PrimeGrid News

[AMDave]

2019 Tour de Primes Starts February 1st!
http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_yellow.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_prime.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_red.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_mega.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_green.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_ms_prime.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_polkadot.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_ms_mega.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_yellow.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_prime.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_red.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_mega.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_green.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_ms_prime.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_polkadot.png http://www.primegrid.com/img/badges/tdp_2019_ms_mega.png Our annual Tour de Primes challenge begins in a little over one day from now, and runs for the entire month of February. Unlike other challenges, you don't get a trophy just for participating -- you have to actually find primes to win something!As with last year, we will be awarding special "jersey badges" to the winners in four different categories. We're also continuing the tradition of offering special badges that are available to anyone who finds an eligible prime!Come join us in February. More information about Tour de Primes can be found here (http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=8409).

More... (http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=8425)

[Dirk Broer]

It sure sounds more fun than the 'Acoustic@Home challenge' (sic) or the Gerasim@Home challenge that are announced on BOINCStats, the first of which -Acoustics- will both be held from February 13th till February 20th (the second exactly one month later) and that are both organized by team Colombia from the Ukraine.

[Brucifer]

Yup, will give it a whirl again this year and see if I can find a prime again this year.. :-)

[Dirk Broer]

Yup, will give it a whirl again this year and see if I can find a prime again this year.. :-)

Who will the first member to hit the charts (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2019.php)?

[Brucifer]

Time will tell :-)

[Dirk Broer]

Who will the first member to hit the charts (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2019.php)?

It looks like it was recursive:

recursive BOINC: PPSE 5043·21515522+1 456,222 106.62994705068635 Monday 4th of February 2019 11:33:45 UTC

with vaughan in 2nd position:
vaughan BOINC: PPSE 8799·21517241+1 456,739 107.0021168715044 Wednesday 6th of February 2019 16:40:07 UTC

[Dirk Broer]

Scott Brown keeps finding Primes at a rate of roughly one a day, so now has 11 of them. Randall J. Scalise's prime is still the biggest, and so is his credit score.

[Dirk Broer]

Scott Brown, now at an astonishing 19 primes found, has passed Randall J. Scalise for the Green Jersey. There is a new #2 in all three rankings: bcavnaugh.

Breaking news: bcavnaugh now has taken over the green jersey from Scott Brown, having scored the most credit so far. Randall J. Scalise still found the biggest prime, Scott Brown the most.

Vaughan has climbed to a shared 7th position in the yellow jersey rankings in the meantime, plus a 9th for the green and a 10th for the red.

[Dirk Broer]

We seem to near the mountain stage, madhouse arrived in the Tour de(s) Primes!
We have a new leader for the Red Jersey: 4bc3, closely followed by no one else but the seemingly beaten 288larsson.
Good old Randall J. Scalise is now at 3rd. All used PPS-MEGA to get their mega score.
These scores also meant that 288larsson took over the green jersey from bcavnaugh.

Despite all these changes Vaughan still is in 7th position for the yellow jersey, plus an 8th for the green and a 12th for the red.

[vaughan]

I am running my pharm flat out plus I've rented 12 AWS Genuine Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8124M CPU @ 3.00GHz [Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 4] (8 processors).
Annoyed the prime count is so low this year as last year I found 12.

Might have to rent some of the very expensive Tesla V100 GPUs :)

[plonk420]

how much is that going to cost?? seems like you could almost buy another CPU! speaking of which, Threadripper 1950X is $450 at Microcenter...

[Dirk Broer]

speaking of which, Threadripper 1950X is $450 at Microcenter...
Lowest price here is 568 Euro's via Amazon Germany, that's more than 200 Euro's(!) below the next cheapest seller at 780 -there are even idiots still trying to cash almost 1000 Euro's for them, with 64-core Threadripper3 almost out,
and 32-core Threadripper2 on the shelves -at 1,800 Euro's.

[Dirk Broer]

Scott Brown keeps finding Primes at a rate of roughly one a day, so now has 11 of them. Randall J. Scalise's prime is still the biggest, and so is his credit score.

And he is keeping his pace, Scott Brown, now on February 22 at twenty-two found primes. tng* has the biggest found prime, 288larsson has the highest credit score

[vaughan]

how much is that going to cost?? seems like you could almost buy another CPU! speaking of which, Threadripper 1950X is $450 at Microcenter...

The GPUs are USD3 / hour each but I managed to get two of what Amazon call "spot instances" at USD1.25 an hour until March 1st.
The 12 CPUs have cost USD750 so far this month. Considering the cost of electricity and a/c it is cheaper than buying extra computers.

[NeoGen]

The GPUs are USD3 / hour each but I managed to get two of what Amazon call "spot instances" at USD1.25 an hour until March 1st.
The 12 CPUs have cost USD750 so far this month. Considering the cost of electricity and a/c it is cheaper than buying extra computers.
Wow... 12 CPUs costing 750/month, that's still a lot. :icon_eek:
I'm in charge of the electric bill by decree of the Mrs (as probably many of us in this hobby :icon_lol: ) but I barely go above USD $200 per month in the most intense summer months, running them inside the house. This year I'm in the slow process of converging to a server rack system and do away with some of these oddball computer cases spread around. Bought me a monster 42U server rack that I can fit myself inside, a PDU, and a few more things, still need a good UPS to back it up and have several more plans in the pipeline, but this is an expensive hobby.

I always wondered something vaughan but I don't know if I ever asked... what do you do with all your older computers you don't run anymore?

[vaughan]

The really old ones get their RAM removed and then chucked in the bin on garbage night (our local council doesn't offer an eWaste collection). The 10 year olds (Q6600/Q8200 etc) get run during events such as this Tour de Primes month of February challenge and the power bill rises accordingly. Otherwise they are powered off in the computer room.

When a computer dies eg I have lost 3 of 6 Dell Optiplex 990s running Intel Sandy Bridge 2600 CPUs they become paperweights in the music room; I should chuck them out but I just wish I could replace the power supplies as I think that is what went "pop".

[Dirk Broer]

I use old PC casings to build storage racks. Two PCs, board on it, two PCs on that board, board over them, etc. On the boards, cardboard oranges boxes with PC stuff.
Might consider dealing in retro PC stuff, there's at least a Harris 286-20 there, an AMD 386DX-40, and some Intel Pentium-66's...

Meanwhile Vaughan has climbed to a shared 5th/6th plce in the yellow jersey rankings (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2019.php)!
Those PCs are good for something...
Recursive just found his 3rd prime, any other members successful?

[Dirk Broer]

The polka-dot jersey has gone to [AF>EDLS]GuL, Scott Brown still leads for the yellow jersey. The red jersey is now on the shoulders of JayPi, while 288larsson still firmly leads in the green jersey rankings

[vaughan]

For the last day I've added 6 x [8] NVIDIA Tesla K80 running on Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30GHz [Family 6 Model 79 Stepping 1]
(32 processors).

Hope that investment in horsepower finds a prime.