Top GPUs for Folding@Home

[NoMoreQuarantine]

(click to expand)


foldinghomealone is maintaining a database of user submitted PPD using the HFM.NET. The current database can be seen here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing. If you would like to contribute, I wrote a guide on setting up HFM.NET and submitting to the database viewtopic.php?f=16&t=34516

Additionally, I created a graphing and comparison tool that pulls from the database: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=35071

Looking to upgrade your computer or build a new one? I have already covered the top CPUs here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=34230.

Edit: I have removed the old post as it was not helpful for those searching for GPUs. For historical purposes, I archived the post https://web.archive.org/web/20200419170 ... 38&t=34240. I believe the CPU post linked above is still accurate enough to be helpful.

[Juggy]

Thank you for this, I really would have thought the 2080 Super would have been much better than the 1080TI and also that the 2060 Super would be on the list

[PantherX]

...I found that the standard "gaming" GPUs were competitive in performance and wattage with the workstation & server GPUs, but significantly cheaper across the board. Perhaps they have additional features I am not aware of. If anyone knows why please tell me...

It has got to do with Double Precision (DP) performance, ECC VRAM (Gaming don't use ECC), VRAM Size (sometime double that of a Gaming GPU). Here's an article that elaborates on it: https://graphicscardhub.com/workstation ... hics-card/

[ispyisail]

+1

[ajm]

...I found that the standard "gaming" GPUs were competitive in performance and wattage with the workstation & server GPUs, but significantly cheaper across the board. Perhaps they have additional features I am not aware of. If anyone knows why please tell me...

It has got to do with Double Precision (DP) performance, ECC VRAM (Gaming don't use ECC), VRAM Size (sometime double that of a Gaming GPU). Here's an article that elaborates on it: https://graphicscardhub.com/workstation ... hics-card/

But what about FAH? Does a workstation graphics card perform significantly better in that domain? Is there some specific benchmarks around?

[PantherX]

[...But what about FAH? Does a workstation graphics card perform significantly better in that domain? Is there some specific benchmarks around?

The benchmark for F@H is FAHBench: https://fahbench.github.io/ but unfortunately, it hasn't been updated to use FahCore_22. I would say that since F@H uses DP only when needed, there might be a marginal performance improvement when using the Pro GPUs. However, keep in mind that generally, Pro GPUs can be clocked lower than a Gaming GPU so in the end, it might even out and the difference isn't worth it.

[Roadpower]

Thumbs up, thank you. And I'm especially glad that this topic spurs comments. Because in those there is much to be learned and I'm always appreciative of that. Thanks all.

[foldy]

These tables may be more accurat:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... Ek/pubhtml

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... k/pubhtml#

[HaloJones]

I think you also have to take current prices more into consideration.

A 2080TI is $1200 give or take. And it produces >2m ppd.
A 1070 is $200 on ebay and produces 0.8mppd.

Then you have to think about power.

The 2080TI draws 260W, the 1070 draws 140W. If you're running a 2080TI in a hot country you may need to up your air conditioning using even more power.

It's awesome that people with 2080TI's are folding. But if you're looking to build a rig just for folding and you're not made of money, a 2060S or a 1070 running Linux would be the way to go. Get a used motherboard/cpu combo off ebay and don't bother using the cpu for folding.

[Prophet_of_83]

I'm curious to know what drives top performance? Is it # of CUDA / Stream cores, or clock speed?

Looking at the google doc sheets, it looks like the nVidia xx80 series (eg 2080, 1080, 980) generally outperform the xx70 (eg 2070, 1070, 970) and likewise the xx60 series (2060, 1060) in that order. What is it about the xx80 series that gives it the edge? More RAM, more CUDA cores, higher clock speed?

edit: when I say the xx80 serious outperforms the xx70 series, i mean a 980 can outperform a 1070, and a 970 can outperform a 1060, so the generation isn't a good indication of rank, but the series is a better indicator of rank.

[PantherX]

I believe that it is the combination of number of shaders (CUDA cores) and stable high clock speeds. Having more VRAM doesn't benefit folding yet.

[NoMoreQuarantine]

It's nice to wake up to so many replies. PantherX thanks for all the great info!

foldy, thanks for the interesting tables. Those are some surprising numbers (such as the performance of the Titan V & Titan RTX for example). Unfortunately, I do not feel that the estimated PPD of any given WU will give an accurate benchmark of the performance of the card, however, with enough samples it should average out to something close to what one might expect. I would feel much more comfortable about those numbers if they showed the number of samples for each GPU. Aside for OpenCL optimizations, I don't know why the performance would be that far off from an ops/sec compute benchmark.

HaloJones my assumption was that my audience are people looking to upgrade or build a personal gaming desktop PC, using new parts, that they would donate time to FAH. The prices were current as of yesterday.

[NoMoreQuarantine]

Thank you for this, I really would have thought the 2080 Super would have been much better than the 1080TI and also that the 2060 Super would be on the list

I was surprised by that as well, but it turns out 1080 Ti is still a pretty powerful processor; although the 2080 Super still beats it in gaming performance. Personally I would just spend the extra $30 and go with a 2080 Ti if I were in that price bracket. As for the 2060 Super, it got knocked off the list by the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.

[Endgame124]

I picked up a 1660 super to test a lower end card because it wasn’t on any of the lists that I’ve seen. Stock when it had work units last night, it was pulling 650k to 1M points per day.

My suspicion is the 1660 super should be able to substantially down clock the memory, increase core speed and yield the best points per watt per dollar of all the cards.

[Juggy]

Thank you for this, I really would have thought the 2080 Super would have been much better than the 1080TI and also that the 2060 Super would be on the list

I was surprised by that as well, but it turns out 1080 Ti is still a pretty powerful processor; although the 2080 Super still beats it in gaming performance. Personally I would just spend the extra $30 and go with a 2080 Ti if I were in that price bracket. As for the 2060 Super, it got knocked off the list by the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.

I am not sure I agree with this to be honest. My 2060 Super is pushing 1.2-1.3 million PPD at the moment. I think this link is probably more accurate although as has already been mentioned different projects will yield different results.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... Ek/pubhtml

In your list for instance, the 2060 Super will definitely be better than the bottom 3 cards if not the bottom 4 in PPD. Also, where does Vega 64 fit it?

/Edit

Unless I am misunderstanding the methodology behind the list creation?