BOINC CPU credits

[BotDamian]

Hello there,

so I don't really understand how BOINC stats work, so I think that faster and more cores = more credits? I just assume credits = amount of tasks per day = more better.

Now I have a AMD 7900X locked to 95W and I get this amount of credits 14,398.26, I'm also the only one using a AMD 7900X hehe.

I'm looking at this chart here: https://www.boincstats.com/stats/3/host/breakdown/cpu/0/6/0

 

Now I don't know if this is the total amount of credits from everyone using the CPU.
So my AMD 7900X does 14,398.26credits on avg.
Now there are also 21x i7 2600 CPUs that do 16,506.30credits per day. So it must be the total amount of all the i7 2600 CPUs credits? So 16,506.30 / 21 = 786credits per i7 2600?

 

I'm trying to figure it out if I should get a 7950X

[SpookyCitrus]

It's been awhile since I've heard anyone talk about using BOINC, have they changed something? Last I remember BOINC credits weren't worth jack unless you yourself are hosting projects. Is that still the case?

[OddOod]

26 minutes ago, BotDamian said:

So 16,506.30 / 21 = 786credits per i7 2600?

Correct

 

27 minutes ago, BotDamian said:

AMD 7900X does 14,398.26credits on avg

Incorrect, it does 7199 per R9.

 

27 minutes ago, BotDamian said:

I'm trying to figure it out if I should get a 7950X

Just for BOINC? Probably not. Is there other work you do with this CPU?

[Gorgon]

1 hour ago, BotDamian said:

Hello there,

so I don't really understand how BOINC stats work, so I think that faster and more cores = more credits? I just assume credits = amount of tasks per day = more better.

Now I have a AMD 7900X locked to 95W and I get this amount of credits 14,398.26, I'm also the only one using a AMD 7900X hehe.

I'm looking at this chart here: https://www.boincstats.com/stats/3/host/breakdown/cpu/0/6/0

 

Now I don't know if this is the total amount of credits from everyone using the CPU.
So my AMD 7900X does 14,398.26credits on avg.
Now there are also 21x i7 2600 CPUs that do 16,506.30credits per day. So it must be the total amount of all the i7 2600 CPUs credits? So 16,506.30 / 21 = 786credits per i7 2600?

 

I'm trying to figure it out if I should get a 7950X

Short answer - It's complicated. Yes, a 7950x would increase your yield. In general, as your the first brave soul running Zen 4 on LHC you will have to monitor your yield as you make changes to find the optimal settings.

 

From that chart you linked it shows a R9 7900x with 2 CPUs (cores) yielding 13,981.83 total average credit and 6,990.92 average credit per CPU (core). This is in-line with what I see as the typical yield for a single core of an R9 5900x and 3900x on WCG.

 

In general, yes, as you add more cores the total average credit will scale linearly.

 

Likewise, running a core at a higher frequency will yield more points in a given period.

 

But Hyperthreading (i.e. running a task on each thread of a CPU's core) will not magically double your average yield but will likely result in a 20% or so increase in the overall per-core yield.

 

To test this you'd have to disable hyper-threading and run a single core for a few days on the same workload at a fixed clock-speed and record the results, then run 2 cores on the same workload and clock-speed and observe the results. Stepping through increasing the cores you will likely discover 2 things:

1. Your CPU will not be able to boost as high as you increase the cores used. This is normal and is part of the Boost Algorithm used. You are running at a 95W Limit and as you approach that limit the CPU will, of necessity, have to clock down to meet it resulting in lower average clocks per core.

 

2. As you approach 12 cores used you will see diminishing returns as your BOINC tasks will be competing for CPU time with the OS overhead. Linux typically has a better scheduler for BOINC and lower system overhead compared to Windows. On my (headless) Linux systems I can usually get away with leaving just a single thread available for OS overhead with only a slight impact on yield per thread. On Windows you will typically want to leave at least 2 threads available for the OS on a system that is dedicated to BOINC, on your daily driver I'd suggest leaving 6-8 threads free depending on how demanding the work you normally do on the system is.

 

On my sole Windows system which is my daily driver, for example, I run 18 threads using 16 for World Community Grid CPU tasks and 2 to feed an Nvidia GPU that does WCG OpenPandemics GPU tasks when they are available and Einstein@Home when there is no WCG Open Pandemic Tasks available. Thus leaving me with 6 threads for my day-to-day tasks (I have a separate GPU for display out).

[BotDamian]

So me having 14k credits is 2 cores running while the CPU shows that it runs on all cores? I'm confused.

[dogwitch]

On 2/7/2023 at 1:18 AM, BotDamian said:

So me having 14k credits is 2 cores running while the CPU shows that it runs on all cores? I'm confused.

some projects do better with higher clock speed. then ones that do better multi core. think thread ripper.