The Black Art of GPU computing ! Help.
Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:46 am
Hi Guys.
I'm looking for a bit (lot) of advice with regard to number crunching with GPU's.
Never been down this road before so I've got a lot of questions, some I'm sure are going to seem really trivial, but when you don't know your ass from your elbow . . .
I'm not after anything that'll get me rocket powered, this is just a foray into GPU computing to see if I actually get any increase in my BOINC RAC.
I currently have a bunch of computers (three, all XP Pro) crunching the following projects :-
Quantum Monte-Carlo, Einstein, Milky-way and Primegrid,
Reading through various Forum posts, it would appear that the Milky-way project has the highest bar and requires a GPU supporting Double Precision arithmetic.
So, faffing around and taking all the money out of the piggy bank (£150.00) I've come up with the following card(s) :-
NVIDIA
1 - NVIDIA GeForce GT430 1024MB (~£48 )
2 - GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1024MB (~£99 !!!)
(AMD) ATI
1-VTX3D Radeon HD 4850 (~£75)
2-ATI Radeon HD 4830 (~$65)
My lowest Spec Machine (is pretty low) . . . . . . 2.13 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo/ 2GB RAM . . . is this enough to keep a GPU fed with whatever it needs to be fed with ??
I think the NVIDIA card [GT430 1024MB] would be my choice, purely because the AMD site had the following for the Radeon Cards
"450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended . . . . .
(550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode . . . . . "
The AMD cards only have HDMI output and my screens are all VGA . . . . .
The NVIDIA presumably slots straight in the PCIe x16 slot and that's it ?
Now the silly stuff . . . .
IF the above is OK and I can install these cards, is it just plug and play and the BOINC agent will detect the card and use it ?
Or is this where the fun starts and I have to download some (CUDA ??) stuff and set it up ?
All my Boinc Clients are 6.10.60 - is this recent enough ?
Phew, if you've got to the end of this, thanks for reading, and treat yourself to glass of some strong cheer for the new year ! :occasion5:
Cheers now
I'm looking for a bit (lot) of advice with regard to number crunching with GPU's.
Never been down this road before so I've got a lot of questions, some I'm sure are going to seem really trivial, but when you don't know your ass from your elbow . . .
I'm not after anything that'll get me rocket powered, this is just a foray into GPU computing to see if I actually get any increase in my BOINC RAC.
I currently have a bunch of computers (three, all XP Pro) crunching the following projects :-
Quantum Monte-Carlo, Einstein, Milky-way and Primegrid,
Reading through various Forum posts, it would appear that the Milky-way project has the highest bar and requires a GPU supporting Double Precision arithmetic.
So, faffing around and taking all the money out of the piggy bank (£150.00) I've come up with the following card(s) :-
NVIDIA
1 - NVIDIA GeForce GT430 1024MB (~£48 )
2 - GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1024MB (~£99 !!!)
(AMD) ATI
1-VTX3D Radeon HD 4850 (~£75)
2-ATI Radeon HD 4830 (~$65)
My lowest Spec Machine (is pretty low) . . . . . . 2.13 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo/ 2GB RAM . . . is this enough to keep a GPU fed with whatever it needs to be fed with ??
I think the NVIDIA card [GT430 1024MB] would be my choice, purely because the AMD site had the following for the Radeon Cards
"450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended . . . . .
(550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode . . . . . "
The AMD cards only have HDMI output and my screens are all VGA . . . . .
The NVIDIA presumably slots straight in the PCIe x16 slot and that's it ?
Now the silly stuff . . . .
IF the above is OK and I can install these cards, is it just plug and play and the BOINC agent will detect the card and use it ?
Or is this where the fun starts and I have to download some (CUDA ??) stuff and set it up ?
All my Boinc Clients are 6.10.60 - is this recent enough ?
Phew, if you've got to the end of this, thanks for reading, and treat yourself to glass of some strong cheer for the new year ! :occasion5:
Cheers now