Folding@home - cpu speed seems to be irrelevant

[longbow798]

Hello,

 

after a few days running folding@home, I tried to find the best settings for my system. I changed the running cpu threads from 1 to 7 and in between, and estimated time until the WU is solved does not change. It made absolutely no difference running at 20% cpu speed or 80%speed. Is that normal ? Had someone the same experience ?

 

AMD Ryzen5 3400G with Radeon Vega 11, ASRock B450M Pro4, W10, FAH Client 7.5.1

[steelo]

9 minutes ago, longbow798 said:

Hello,

 

after a few days running folding@home, I tried to find the best settings for my system. I changed the running cpu threads from 1 to 7 and in between, and estimated time until the WU is solved does not change. It made absolutely no difference running at 20% cpu speed or 80%speed. Is that normal ? Had someone the same experience ?

 

AMD Ryzen5 3400G with Radeon Vega 11, ASRock B450M Pro4, W10, FAH Client 7.5.1

I had a similar issue when I changed my threads from 4 to 11 on a R5 1600AF...I know it was doing something because the CPU temp and utilization increased drastically. I think maybe the client is slow to update. Do you notice a difference in CPU usage in task manager?

[longbow798]

15 minutes ago, steelo said:

I had a similar issue when I changed my threads from 4 to 11 on a R5 1600AF...I know it was doing something because the CPU temp and utilization increased drastically. I think maybe the client is slow to update. Do you notice a difference in CPU usage in task manager?

Now after I checked 8min later I could  see a small change. The cpu usage in task manager fits to number of threads I selected. How many threads do you use actually and how high is your temperature then ?

[steelo]

10 minutes ago, longbow798 said:

Now after I checked 8min later I could  see a small change. The cpu usage in task manager fits to number of threads I selected. How many threads do you use actually and how high is your temperature then ?

While I was using 11 threads, CPU utilization was around 90% and running in the 70's...With 4 threads, utilization would be around 40-50% and temps in the 50's. I was also using my wifes PC that has a R5 2400g with 4 threads being utilized and temperatures would be in the 70's and take forever to finish wu's...

 

Unfortunately CPU's just aren't nearly as efficient as GPU's when it comes to folding unless you have something like a 24c... I actually stopped using my CPU because it was giving me crap points.

[longbow798]

But folding for crap points is still better than nothing;)

 

Which gpu do you have ?

 

[steelo]

2 minutes ago, longbow798 said:

But folding for crap points is still better than nothing;)

 

Which gpu do you have ?

 

True...I wonder if you could use your integrated graphics though. You may want to see if you can add the Vega 11 APU in the GPU slot.

 

I'm using a RX 5700 (non xt) GPU

[longbow798]

Okay your 5700 will be far better, I am using RX Vega11, so the difference is not that big between cpu and gpu

 

[longbow798]

Do you have an idea why it is shown as "10 Mobile" ? 

[steelo]

2 minutes ago, longbow798 said:

Okay your 5700 will be far better, I am using RX Vega11, so the difference is not that big between cpu and gpu

 

You may be surprised  Based on the results I've seen, even GPU's like GTX 1050's push out quite a bit more points than CPU's. 

[steelo]

1 minute ago, longbow798 said:

Do you have an idea why it is shown as "10 Mobile" ? 

That is strange...probably just a software fluke

[steelo]

4 minutes ago, longbow798 said:

Do you have an idea why it is shown as "10 Mobile" ? 

You can also try overclocking your APU, not sure how much of a benefit it will give you. I've seen overclocked Vega 11 come pretty close to 1050's in performance which is pretty amazing for integrated graphics.

[longbow798]

Just now, steelo said:

That is strange...probably just a software fluke

Maybe... After the few weeks of a heavy increase of supporters I hope they do improve the client.

[steelo]

Just now, longbow798 said:

Maybe... After the few weeks of a heavy increase of supporters I hope they do improve the client.

I'm very new to this...their software wasn't overly easy to use and understand.

[longbow798]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

You can also try overclocking your APU, not sure how much of a benefit it will give you. I've seen overclocked Vega 11 come pretty close to 1050's in performance.

Could be an idea, but unfortunately I havent got enough time to do that...

[longbow798]

Just now, steelo said:

I'm very new to this...their software wasn't overly easy to use and understand.

Me too. And the slider to choose system usage should be more precise. I got the feeling it does not really fit to the specs

[steelo]

1 minute ago, longbow798 said:

Me too. And the slider to choose system usage should be more precise. I got the feeling it does not really fit to the specs

I've used the B@INC client in the past and it seemed to be much more precise. You could set a folding schedule, # of cores to use, etc...it was much more friendly to use