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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: It is time to move to CUDA/BOINC !!!! |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 87
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ShaunBrookman
Cruncher Joined: Aug 8, 2005 Post Count: 2 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Actually, the fact WCG *only* supports cpu's is the reason I run it. Well I'll be moving my fastest computer off WCG, to another project that offers ATi Stream support, as I'm getting a new ATi 5770, and would rather it crunch numbers as it would be much more efficient. http://developer.amd.com/gpu/ATIStreamSDK/Pages/default.aspx Surely you can get some developers on board that are experienced at porting projects\apps to GPU tech? Has there been a poll of how many users would use CUDA or Stream enabled cards? Are you guessing it would not pay off, or has someone actually run the numbers? Sure, CPU only projects may take 2 or 3 years, but if everyone was running CUDA + Stream GPU's each project may only take 6 - 12 months. Buying a $200 graphics card is much more cost effective for us (yes, the WCG does factor into my hardware purchase decisions), other than buying a $500 Corei7 CPU and getting worse performance per watt & dollar from it. Now it'll take me even longer to get past 100,000 points... Shaun |
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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ShaunBrookman,
All your points are quite valid, but the logistics of moving to CUDA are the issue. Some of these are discussed above, but the biggies are: Programming with CUDA is not the same. Just because you speak Spanish and English does not mean you can speak Greek! As someone that has programmed in different languages, I can tell you it is not easy to do more than one at a time and takes a long time to learn. There are existing projects that have to be maintained and managed, you cant just drop everything and jump on the CUDA bandwagon. The present time is not just right. 3 projects just finished, one will probably start fairly soon and from other threads there is another in the pipeline. Not all projects lend themselves to CUDA, some require the richer instruction sets of CPUs. The few that do, have been earmarked by the WCG to be investigated for the possibility of using CUDA. The logistics could either allow or prevent HCC from using this in another project, but thats up to the Techies and Scientists to determine. CUDA programming is changing rapidly and there is potential to have one language for both ATI and NVidia cards. As most of the WCG projects are long, it would be a tricky decision to opt for one card over the other. Either way lots of people would not be happy. Hardly the way forward! If the WCG launched a CUDA project now they would have to deal with many card architectures. This is difficult to facilitate, if not impossible and why the Milkyway have opted to ony use Compute Capable 1.3 NVidia cards. Even the GPUGrid have dropped the 1.0 cards. This project specialised solely in CUDA and is only now trying to bring in ATI cards. The probability is that CUDA will be adapted for a project on WCG, but only when the WCG team is capable of running and maintaining it to its conclusion, unlike some other projects!  |
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JmBoullier
Former Community Advisor Normandy - France Joined: Jan 26, 2007 Post Count: 3715 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Well I'll be moving my fastest computer off WCG, to another project that offers ATi Stream support, as I'm getting a new ATi 5770, and would rather it crunch numbers as it would be much more efficient. Well, I might be wrong or confused after reading all those posts on CUDA/GPU while I am not at all a potential candidate, but my impression was that one can have the CPUs running for one project-grid and the GPUs running for another one. With the appropriate version of BOINC, of course.Shaun Have I been misunderstanding? Jean. |
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Dataman
Ace Cruncher Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 4865 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Well I'll be moving my fastest computer off WCG, to another project that offers ATi Stream support, as I'm getting a new ATi 5770, and would rather it crunch numbers as it would be much more efficient. Well, I might be wrong or confused after reading all those posts on CUDA/GPU while I am not at all a potential candidate, but my impression was that one can have the CPUs running for one project-grid and the GPUs running for another one. With the appropriate version of BOINC, of course.Shaun Have I been misunderstanding? Jean. You are correct Jean, there is no need to leave WCG (CPU) to run nVidia/CUDA or ATI (GPU). There are very few ATI compliant projects though. You do need a GPU compliant version of BOINC. Cheers.  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
No, you are exactly correct ... I run 2 GPUGrid WUs on my GTX 295 at the same time that I am running 8 WCG WUs on my i7-920 on the same machine. I get to see both projects and all of their assicated WUs in BOINC Manager. Nothing fancy or special, if you have a later version of BOINC Manager you can simply attach to GPUGrid and the impact to WCG crunching is extremely minimal. Heat and electricity costs are my biggest concern :-)
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JmBoullier
Former Community Advisor Normandy - France Joined: Jan 26, 2007 Post Count: 3715 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thank you both for these "authorized" confirmations.
----------------------------------------That said, Shaun you are obviously free to crunch where you prefer. I simply wanted to make it clear that you are not forced to do it because of WCG having no GPU project. Happy crunching everybody! Jean. |
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voidcomp
Cruncher Joined: Sep 20, 2009 Post Count: 23 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Actually, the fact WCG *only* supports cpu's is the reason I run it. Well I'll be moving my fastest computer off WCG, to another project that offers ATi Stream support, as I'm getting a new ATi 5770, and would rather it crunch numbers as it would be much more efficient. <snip> Sure, CPU only projects may take 2 or 3 years, but if everyone was running CUDA + Stream GPU's each project may only take 6 - 12 months. Buying a $200 graphics card is much more cost effective for us (yes, the WCG does factor into my hardware purchase decisions), other than buying a $500 Corei7 CPU and getting worse performance per watt & dollar from it. Now it'll take me even longer to get past 100,000 points... Core i7-920 runs $289 shipped from newegg. Don't forget, the 5770 lacks double precision support so it won't work in a project like Milky Way. Stepping up to a 5870 (if you can find it) is at least $100 more than a i7. |
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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CPUs also tend to last longer!
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Core i7-920 runs $289 shipped from newegg. and if you live near a Microcenter you can get one (in store only) for 199.99 !!! They also typically price match New Egg so it's a p[retty good deal. The problem with talking about a CPU being cheaper than a video card is that you need to buy all the other stuff to run a CPU (MOBO, HSF, PSU, RAM) wereas you can usually just pop a video card in at no additional cost. |
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cristipurdel
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 13, 2008 Post Count: 158 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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So is there an e.t.a. on a possible beta testing on some GPUs? I'm willling to test my card for OpenCL.
----------------------------------------I'm still having trouble how to get beta tasks for WCG, for the current projects. |
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