]

I have a Core 2 Duo and a high performance GPU folding. But I can see that this is not enough. I wonder how long it will take me to at least break into the top 10.

Overall individual list gives convenient stats that can be sorted by simply clicking on the column headers and you can look at a person/team in more detail by clicking on the individual's or team's name..
Overall team list is the equivalent for team stats

Not to discourage but rather to give you a scale to use as a judge for realistic goal: A single machine no matter what its capability won't get you to even the top 100 and most of them have been folding for years. Personally I've been folding with multiple machines since 2002 and am only 574 and my goal is simply to break the 500 barrier. Currently you would need 180 million points to be in the top 100 individuals and 600 Million for a top 10 placement. If you want to be a top 100 individual producer of points you currently need to generate over one million points a week and to get in the top 10 you need at least 4 million points per week.

It would cost significant dollars to compete as a top 10 individual both in up front costs as well as ongoing electricity costs. Since your hardware is relatively modest, may I suggest that you instead join one of the top 10 teams and compete at the team level rather than as an individual so that you can say you are a member of a top 10 team since that seems to be important to you.

Every donation is important, so please don't be discouraged rather I encourage a little bit of realism in your goal otherwise you are going to get very discouraged very quickly and quit. This should not be considered a short term endeavor that you can easily get to the top but rather a long haul that is very hard to get to the top and if you do, be very proud of the accomplishment.

Edited to remove the mention of a specific team.