Hi all,
I've just seen this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/08 ... ics_cards/
Anyone got a clue as to which might be the most economically viable version to get so as to crunch a few WU's using the GPU?
(I need a new graphics card as the one I have, an ATI 6670 has only single precision FP capability and most BOINC apps need double precision).
regards
Tim
New ATI Graphics cards
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UBT - Timbo
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That will depend on your price point. There is a very good review - as usual - from Guru3d on the whole new AMD Family. Basically, the top level card has not yet been released, its imminent. There is little doubt this range will pound NVidia into the ground.
NVidia have to go high price to make money as their fabrication process is not working too well - the yields on the Wafers are low for their current range. The latter does not bode well for them as this problem has been extant for over a year. Overall they are still subsidising their cards, and the new AMD range will force major price cuts to their products - its going to kill them. We shall see what we shall see .......
Meanwhile, the 29 Page Guru3d review on the whole scenario is well, well, worth a read. Bare in mind that the top range of the new AMD cards has yet to be released - and that one will be "new technology" not a revamp as the others in the range are. Bare in mind revamp or not, the new range of cards are a serious hit on NVidia, and the price point for them is brilliant. Also bare in mind that overall the market for Cards have dropped overall as end users see no point upgrading (plus recession effects - but mainly the implication of the level of current technology), therefore design and Wafer Yield become more important than ever, and both Makers will slow the release of new ranges - they can't afford to chuck em out as in the past. They will be less frequent, and more upgraded within Ranges as mid life upgrades than the past.
If its a top of the Range card you are after, wait for the last two in AMD range, else the Guru3d article will give all the facts you need for a comparative decision. As a taster the 7970 in the new range is way more powerful and hugely cheaper than before (circa $250). That card sets the scene for what AMD are up to ..... they are about to take out NVidia there is little doubt. NVidia's problem is wafer yield, they have not cracked it properly and its costing them a bunch.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ra ... rks,1.html
NVidia have to go high price to make money as their fabrication process is not working too well - the yields on the Wafers are low for their current range. The latter does not bode well for them as this problem has been extant for over a year. Overall they are still subsidising their cards, and the new AMD range will force major price cuts to their products - its going to kill them. We shall see what we shall see .......
Meanwhile, the 29 Page Guru3d review on the whole scenario is well, well, worth a read. Bare in mind that the top range of the new AMD cards has yet to be released - and that one will be "new technology" not a revamp as the others in the range are. Bare in mind revamp or not, the new range of cards are a serious hit on NVidia, and the price point for them is brilliant. Also bare in mind that overall the market for Cards have dropped overall as end users see no point upgrading (plus recession effects - but mainly the implication of the level of current technology), therefore design and Wafer Yield become more important than ever, and both Makers will slow the release of new ranges - they can't afford to chuck em out as in the past. They will be less frequent, and more upgraded within Ranges as mid life upgrades than the past.
If its a top of the Range card you are after, wait for the last two in AMD range, else the Guru3d article will give all the facts you need for a comparative decision. As a taster the 7970 in the new range is way more powerful and hugely cheaper than before (circa $250). That card sets the scene for what AMD are up to ..... they are about to take out NVidia there is little doubt. NVidia's problem is wafer yield, they have not cracked it properly and its costing them a bunch.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ra ... rks,1.html
I need a new Gfx cardThe detailed report on the AMD R9-270X TwinFrozr IV
At an initial price of $200 this is superb value for money - it also indicates whats to come if they let these go at this price point
The Guru3d conclusion:
I reckon the details of the new Top-Of-the-Range Card will come out in the next 6 weeks, in time for an Xmas buy. The new top of range cards will have the new AMD technologies, at present the other cards are (as such) refresh cards, albeit with a very large boost, and a large price cut compared to past performance when gauged on $/Performance basis.
In its Class this one is going to be hard to beat - as is usually the case now with MSI.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ms ... iew,1.html
Glance down the front page product list for more partner Cards in the new AMD Range:
http://www.guru3d.com/
A Taster ....:
Note the all important driver support for the new ranges R9-2XX - albeit at present they are Beta Drivers - should be fine, the new regime that AMD started early this year on Driver Production is now kicking in well
http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/amd ... nload.html
Main AMD Driver Download Page:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download
At an initial price of $200 this is superb value for money - it also indicates whats to come if they let these go at this price point
The Guru3d conclusion:
Keep yours eyes open on the Guru3d reports in coming days/weeks. Now that the new ranges from AMD are out, Partner Boards are kicking in rapidly - expect many more detailed single product reviews from Guru3d. Don't rush buy, let it all pan-out over the next few weeks as the new range settles. They are on a winner with the new range, it has massive value for money that NVidia will not be able to touch with the Production Wafer issues NVidia are having.Concluding then, the Gaming edition is going to sell at roughly 189 EUR / 200 USD. The overall build quality of the product is exceptional, the looks are fantastic and it is a silent product with very respectable thermals. If you are seeking a product in this class, well the Gaming definitely delivers on all fronts and comes recommended by Guru3D.com, and for those that need a little more boom boom pow, check out the MSI HAWk edition of this very same model.
I reckon the details of the new Top-Of-the-Range Card will come out in the next 6 weeks, in time for an Xmas buy. The new top of range cards will have the new AMD technologies, at present the other cards are (as such) refresh cards, albeit with a very large boost, and a large price cut compared to past performance when gauged on $/Performance basis.
In its Class this one is going to be hard to beat - as is usually the case now with MSI.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ms ... iew,1.html
Glance down the front page product list for more partner Cards in the new AMD Range:
http://www.guru3d.com/
A Taster ....:
Driver Support - AMD R9-2XX Ranges - AMD Catalyst 13.11 BETA1We like the ASUS HD R9-280X DirectCU II TOP. All variables are right, the overall looks, the cooling, the noise levels, the factory overclock, yeah it's all good. So aside from cooling added benefits are the factory overclock, the four outputs, a quality slash top notch product.
If you are in the market for a card like this, two thumbs up.
Note the all important driver support for the new ranges R9-2XX - albeit at present they are Beta Drivers - should be fine, the new regime that AMD started early this year on Driver Production is now kicking in well
http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/amd ... nload.html
Main AMD Driver Download Page:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download
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UBT - Timbo
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Hi all,
Thanks for the great info on ATI cards....
However, despite that, I noticed that there were quite a few Nvidia items available at good-ish prices, as gamers upgrade to the next gen graphics cards.
So, I've taken the plunge (on the cheap) and given that more BOINC projects were available for NVidia, I've now got myself a GTX560 for my quad core, and a pair of GTX580's for my octo-core i7.
The quad-core is now working, after huge problems getting the motherboard to recognise it......only a complete re-install of Win XP Pro got it working, but that's fine as the PC is just a back-up machine in case my work PC falls over - and in the meantime, it can crunch some WU's.
(And it's generating some nice credits now !!)
The project for the octo-core will maybe take another week or three.....as I've had issues assembling the thing.
regards
Tim
Thanks for the great info on ATI cards....
However, despite that, I noticed that there were quite a few Nvidia items available at good-ish prices, as gamers upgrade to the next gen graphics cards.
So, I've taken the plunge (on the cheap) and given that more BOINC projects were available for NVidia, I've now got myself a GTX560 for my quad core, and a pair of GTX580's for my octo-core i7.
The quad-core is now working, after huge problems getting the motherboard to recognise it......only a complete re-install of Win XP Pro got it working, but that's fine as the PC is just a back-up machine in case my work PC falls over - and in the meantime, it can crunch some WU's.
(And it's generating some nice credits now !!)
The project for the octo-core will maybe take another week or three.....as I've had issues assembling the thing.
regards
Tim
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UBT - Timbo
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Hi all,
WOW !!!
That's all I can say after ONE day of running a CUDA-based graphics card.....over 75,000 credits in one day.....and that's mostly due to DistRTgen plus some SETI WU's
Just wait until my 1st GTX580 is working....
regards
Tim
Edited: corrected credits earned, as I looked at the wrong stats
2nd Edit: ok - I was right the first time, but the stats sites hadn't caught up with the projects website stats....even so, I've put on nearly 100k worth of credits in 2 days - thank you Mr Nvidia
WOW !!!
That's all I can say after ONE day of running a CUDA-based graphics card.....over 75,000 credits in one day.....and that's mostly due to DistRTgen plus some SETI WU's
Just wait until my 1st GTX580 is working....
regards
Tim
Edited: corrected credits earned, as I looked at the wrong stats
2nd Edit: ok - I was right the first time, but the stats sites hadn't caught up with the projects website stats....even so, I've put on nearly 100k worth of credits in 2 days - thank you Mr Nvidia
Last edited by UBT - Timbo on Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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UBT - Timbo
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oh my....oh my....
Just seen my stats for the last couple of days.... !!!!
http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/ ... /bestxdays
Can't believe that in 4 days, I've "earned" nearly as many credits as 25% of ALL the BOINC credits I've earned to date...and that's over a very long time....and that's with just a single GTX560 and a quad core Intel CPU.
Think I'll go and have a nice cold shower now
regards
Tim
Just seen my stats for the last couple of days.... !!!!
http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/ ... /bestxdays
Can't believe that in 4 days, I've "earned" nearly as many credits as 25% of ALL the BOINC credits I've earned to date...and that's over a very long time....and that's with just a single GTX560 and a quad core Intel CPU.
Think I'll go and have a nice cold shower now
regards
Tim
Last edited by UBT - Timbo on Mon Mar 24, 2014 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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UBT - Rick Horn
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UBT - Timbo
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Hi Rick & Mike
I can hardly take much of the credit, as after a long gestation, I've at last been able to get a CUDA-based PC working and helping me make some headways, stats wise.
The nice thing is though, that it seems more projects are starting to use GPU's and hence it makes sense for me to embrace such new tech and that can only be good news for the projects.
Having gone through the pain and hassle of getting my Quad-core crunching properly, when I get some time in the next week or two, I'll be hoping to have my i7 working.....and I've got 2x GTX580's at my disposal.....so, I'll set up one graphics card to begin with and see how that goes.
And maybe, just maybe I will get Temujin quaking in his boots !!!!!!!
One thing that the performance of the quad-core with GTX560 does make one wonder about - is there any point continuing to use any older PC's that don't have decent GPU performance?
Because: looking at the stats, this one PC has generated huge credits in just 5 days, compared to a number of PC's I've used to date.....which implies that on the basis of credits gained per "watt" of energy consumption, older PC's just don't make it worthwhile.
(One also has to recognise that DistRTGen gives a load of credits for relatively short periods of GPU time).
regards
Tim
I can hardly take much of the credit, as after a long gestation, I've at last been able to get a CUDA-based PC working and helping me make some headways, stats wise.
The nice thing is though, that it seems more projects are starting to use GPU's and hence it makes sense for me to embrace such new tech and that can only be good news for the projects.
Having gone through the pain and hassle of getting my Quad-core crunching properly, when I get some time in the next week or two, I'll be hoping to have my i7 working.....and I've got 2x GTX580's at my disposal.....so, I'll set up one graphics card to begin with and see how that goes.
And maybe, just maybe I will get Temujin quaking in his boots !!!!!!!
One thing that the performance of the quad-core with GTX560 does make one wonder about - is there any point continuing to use any older PC's that don't have decent GPU performance?
Because: looking at the stats, this one PC has generated huge credits in just 5 days, compared to a number of PC's I've used to date.....which implies that on the basis of credits gained per "watt" of energy consumption, older PC's just don't make it worthwhile.
(One also has to recognise that DistRTGen gives a load of credits for relatively short periods of GPU time).
regards
Tim
Hi Tim
If you are taking performance per Watt into account and only considering the return as points scored (as opposed to the research value), then no, there is no point in running old PCs that don't have GPUs or older power hungry cards that don't perform so well. However if you have old machines running projects that are CPU only, and they are personally important to you to support, then they're worth running.
Are you still running older machines? If you have an old computer that has slots to hold more than one GPU and the PSU is up to it, it might be worth dropping any older GPUs you have into just one PC. I have an AMD HD7770 and HD6450 that play together nice in the same machine. Okay, the 6450 doesn't have any grunt, but it is low power, and will tick over SETI and Einstein units just fine.
If you're worried about your electricity bills, you may want to drop your old machines just because of the increased power consumption from the nvida cards when they're eventually all chugging away!
If you are taking performance per Watt into account and only considering the return as points scored (as opposed to the research value), then no, there is no point in running old PCs that don't have GPUs or older power hungry cards that don't perform so well. However if you have old machines running projects that are CPU only, and they are personally important to you to support, then they're worth running.
Are you still running older machines? If you have an old computer that has slots to hold more than one GPU and the PSU is up to it, it might be worth dropping any older GPUs you have into just one PC. I have an AMD HD7770 and HD6450 that play together nice in the same machine. Okay, the 6450 doesn't have any grunt, but it is low power, and will tick over SETI and Einstein units just fine.
If you're worried about your electricity bills, you may want to drop your old machines just because of the increased power consumption from the nvida cards when they're eventually all chugging away!
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UBT - Timbo
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Hi Stuey,
My old "clunker" of a PC (Hyper-threaded P4 @ 3.2GHz, 2Gb RAM) is used mainly for work, so it's "on" most days.
So, ANY credits it can produce are simply a "bonus".
On the other hand, I've had a few "dedicated" PC's that have only crunched WU's and in the past, these were all relatively slow and it was just a question of having a bit more processing power in order to help various projects that I liked.
In the meantime, both ATI/AMD and NVidia have upped their game in terms of "computing power" and BOINC now recognises that it can tap into that.
So, it's a big game changer in my view - having even an older GPU ( as I've now got), can dramatically increase the "grunt" you have at your disposal, in order to help those projects who have got GPU versions of their apps.
Now I've done a few DistRTGen WU's (on my Quad-core PC) and proven that it works well, I can now switch to those projects that I want to help, rather than just being a "credit" hoarder (not that there's anything wrong with that of course )
regards
Tim
My old "clunker" of a PC (Hyper-threaded P4 @ 3.2GHz, 2Gb RAM) is used mainly for work, so it's "on" most days.
So, ANY credits it can produce are simply a "bonus".
On the other hand, I've had a few "dedicated" PC's that have only crunched WU's and in the past, these were all relatively slow and it was just a question of having a bit more processing power in order to help various projects that I liked.
In the meantime, both ATI/AMD and NVidia have upped their game in terms of "computing power" and BOINC now recognises that it can tap into that.
So, it's a big game changer in my view - having even an older GPU ( as I've now got), can dramatically increase the "grunt" you have at your disposal, in order to help those projects who have got GPU versions of their apps.
Now I've done a few DistRTGen WU's (on my Quad-core PC) and proven that it works well, I can now switch to those projects that I want to help, rather than just being a "credit" hoarder (not that there's anything wrong with that of course
)regards
Tim
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UBT - Timbo
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Hi all,
It took a while, but I at last found a CUDA graphics card to go into a PCI slot for my old "clunker" Pentium 4....
It's a NVidia 8400 GS with 512Mb of memory.
One thing I will say - never in my 30 years of tinkering/building PC's, have I EVER come across such hassle and turmoil as installing and getting Nvidia drivers to work....
It's taken me a good couple of weeks to get the above card installed.....and every time I tried and failed, I had to go back to the previous card (an AGP ATI Radeon) as I needed to do work on the PC.
This weekend, I set about making sure that the 8400 could be made to work.....but it wouldn't work and I was left with just a blank screen, after the initial Windows "loading screen" had flashed by.
In the end, I figured that maybe Windows was getting it's knickers in a twist and so I had a brainwave and I installed an old VideoLogic PCI graphics card, plus the NVidia, and using two displays......and by heck it worked....as one screen showed the PC "booting", and then the other screen showed the Windows login....
And SETI is now using the GPU to earn a few extra credits - I'm not sure it'll earn many as SETI GPU credits are not very high (compared to DistRTGen, say) but it all helps.
regards
Tim
It took a while, but I at last found a CUDA graphics card to go into a PCI slot for my old "clunker" Pentium 4....
It's a NVidia 8400 GS with 512Mb of memory.
One thing I will say - never in my 30 years of tinkering/building PC's, have I EVER come across such hassle and turmoil as installing and getting Nvidia drivers to work....
It's taken me a good couple of weeks to get the above card installed.....and every time I tried and failed, I had to go back to the previous card (an AGP ATI Radeon) as I needed to do work on the PC.
This weekend, I set about making sure that the 8400 could be made to work.....but it wouldn't work and I was left with just a blank screen, after the initial Windows "loading screen" had flashed by.
In the end, I figured that maybe Windows was getting it's knickers in a twist and so I had a brainwave and I installed an old VideoLogic PCI graphics card, plus the NVidia, and using two displays......and by heck it worked....as one screen showed the PC "booting", and then the other screen showed the Windows login....
And SETI is now using the GPU to earn a few extra credits - I'm not sure it'll earn many as SETI GPU credits are not very high (compared to DistRTGen, say) but it all helps.
regards
Tim