GPU Folding on ARM

[AFlappyTeddyBird]

Hey this is my first post here, so please forgive me for not being familiar with the general etiquette here yet.

 

Well, just recently I was browsing through the interwebs to look for some interesting stuff and I found something. I used to be a bitcoin GPU miner and also did a bit of F@H and back in the days I was wondering if there was a way to make it more efficient. I was thinking ARM but no hardware to that purpose was on the market so I discarded the idea.

 

And now I've stumbled over a company which sells SBCs (http://www.gateworks.com/product/item/ventana-gw5100-network-processor) and expansion boards which enable these super low power ARM systems to have up to >>7<< PCIe x1 connections. These SBCs can run Linux and it's also well known that nvidia has ARM GPU drivers that support pretty much their entire later desktop lineup (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-arm-display-archive.html)

Of course you can't just go and plug your GTX Titan X into a Mini-PCIe port, but there are things like http://www.delock.com/produkte/F_375_Mini-PCIe_41851/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

Or other powered Mini PCIe risers, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem

 

What do you guys think, what could be achieved with an nVidia GPU farm that runs of just a low power ARM CPU without much power overhead? Is my scope of thinking (mining/f@h) too limited? Is there ARM-software out there that could enable this setup to do even more interesting tasks like GPU accelerated video rendering or stuff like that?

 

As I said I'm new here, so I might've inadvertedly broken some rules. If that is the case I'd appreciate a reply so I know better in the future. Thanks

[Madone6]

You technically cant mine on ARM cpus becuase they would be able to finish the wu in time

[AFlappyTeddyBird]

The point isn't using the ARM cpu to mine, but using the ARM system as a host for GPU mining / GPU rendering / gpu Folding, etc.

[Whaler_99]

I can't really speak to the bitcoin point of things, but I am almost positive this won't work for Folding. The ARM chip isn't supported by the Folding client, so not sure if you even got it installed if it would allow the GPU to work without the core components for the client being supported. Also, the "support" for folding under a Linux client on NVidia is sketchy at best. It is a BETA solution and works for a few and not for most. So, unless you already have all the gear and can test, I wouldn't recommend spending anything on this in the hopes of Folding. If something like this would work, I think we would have seen more of the ARM based GPU folding farms popping up.