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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: GPU Support Forum
Thread: Buy new GPU or new computer? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 22
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ericinboston
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 12, 2010 Post Count: 258 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi all. Now that I see that Boinc is using the GPU (when available), I have a question regarding BOINC: Do folks think it's better to buy a new graphics card (say for $150 or less) or buy a new computer (say $550)? Of course we cannot compare a computer from 1999 to something from 2009 but with most things being pretty up to date, what would you do to make BOINC crunch the fastest?
----------------------------------------For example, I have a 3-year old Intel Quad core (Q6600 @ 2.4GHz) Windows XP machine with an ATI Radeon HD 4200 Pro graphics card. I love the machine overall and thus would lean towards putting in a new display adapter if it's going to make BOINC run a lot faster. If nothing exists and/or you think it's better for me to plunk down the $550+ for a new box, then I'd like to hear your feedback. Maybe the BOINC folks should have a single webpage dedicate to kickin' display adapters (sorted by BOINC performance) so we can decide. Maybe this is my real question/comment. :) I really have no idea what kind of adapters/GPUs BOINC/projects love to run on. I don't have money to burn, but I do care a lot about the projects I run on BOINC (Help Conquer Cancer 6.42 is the main project I belong to). If BOINC is going to take advantage of the GPU, might as well give it a slammin' GPU if the price is right and if it's a major boost. And what if I had 2+ BOINC friendly adapters in my computer?...will BOINC see all of them and use all of them?...or just 1?  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
There are several posts about this topic. For instance take a look at this thread.
Right now there's no support for GPUs in WCG, so your best option is to buy a new computer with a Sandy Bridge CPU (Core iX 2XXX). Or keep your current PC which is not bad. But, AFAIK, in the (near?) future WCG is supposed to support GPUs, at least in some projects, so you may want to wait a little bit to see which graphics card will be the best option and invest your money here. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello ericinboston,
You have a good CPU. WCG does not have any GPU projects yet. Wait until people have tried out a GPU project and located all the problems before you make a decision. By then, $550 will probably buy a speedy octo-core CPU so there is no reason to rush to a decision. Lawrence |
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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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Stick with the computer you have for now.
----------------------------------------There should be new CPU's by AMD along soon-ish (BullDozer) and in the Autumn there will be more from Intel. I would wait until then before getting a new computer, and I would wait and see what the performances are before buying one. Lot's of projects have yet to optimized their code to exploit the high end routines within the Sandy Bridge processors; so just getting a fast CPU does not mean it will be fast for every Boinc Project. At DNA at home (apparently now dead), my SB was twice as fast as my OC'd i7-920, but for most projects the SB is only about 30% faster. If you want to contribute to a GPU project, look at what Boinc GPU Projects presently exist, think about what type of project you want to contribute to, and then goto that projects site and ask what GPU to get. I would suggest you go for something entry to mid range level to begin with. There is a steep learning curve to overcome when GPU crunching; they are not attach and forget projects. In my opinion there are lots of useless maths projects (code cracking, prime number searches...) for GPU's out there, so avoid them and do something worth while. The only Biomedical Research orientated project that exists is GPUGrid, a molecular dynamics project using NVidia GPU's only. I'm also using an HD 5850 at MilkyWay (stellar mapping) and that gets around 140K Boinc credits per day. The HD 5850 cost £95 second hand, is fairly quiet and operates flat out at below 70degC. Only backed up by a Q8400 (similar in performance to a Q6600). When you understand your project of choice better (say next year, and when new cards come out), then get a high end card. At some stage WCG will hopefully have a GPU project, but what that will require is still conjecture. Ditto for other projects such as POEM. GPU Projects that use Boinc Projects with NVIDIA applications: GPUgrid.net (Linux 64bit and Windows) all-atom biomolecular simulations Milkyway@home Physics and Astronomy; mapping the Milkyway Einstein Searches for gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars SETI@home Search for Aliens? Collatz Conjecture Maths DistrRTgen Maths DNETC@Home Maths Moo! Maths PrimeGrid Maths Projects with ATI applications: Milkyway@home SETI@home Beta Moo! PrimeGrid Collatz Conjecture DNETC@Home Adapted from: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/GPU_computing [Edit 1 times, last edit by skgiven at Jul 2, 2011 1:35:25 PM] |
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Hardnews
Senior Cruncher England Joined: Oct 11, 2008 Post Count: 151 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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It's a sad truth, but even a $409 D*ll Vostro 260 with a Sandy Bridge i3-2100 is going to smoke your current computer. I have one. See comparative benchmarks and ratings here:
----------------------------------------http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html The choice of what you buy and when is yours. What comes out of an out-of the box D*ll i3-2100 running the embedded Intel Graphics with no GPU card is: 2894 fp mips x 4 7664 mips x4 Windows Experience Index: CPU: 7.1 This is under Windows 7 64 bit. The Ubuntu 64 bit Benchmarks are slightly worse. The i5/i7's cpu's are even faster if the benchmarks are real. I usually run my i3-2100 at Boinc 50% of CPU power to keep my power costs down. There's no discernable impact on workflow. No WCG GPU projects at the moment clarifies that issue, at least. There's never an answer to 'should I upgrade now?' questions either or premonitions of what AMD or Intel will evolve in a year's time. But your Q machine might still have a reasonable residual Ebay value this year if you sell it. Or keep the box and put a Sandybridge motherboard in it, and upgrade the GPU when WCG supports them. It's another factor to think of. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Hardnews at Jul 3, 2011 6:07:05 PM] |
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mikaok
Senior Cruncher Finland Joined: Aug 8, 2006 Post Count: 489 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I have a 3-year old Intel Quad core (Q6600 @ 2.4GHz) Windows XP machine with an ATI Radeon HD 4200 Pro graphics card. I love the machine overall [snap] I also own a Q6600 but I've OC'd it to 3.0GHz. Maybe you could do the same? If you're happy with it, wait until you have to have a new one. It's a sad truth, but even a $409 D*ll Vostro 260 with a Sandy Bridge i3-2100 is going to smoke your current computer. There's still a lot of Q6600 computers crunching nowadays and they wash floors with the laptops that people are mostly buying and paying $1000 for them  (And you're not playing any games with those laptopts either, unlike with the quad.)
to infinity and beyond
---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by mikaok at Jul 3, 2011 7:09:54 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I would keep crunching with what you have and give it a little more time to see how the new AMD Bulldozer chips do. Like was mentioned there are not too many good gpu projects that utilize Boinc.
Folding@Home is a great project that uses gpu but it is kind of a pain to setup and it is not a Boinc project. I currently have a Q9550 that is oc'd to 3.77ghz and does a great job crunching WCG. I also just built a server which is a little overkill but if it is going to be running all of the time it might as well be working for research. The server is an Intel Xeon E3-1230 which is a Sandy Bridge based cpu without the on die gpu. Should put out some good numbers even though I can't oc it. I need the server for doing backups of our websites as well as videos that we do for the site and other things. |
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Simplex0
Advanced Cruncher Sweden Joined: Aug 14, 2008 Post Count: 83 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I just wander how close it is for implementing GPU's in the work here, read the following
"Our methodology for choosing the best candidate structures from the 62,000 ensembles involves clustering the candidate structures using RMSD as a metric [13,14]. The construction of the similarity matrix consisting of the RMSD between every pair of structures is an O(N2) process. For a typical set of 100,000 structures generated by NRW for a single sequence, this would take days on a CPU. We filter the ensemble using different energy functions [4,5] to reduce the size to the 5000 best structures before clustering. To cluster even this smaller set can take an hour on a CPU. As shown in Additional file 1: Supplemental Table S1, this could be accomplished in a few seconds using a GPU." It was taken from here. |
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Bearcat
Master Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 6, 2007 Post Count: 2803 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I think allot of folks would invest into a GPU if implemented. My ATI 6950 is just itching to crunch here at WCG. But until it happens, my CPUs are happily crunching.
----------------------------------------OP: suggest a good sandy bridge system. Easy to OC too. Am presuming IF WCG does go for GPU crunching, it will take awhile before it would be 100% GPU. Get a system that will allow you to put in the latest and greatest GPU.
Crunching for humanity since 2007!
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I'm not going to suggest a GPU purchase over CPU here at WCG. That would be like telling you to take your business elsewhere. The reality is that it will be a while before they release GPU. Might as well enjoy the new system and the points until they bring GPU here. Until then, you don't even know if today's GPU's will even be compatible here. I'm hoping that all CUDA capable cards will be supported. (meaning even the low end first gen cards) Rumor has it they will look into both nVidia and ATI/AMD cards, but I'm hoping for low requirements so more can join in.
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