Could any old GPU help out?

[Xanthe_2871]

Hi there. If I were to put just any old GPU I could get my hands on, say some older AMD GPU that is in no way compatible with the existing GTX 970 for gaming, would it still be beneficial for folding? Or is this a terrible idea unless I specifically buy a second GTX 970 and use SLI?

[toasty6776]

42 minutes ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Hi there. If I were to put just any old GPU I could get my hands on, say some older AMD GPU that is in no way compatible with the existing GTX 970 for gaming, would it still be beneficial for folding? Or is this a terrible idea unless I specifically buy a second GTX 970 and use SLI?

Afaik folding doesn't utilise sli anyway. So basically any GPU should do the job. I don't use folding though so I'm not 100% sure.

[Imakuni]

1 hour ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Hi there. If I were to put just any old GPU I could get my hands on, say some older AMD GPU that is in no way compatible with the existing GTX 970 for gaming, would it still be beneficial for folding? Or is this a terrible idea unless I specifically buy a second GTX 970 and use SLI?

For starters, F@H (or even BOINC, for that matter) has absolutely no use for SLI / CF. Even if enabled, it's not going to do you any good.

 

Next up, mismatched GPU configs work. You can have an AMD + Nvidia setup no problem, so long as both GPUs are supported individually.

 

And that brings us to the most important thing: the GPU support. While there's no problem matching different cards, it'll be useless if the programm can't even make use of one of the cards separately. Or maybe if it can use the card, it's so painfully slow that it's just not worth it. That's the case with old GPUs: they might not work, but even if they do, they are likely to be too slow to meet deadlines. Not to mention power efficiency, that's another problem with older cards.

 

So unless you already have something lying around and collecting dust, don't go getting old hardware just for the sake of folding. And if you do have that old stuff, work towards selling it and dumping a little extra cash on an upgrade to more modern hardware, if you can.

[Xanthe_2871]

12 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

[LONG BUT INTERESTING POST]

I see, I see. Well I have an unopenes card with a dragon in the box somewhere, that is probably what I would have used. I don't care about power consumption because I don't pay the power bill. But the deadline part, I hadn't even thought of that. It's probably best that I stick with the single GPU then, since I don't want to spend the money on a second new or recent used GPU just for folding.

[TheGlenlivet]

It really depends what the card is.  If you go to far back the card won't work anymore because it's no longer supported by the folding client.  What is the make and model of the card you have?

[Andster29]

Any gpu newer than the 400 series and is higher than a x50 should help. Anything lower or older is not worth it and just becomes a power draw.