GPU Folding Facts and Fiction - Configuration and Settings

[tk421]

I have been planning on running 3 MSI GTX 780s on a board with 4 physical PCI-E x16 slots and just putting in an anniversary Pentium G3258. Should I rethink this plan and go with another CPU to get more cores?

Also, how does the 780 perform in general while folding? My local MicroCenter has 3 of them on open box deals for $215 a piece.

[Imakuni]

I have been planning on running 3 MSI GTX 780s on a board with 4 physical PCI-E x16 slots and just putting in an anniversary Pentium G3258. Should I rethink this plan and go with another CPU to get more cores?

Also, how does the 780 perform in general while folding? My local MicroCenter has 3 of them on open box deals for $215 a piece.

Being Nvidia, it's advisable at least 1 thread (physical or logical) per GPU. So you'd be better off getting an i3.

 

Also, make sure your mobo can actually use the 3 PCIe slots at once. Most likely yes, but there's a small chance that you can't - make sure that isn't the case.

 

For the 780, yeah, it does okay at folding. But watch out for PSU and power consumption.

[Omnislash89]

Beginning to think that my OC is not stable. No matter whether I run my GPU or not with my CPU folding, it seems (though I have essentially raised my LLC to its highest levels, and enabled all kinds of current capacities (130% etc), that I will BSOD after a certain length of time when CPU folding...either with the client or with Nacl

GPU-only, i'm gold. Been getting great returns using Zotac 780 AMP! edition factory OC (1110GHz) I will always recommend GPU-only folding if you've both, got a dedicated graphics card AND a severely OC'd CPU, which is otherwise stable during gameplay sessions.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Who here has better folding temps than me? my 275W TDP 390x reaches 40 degrees while folding and it runs silent.

Pretty good for a room with an ambient temp of 30 degrees.

 

And thanks Whaler of the 99, I think this thread should help clear some confusion.

[Imakuni]

Who here has better folding temps than me? my 275W TDP 390x reaches 40 degrees while folding and it runs silent.

Pretty good for a room with an ambient temp of 30 degrees.

 

And thanks Whaler of the 99, I think this thread should help clear some confusion.

With those stupidly low temps, I'm pretty sure your card is not being properly used, for some reason. Even if it was watercooled, this is just WAY too low.

[iamdarkyoshi]

With those stupidly low temps, I'm pretty sure your card is not being properly used, for some reason. Even if it was watercooled, this is just WAY too low.

I have a 240mm radiator AND 360mm radiator JUST for the one card

[middleclasspoor]

Just skimming the comments in this thread I didn't notice any related to APU's. Does anyone have any configuration tips for APU's?

 

I have an A10-5800k running 24/7 that has achieved 3000 ppd once, but, usually only gets 800-900 ppd. I was hoping to find some configuration help to bump the performance up. Anyone?

[Whaler_99]

With those stupidly low temps, I'm pretty sure your card is not being properly used, for some reason. Even if it was watercooled, this is just WAY too low.

 

Both my 780's run at about 42C for me, under water. New project in works, to try and get that down even more.

[Whaler_99]

Just skimming the comments in this thread I didn't notice any related to APU's. Does anyone have any configuration tips for APU's?

 

I have an A10-5800k running 24/7 that has achieved 3000 ppd once, but, usually only gets 800-900 ppd. I was hoping to find some configuration help to bump the performance up. Anyone?

 

Most APU's are not supported with GPU folding, so they don't get much attention. If you think you are having issue, start a new thread detailing.... all the details.

[okcnaline]

Hilariously, I can't fold using a Quadro K620; it says unsupported card, even though it has CUDA and OpenGL Acceleration.

[Whaler_99]

Hilariously, I can't fold using a Quadro K620; it says unsupported card, even though it has CUDA and OpenGL Acceleration.

 

That card should be supported. Please start a new thread so we can look into it in more detail.

[SirSquid]

Does the amount of ram you have affect multi gpu folding?

[Whaler_99]

Does the amount of ram you have affect multi gpu folding?

 

Folding hardly uses any ram. The various CPU based core processes created by GPU folding can use anywhere from 50MB to 175MB of memory. Basically if your systems has 4GB+ of ram, you are fine.

[arielbeje]

Supported GPUs

There is a file, called the GPU White-list, that contains a listing of all supported GPUs. This does NOT mean that because your GPU is in there, it is supported. This list is updated with new cards but never has old cards removed.

 

As per the Folding Forum, the somewhat official information source, here are the currently supported cards:

 

Officially Supported GPUs

AMD -> HD 5000 Series or higher

Nvidia -> GTX 400 Series (Fermi) or higher

 

That was from 2013. I think the minimum's supported have now gone up, but I am not positive. 

 

Also the equivalent Quadro, FireGL and such cards are also supported.

 

The dedicated GPU compute cards, NVidia Tesla, Intel Phy and others, are not supported.

For some reason, i can't fold with my GPU, it says that FahCore_18.exe stopped working, and doesn't fold with it. My GPU(GTX 770) is in the GPUs.txt, but it doesn't work. Do you have any idea why?

[Whaler_99]

For some reason, i can't fold with my GPU, it says that FahCore_18.exe stopped working, and doesn't fold with it. My GPU(GTX 770) is in the GPUs.txt, but it doesn't work. Do you have any idea why?

 

Please start a new post in regards to your issue so everyone can trouble shoot. Also make sure you post your stats and screen shots of the ap. Have you tried simply uninstalling and reinstalling?

[arielbeje]

Please start a new post in regards to your issue so everyone can trouble shoot. Also make sure you post your stats and screen shots of the ap. Have you tried simply uninstalling and reinstalling?

Yup.

[Whaler_99]

Added some updated info to the main post.

[TheRandomness]

Why do they drop support on the GPUs instead of making them only receive core 16/17 projects instead?

[iHardware Shelden]

Why do they drop support on the GPUs instead of making them only receive core 16/17 projects instead?

Probably to push bigger work loads at once to get them done faster. Did they just drop support on more GPUs?

[TheRandomness]

Probably to push bigger work loads at once to get them done faster. Did they just drop support on more GPUs?

-snips-

 

Looks like they has been tweaked a bit, nothing official, but looks like these are now the minimum needed to get most WU's completed:

AMD -> 6000 series or higher

NVidia -> GTX 620 or higher

:c

[iHardware Shelden]

:c

I thought they just dropped recently cause my GTX 650ti stopped accepting certain work loads.

[Deltek]

To draw on my experience, on how to get the most out of Folding:

As already stated earlier in this thread, when folding with CPU as well as GPU, this will yield lower results.  If using NaCl, You will definitely chew though more WU's per day but overall your PPD will be reduced, as this is hurting the GPU folding.  For me this was definately noticeable on my system, with my 8 core CPU and folding with either one or two GPUs - Not in SLI  (I also had the odd BSOD with Chrome/NaCl)

 

Another thing I've noticed, which I don't think has been mentioned yet is torrents.  I noticed when I had uTorrent running at the same time (usually overnight as I have peak and off peak data quotes - Aussie inet is stupid) is this also reduced my PPD. 

 

And my 3rd tip/observation is: When folding on a maxwell GPU(s) the card will be placed into P2 state, with the mem clock sitting at 3300Mhz, instead of P0's state of 3500+. There's some speculation as to whether this even affects folding or not, who knows.  To correct this, You can either custom flash your GPU's BIOS ..or something like nVidia Inspector.

 

 

 

[Whaler_99]

My totally unofficial testing on my rigs, so your mileage may vary, but here is what I saw.

 

On my GPU rigs I decided to see what kind of impact NACL/Chrome Folding would have. 

Rig 1 - Dual 780's water cooled

Rig 2 - Dual 560's

Rig 3 - 960

 

On all three I saw a noticeable drop in my GPU PPD when NACL folding at high or even medium, but only a vary minor drop when at low.

 

Again this will all depend on your CPU, etc. If you have a GPU Folding and a core i3, then NACL folding will probably hit you harder then it did me. All my CPU's are i7's.

 

[SansVarnic]

@Whaler_99

I read something in the latest white-list that certain Tesla's and Quadro's are supported. Did I read this correctly or am I wrong?

(click to enlarge)

 

If so you may want to update the FAQ to include this info.. *shrugs*

[Whaler_99]

Quadro cards and FireGL and such have always been supported, they run on Windows with the normal drivers. Tesla and Phi and such are not, they are custom cards. The reason you see it listed in the whitelist is because it uses the same chipset as some Quadro cards. Just because cards are listed in the whitelist doesn't mean they are supported. They are just there. A lot of older cards that are not supported are still listed as well. It's mostly based on chipset than specific models and such.