Crap Points and GPU WUs

[OneWorld]

I would like to know why it is that we are folding AMBER WUs that are taking longer to complete and I am getting WAY less points for it. Our average PPD has gone done significatly since the AMBER WUs started comming in. And yet I read somewhere that there was going to be a 50% bonus in points for the AMBER WUs. Well thats BS, I am folding a gromacs WU at the moment and some AMBER WUs, the Gromacs WU completes faster and this one will net me 755 points, all the AMBER units I have are around 150 points or less. Im down from 3000 PPD to well under 1000 because of the AMBER WUs.

The Points are the reward for doing the work, if your not going to provide a consistant point scheme then why should we fold your WUs?

And I just wanted to say thanks a lot for not supporting the previous gen of ATI GPUs any longer. Me and my business partner purchased two Radeon X1950s for folding only to find 6 months later that the project was dropped. As far as I can tell my vid card is no longer supported. This must be some BS idea to get people run out and buy some new ATI card.

I guess to return the favor I could just watch each Wu that downloads and if its and AMBER core or other low point WU i'll delete it and keep doing that until I get something worth my while and my money. And if you like to ban me for this, well so be it. We are just as happy to contribute our CPU cycles to SETI

[Hyperlife]

You're probably getting more points on the Gromacs units because AMBER doesn't take advantage of SSE/SSE2/3dNow, and the benchmark machine has SSE2 disabled. Some recent Double Gromacs units have been generating major points because of the SSE2 boost on some of my rigs. There's no way an AMBER unit will match that, even with a 1.5x or 2x bonus.

If you're unhappy about the AMBER units, you should stop receiving them if you stop using the -advmethods flag.

I'm keeping -advmethods for all my non-SMP rigs because PandeGroup wants those AMBER WUs turned around ASAP, and if it's a priority for them, I'm glad to help.

[7im]

Hello OneWorld, welcome to the Folding Support Forum.

I don't know how much longer the GPU1 projects will continue, but they have NOT ended yet, maybe later this summer. I just completed a work unit with my X1900. Your ATI cards can continue to contribute for a while also.

As for the other comments, you are probably folding using the CPU client on a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad. The SSE speed in those chips are double what the benchmark computer can do. That, plus the large WU bonus, and you were probably getting about 400 PPD per core running Gromacs work units. However, the Amber WUs do not use SSE optimizations, so they only run at the speed of your chip, not double speed, and not a large WU bonus, and most Core chips have a GHz rating slower than the 2.8 GHz on the Benchmark computer, so that is why they seem to perform slower.

On Gromacs work units, you are earning 2 to 4 times the rated benchmark points, and on Ambers, you are getting about the same as the benchmark.

Are you asking the project to make the Gromacs score less points so that ALL computers are more consistent in earning points?

[John_Weatherman]

As someone who's budget means I'll be stuck Folding with a Athlon 2600 for the forseeable future, I'm glad that we small contributers are getting a bonus for sticking around (especially after watching PS3 and then SMP WU's getting large bonuses).

[the animal]

Are the Amber WU also benchmarked for 110ppd ( x bonus)?

I have a P4 1.7 that is getting just over 70ppd on 4533 (should be about 100 by my calculations) and 100 on 4534 (should be 133**), and a PD 3.14 getting 125 on 4533 (should be 185).

Those numbers seem quite low for bonus WU to me.

**Edited 118 to 133. Miscalculated using 1.5 instead of 2 x bonus.

[7im]

Those numbers do seem a bit low. I have a 1.7 GHz Xeon getting 103 PPD (p4534), according to Fahmon. Your results seem to match mine. However, they don't seem to match the results others have submitted to fahinfo.org. Those are more in line with what is expected.

Maybe we should take this Amber WU discussion back over to the original Bonus Amber thread?

http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2432

[David]

7im made a good point actually (something to remember): Although the GPU1 client has AFAIK been stopped in favour of GPU2 there will still be work units available for a wee while yet, until all the work is completed.

At the end of the day many people do base their hardware purchases on FaH points (eg Q6600 are the flavour of the month ) but the needs of the project do change sometimes. I would however think it might be a good idea to give a decent window for warning when clients are going to be discontinued (eg X client will be discontinued in 6 months, with work units unavailable after 9 months). Especially for the more enthusiast targetted clients such as GPU and SMP.