I was very enthusiastic when I saw that Asteroids@home supports NVidia GPUs. But then I discovered that my PCs have Radeon GPUs I n them... :)

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http://iqjar.com

I was very enthusiastic when I saw that Asteroids@home supports NVidia GPUs. But then I discovered that my PCs have Radeon GPUs I n them... :)

Unfortunately the 2 brands of gpu's require much different programming knowledge by the project to make them work. With Nvidia, the company, providing some tech support for crunching on their cards and AMD not doing that, Nvidia can be the easier way to go. There is a way to make the AMD gpu's work but it is highly inefficient when crunching that way, often creating problems like 'why am I being punished for using AMD?'.

I see :(
Too bad AMD is not offering support for programming for their cards... it's such a waste to not make use of powerful GPUs... it can't be impossible, though... MilkyWay@Home has done it.

We have now two volunteers who try to make OpenCL app for AMD cards. Next I'm so busy at work for now. If both of them failed to do OpenCL app, I will do one.

Z

That is such great news!

We owe a lot to dedicated people who are able to do such work and also sacrifice their time to do it. Regardless of what results we'll have and when, I'm already grateful. Thank you!

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

I saw on Wikipedia that RockChip plans to release the RK32XX series soon, which will come out with a graphics card that will support OpenCL 1.1. Since ARM devices are spreading "like the plague" across the globe, it might be a good idea to plan supporting those grfx cards as well.

I myself already possess 8 ARM devices equipped with the Mali400 GPU and I regret it that no BOINC project supports them, but I guess that's understandable because Mali400 does not support OpenCL, only OpenGL and OpenVG...

But planning for graphics cards that will invade the world as part of ARM SoCs is a good idea ;)

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Lol, well I do have a 2nd PC, but I can't run it 24/7 unfortunately.

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Nyuk, nyuk! But seriously, just run each project separately for 30 days or whatever time period floats your boat.

Yea but I'll lose MW output ;)

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Lol, well I do have a 2nd PC, but I can't run it 24/7 unfortunately.

Part time is better then no time!

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Nyuk, nyuk! But seriously, just run each project separately for 30 days or whatever time period floats your boat.

I too started out with a single pc, my wife my 2 kids and I were all using it and it ALWAYS crashed. I got a 2nd pc and after moving the wife and kids to the new one, the old one now mine alone, stopped crashing! My wife got tired of 'her' pc crashing so I got her her own pc and then only the kids pc crashed. Eventually each of them got their own pc's and then no ones pc crashed! AND every pc was crunching!!! Most of us start small and grow thru various means, for instance I have found that without a Server 22 pc's is all a network can handle before the different machines argue over who is in charge to the point the whole network crashes! I still have a Server but have fewer pc's now, I am down to 15 total in my home, not counting tablets that do not crunch as of right now. I haven't counted lately but probably have more then 44 cpu cores total as only a couple of my pc's are not 4 or 6 core cpu's. I also have a gpu, or two, in 90% of the desktops.

We're slightly going off topic here, but since we're all sharing how we're crunching, I too have some great plans :) I am building a BOINC crunching cluster out of ARM computers, Android TV sticks to be more exact. Waiting for the components to arrive... :) It's going to chew Asteroids@Home tasks on a total of 24 cores clocked at 1400 MHz :) It is estimated to complete 24 tasks in 40-44 hours and consume a total of 30-32 Watts. Can't wait for the TV sticks to arrive. Already built a wooden case for the whole thing, with some basic VGA cooling fans and power supplies taken out of old phones!

How does that compare to PCs on a credit/w basis?

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Lol, well I do have a 2nd PC, but I can't run it 24/7 unfortunately.

Part time is better then no time!

Lol, true! But my room is very bad at venting heating & I'm not sure the landlady would appreciate me crunching regularly, I do run it sporadically for races etc ;)

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7

... I'm not sure the landlady would appreciate me crunching regularly

Tell her you are crunching oldbags@home

How does that compare to PCs on a credit/w basis?

I look forwards to that :).

..... although then I'll have a dilemma, do I run A@H or MW on the grx card? ;)

Easy get another pc and grfx card!

Lol, well I do have a 2nd PC, but I can't run it 24/7 unfortunately.

Part time is better then no time!

Lol, true! But my room is very bad at venting heating & I'm not sure the landlady would appreciate me crunching regularly, I do run it sporadically for races etc ;)

I used to talk to a guy who set up a vent hose with a small fan in it that he put in the window, that way all of his heat went outside. I don't have a window near the majority of my pc's so i just use an extra floor mounted a/c unit with its exhaust hose in a window.

As for getting back on topic I too have several AMD gpu's and would LOVE to bring them here one day. I would NOT bring them tomorrow though even if I could as right now I am closing the gap to a teammate at another project.

I discussed the cooling problem in another forum with another user, short version is I can't have an AC unit here (space, cost, electricity) nor can I fit a ducting pipe, I have thought about the latter but theirs nowhere to route such a pipe (my PC is also away from the window), also considered routing a pipe straight into the chimney pipe but theirs no guarantee that smoke wouldn't back feed under some conditions.

Re AMD GPUs on A@H, also going by the rather modest performance gain of a GPU vs CPU here with Nvidia, assuming a broadly similar boost with AMD I would still keep my 5850 with MW as it's massively faster than my CPU there.

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7

How does that compare to PCs on a credit/w basis?

Well, think of it this way: my strongest PC (desktop) machine (8 cores clocked at 3.4 Ghz - yes, it's really strong), if kept running 24/7, would complete about 130 tasks in 42 hours. Since the credit for 1 A@H task is 480, this means that my strongest PC can generate 62400 credit in 42 hours. My ARM cluster only completes 24 tasks in the same time, so it generates "only" 11520 credit in 42 hours. But it consumes a lot less electricity, it takes up less space, it's less noisy (almost noiseless) and it cost me a lot less than the strong PC :)

I'd say that if the only thing you care about is to generate as much credit as possible for as little hardware cost as possible, then your best CPU option is an Intel Core i7 clocked at high frequency. But if you also care about electricity cost and noise, or if you just have an unexplained affinity towards Android devices, then a TV stick cluster is a good option :)

If you care about electricity costs then you need work out the credit/w costs too! Lol, output for the electricity used is relevant.

So your 8 core @3.4 GHz PC can do 35,657 ppd & your ARM cluster 6583 ppd.
Your ARM cluster draws ~31w, how much power does your PC draw at the wall?

You can't know which one is the better choice until you know the cost/w basis (including system cost), otherwise you might have a situation where you'd get a similar output for less electricity cost by running your PC less then 1/5 of the day for example! (although you'd still have the noise & space issue, though seeing as you already have your PC the space is taken ;) ).

Btw I'm not saying you are wrong, just that neither of us know at this point.


Opps, sorry about going OT again btw :o

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, Muon1 DPAD, Folding@H, MilkyWay@H, Asteroids@H, LHC@H, POGS, Rosetta@H, Einstein@H,DHPE & CPDN

Main rig - Ryzen 3600, 32GB DDR4 3200, RX 580 8GB, Win10
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, 16GB DDR3 1866, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), Win7