Noob here

[Unibrowser]

Hello folders. I have finally hit 100,000 points using my Synology NAS(averaging 1000-2000 PPD). And I want to now up my game and actually contribute some points. I have done lots of research and it seems the sweet spot for a GPU is the 2060KO or 2070. But I remembered this morning that my X58 Mobo has PCI-E 2.0 slots . I'm not sure that this will have any impact on folding, maybe only a little? Any advice on folding with a 10 year old Mobo? I really don't want to use my Msi GTX 560ti, it is not power efficient and can't do anywhere near the PPD/watt that these new GPU's can do.

[MeeLee]

It's best to first make sure if your motherboard BIOS can recognize those newer RTX GPUs.
Many old motherboards are limited to PCIE 2.0 GPUs, of the time they were built, or the latest BIOS was released.
My 2008 Sony Vaio laptop with Core 2 duo, did recognize a GTX 1050 and 1060 (2016) via an expresscard slot to PCIE x16 riser adapter, but it didn't recognize an RTX GPU.
Same with my older (2014) Xeon server boards..
Makes me think that the old VGA compatibility with old BIOS's, was gotten rid of somewhere around 2016-2019.
Or perhaps the newer UEFI bioses do accept the newer RTX standards, but the older legacy ones don't.
Not sure what the exact reason of it was.

Anyway, a 1060 (106p) is about twice as fast as a 560 Ti, at 120W, vs 170W for the 560. Though they run best around like 80-90W.

[JimboPalmer]

Welcome to Folding@Home!

There should be no issue with a x16 slot of PCIE 2.0 with either of those cards.

Set the power bar to Full.

The CPU should support the older SSE2 folding, not the newer AVX_256 folding. So CPU WUs won't yield many PPD.

[Unibrowser]

Awesome thanks. I didn't plan on CPU folding anymore once I got a nice GPU or 2, just wouldn't make sense to waste the power.

[JimboPalmer]

I think MeeLee may be right, my newest card is a GTX 1650 in a 2012 PC

[bikeaddict]

I've had no problems using GTX 1660 Super and Ti GPUs in Dell Precision T3600 and HP Z420 workstations from 2012-2013. They also have big power supplies and 6-pin PCIe cables. People on https://www.greenpcgamers.com/ are turning a bunch of old workstations into gaming rigs. Lots of them can be found for good prices on eBay.

[aetch]

I tried my RTX 2070 Super in an ASUS Rampage II Gene (X58) board with i7-920 and 12GB RAM, it couldn't see it. That was after it had been folding with a GTX 1080 Ti.

The more interesting thing I noted was the power consumption during GPU only folding.
i7-920, Rampage II Gene, GTX1080 Ti ~400W
i7-4770K, GA-Z87M-D3H, GTX 1080 Ti ~300W
This was a system transplant where only the case, power supply and GTX 1080 Ti was kept.

[bruce]

I tried my RTX 2070 Super in an ASUS Rampage II Gene (X58) board with i7-920 and 12GB RAM, it couldn't see it. That was after it had been folding with a GTX 1080 Ti.

You MUST reinstall the NVidia drivers and FAHClient.

When you install the NV drivers, the process selects the necessary components for the 1080 Ti (Pascal). Reinstalling finds the RTX2070 (Turing) and installs those drivers.

[aetch]

I tried my RTX 2070 Super in an ASUS Rampage II Gene (X58) board with i7-920 and 12GB RAM, it couldn't see it. That was after it had been folding with a GTX 1080 Ti.

You MUST reinstall the NVidia drivers and FAHClient.

When you install the NV drivers, the process selects the necessary components for the 1080 Ti (Pascal). Reinstalling finds the RTX2070 (Turing) and installs those drivers.

I was only trying the 2070 in the x58 as an experiment, it didn't give a basic display or show up in device manager. The 2070 actually resides in another system so this is going no further.