Tour de Primes 2021

[dannyridel]

The annual TdP is coming back in 2021! I want to find a prime+a megaprime. What are you goals?

[Dirk Broer]

Better badges -PSA seems out with TdP, and that's the only project badge I miss currently, outside of the suspended ones.

[NeoGen]

Tour de Primes will be awesome to put my new cruncher (https://sech.me/boinc/Amicable/show_host_detail.php?hostid=118478) to the test on PrimeGrid. Been running it on Amicable and it has propelled me all the way to #3 on the Team :)

[vaughan]

I want to improve on last year. Hey Neogen - nice work on Amicable. Can I ask what motherboard and RAM you selected to run with the Ryzen 5 chip?

[Dirk Broer]

Must be quiet some big ATX or even EATX mobo, as he mentioned a lot of videocards too that run in it here (http://www.amdusers.com/forum/showthread.php/11861-Suggestions-for-naming-my-new-cruncher?p=84580#post84580)

[NeoGen]

Actually no, it's a cruncher inspired by the GPU cryptocurrency mining community,
- Gray Matter v3.1 case (https://www.miningrigs.net/product/gray-matter-v3-1-gpu-case/) - Rackmountable and can hold up to 2 PSUs and 8GPUs
- ASRock AB350 Pro4 Motherboard (http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AB350%20Pro4/)
- 4x16GB of Kingston DDR4 Non-ECC RAM KVR26N19D8/16
- Ryzen 5 3400G
- Seasonic SSR-1300PD 1300W PSU
- And a bunch of GPUs I found on ebay :)

390
389

Those pictures are two halves of the same long case. It doesn't have a huge motherboard because the case comes with PCIe extenders to the back side, so the front half of the case has all the GPUs mounted on the extenders and the back half of it is the motherboard, CPU and other bits.

Still have to finalize some details on my server rack before mounting it. One thing is that this cruncher will have to bypass the UPS so I need to see the electrical arrangement, I don't have the capacity to feed this thing through a UPS. The other thing is I also am building and configuring a new firewall, so I have to set up VLANs and all kinds of fun stuff to get all my home lab equipment in check. I have many plans this year :)

[Dirk Broer]

The scores (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2021.php), so far...Michael Millerick has the yellow, green and red jersey, having discovered a GFN-16 prime.
Vaughan is 2nd in all three standings!

[Dirk Broer]

Actually no, it's a cruncher inspired by the GPU cryptocurrency mining community,
- Gray Matter v3.1 case (https://www.miningrigs.net/product/gray-matter-v3-1-gpu-case/) - Rackmountable and can hold up to 2 PSUs and 8GPUs
- ASRock AB350 Pro4 Motherboard (http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AB350%20Pro4/)
- 4x16GB of Kingston DDR4 Non-ECC RAM KVR26N19D8/16
- Ryzen 5 3400G
- Seasonic SSR-1300PD 1300W PSU
- And a bunch of GPUs I found on ebay :) :)

Ah! You're using Asrocks Pro4 line, one of my favorites. Having a A320M Pro4 (A12-9800E), a AB350M Pro4 (Ryzen 7 1700) and a B450 Pro4 (Ryzen 5 3400G) myself, and I've built a B550M Pro4 system for my daughter.

[NeoGen]

Just switched over my cruncher to Primegrid... should have done that yesterday.

I started off with all GPU apps enabled, but which ones are the ones to best focus on?

[NeoGen]

And I'm starting today, February 1st, with about 53M credits... let's see how much this little cruncher can get me to :)

[NeoGen]

Ah! You're using Asrocks Pro4 line, one of my favorites. Having a A320M Pro4 (A12-9800E), a AB350M Pro4 (Ryzen 7 1700) and a B450 Pro4 (Ryzen 5 3400G) myself, and I've built a B550M Pro4 system for my daughter.
It's a nice little motherboard, I have to admit it. But beware of trying to run multiple GPUs on it. It was a pain to set it up and make it all get recognized and working.
Sometimes it would not POST, other times it would only recognize some of the GPUs. Me thinking a BIOS update would fix it, it got it completely nuked and had to clear CMOS, unplug all GPUs and start from scratch again.
I had to clear the CMOS and test so many BIOS settings until I finally got it all working right, that I'm afraid to touch it anymore.

[Dirk Broer]

Just switched over my cruncher to Primegrid... should have done that yesterday.

I started off with all GPU apps enabled, but which ones are the ones to best focus on?

The most recent nVidia GPUs -or top-of-the list Radeons. My own best GPU is a GTX1650....

[NeoGen]

The most recent nVidia GPUs -or top-of-the list Radeons. My own best GPU is a GTX1650....
I meant which PrimeGrid apps :) I ran through the list and checked everything that had GPU applications available, but probably not all of them are good for this challenge.

[Dirk Broer]

The scores (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2021.php), so far...Michael Millerick has the yellow, green and red jersey, having discovered a GFN-16 prime.
Vaughan is 2nd in all three standings!

We have a new leader! mfl0p became the first cruncher to find a 2nd Prime number and now has the red, yellow and green jersey.
Again with a GFN-16 as highest scoring prime, just like David Steel and Michael Millerick before him. Vaughan is now 5th in all three standings.
LCB001 leads in the standings for the red, yellow and green jersey's Hard Luck Edition (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2021_dc.php) for double-checkers -which is by default sorted on date in case of the red jersey. Gamer007 is our highest scoring member here.

And after RoKro turned in a PPS prime with 881,585 digits he became the new leader in the red and green standings. mfl0p is still the only cruncher with more than one prime.
Vaughan is now 7th in all three standings.

[Dirk Broer]

I meant which PrimeGrid apps :) I ran through the list and checked everything that had GPU applications available, but probably not all of them are good for this challenge.

GFN-16 and GFN-17 mega can be crunched with your GPU, amongst others.
GFN-16 scores good in this challenge so far, PPSE LLR does better (in occurrence, not in credit), but there is a sole PPS at the top.

[Dirk Broer]

Vaughan is back in the race (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2021.php), his 2nd prime brought him a #2 position in the yellow jersey standings (total number of primes), a #3 position in the green jersey standings (highest total score) and a #6 position in the red jersey (highest score for a single prime) standings. Gamer007 is still our best double checker.

Vaughan is outdistancing the pack at the moment: his 3rd prime brought him a #1 position in the yellow jersey standings (total number of primes), and a #2 position in the green jersey standings (highest total score)

[Dirk Broer]

Drat! Did I mention "PSA seems out for this challenge" or something in that vein? We have a new leader for the red jersey, Nortech, who scored the biggest prime so far in this challenge through PRPNet-27....
Second place so far is for DeleteNull, who scored through a GFN-17-MEGA.
Penguin has found just as many primes now as Vaughan (three) but has overtaken Vaughan for the green jersey by means of a GFN-16 prime. If it were cycling, what jersey would Penguin wear tomorrow?

[Dirk Broer]

No clothing choices for Penguin anymore! Nortech firmly has not only the red, but also the green jersey by virtue of his/her PRPNet: 27 prime.
Vaughan is firmly in the yellow jersey, being the only cruncher that has found five primes so far.

[Dirk Broer]

It's like an episode of Batman: Penguin is back! He has found as much primes as Vaughan now (six), but divides it between GFN-16 and PPSE, while Vaughan has set all upon PPSE -which pays less, but occurs more often.

[Dirk Broer]

The present top-8 primes
391
(click to make bigger)

[Dirk Broer]

The Penguin strikes again!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/54/5e/67/545e67f597883a22b79ea423248d504e.jpg
He has found two primes more than Vaughan...nine against seven at the moment.

[vaughan]

Penguin found another taking the total to 9 and now boss from SETI.germany has taken 2nd rank with 8 primes pushing me to 3rd with 7.

I've just added 24 more 3-core instances from The Science Cloud; let's see if that helps.

[Dirk Broer]

Vaughan back on a shared 2nd place with eight primes, still PPSE's only.
Vaughan reigns amongst the double checkers though, having scored eight primes there too. #2, Holdolin, only has five.

[Dirk Broer]

boss of Seti.Germany just found his 10th GFN-16 prime and is in the yellow jersey. Both red and green still in the hands of Nortech.

Edit: Penguin also found his 10th prime now, but boss has a higher score.

[vaughan]

I'm flat out on this now but not making inroads on boss or penguin. I even moved my old AMD GPU from MilkyWay to Primegrid.

[Dirk Broer]

I'm almost flat out, and haven't found a single prime yet, doing 100+ GFN's a day -almost 200 in fact.
Keep hoping to find one of the bigger ones though.

[vaughan]

I have 531 CPU cores and 3 Nvidia T4s from TSC running now.

[Dirk Broer]

The usual suspects, double checking:
392(click to view bigger picture)
Only Vaughan (9) and Brucifer (1) have found primes as first, so far (http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/tdp_2021.php)

[NeoGen]

I'm almost flat out, and haven't found a single prime yet, doing 100+ GFN's a day -almost 200 in fact.
Keep hoping to find one of the bigger ones though.
I'm making my new GPU monster crunch hard, all those GPUs combined are pulling close to 1kWh continuous and keeping the upstairs of the house nice and warm. According to Primegrid I'm reporting around 1000 GFN16 WUs per day, but still haven't even seen one of the small primes. I'm also only getting about 26% of first returns, it seems I'm not quick enough and end up being mostly double checker.
But in these 11 days or so I accrued nearly 6M credits and am just a few days away from catching up with Lysergius and steal his #14 rank on the team.

[NeoGen]

Oh wait... Yesterday I caught a double check. I could swear I didn't have it at the time I was posting yesterday.
But nice, I got at least my name on the Hard Luck table :)

[Dirk Broer]

There's a new leader for the red jersey, and he scored so good that he has taken the green jersey as well (both from Nortech): BarryAZ.
Barry found the prime using PrimeGrid's The Riesel Problem (LLR) application.

Both Boss and Penguin extended their mutual lead on Vaughan for the yellow jersey: they've found twelve primes against Vaughan's nine.

[vaughan]

I don't know whats happening but the primes are getting harder to find. It has been days since I found one yet I have hundreds of CPU cores and over a dozens of GPUs crunching.

[Dirk Broer]

You have double-checked 19 primes so far, so you have a stroke of very bad luck -being just too late, 19 times in the first 14 days.
boss on the other hand seems extremely lucky, doing almost no double checks -just three till now.
So far 243 primes have been found in 14 days, the challenge is now half-way.

[NeoGen]

I reduced my boinc cache to zero to try to get as many 1st checks as possible, it seems to be a matter of minutes between being a 1st checker or double checker. If you get WUs and they're just in queue waiting you're going to already be late by the time you get to them.

[KarmannGaz]

Me too. I'm getting lots of firsts, but no primes found. I'm concentrating on Mega, Div & 321 in the hope of a single good one rather than the smaller PPSE ones.

[NeoGen]

I'm pushing my machine as far as it can go, about 2500 GFN16 WUs/day. I was making little over 1000 about a week ago until I figured out I had forgotten to shut down Folding@home, it was still running on the background. But even though no primes or even double checks for me.
I'm about to catch up with Lysergius on the Team and steal his rank 14, then about a week after that I'll catch up with Chris Skull and reach rank 13.

And once February comes to a close, and the Tour of Primes is over, I have to see what's next. Got to look up Boincstats or other sites and see if there's some good GPU bound challenges upcoming. :)

[Dirk Broer]

I'm polishing all badges except for SOB -they're real sons of bitches

[Dirk Broer]

But even though no primes or even double checks for me.
click to discover your double-check of Thursday 11th of February 2021 02:54:31 UTC
393

[NeoGen]

click to discover your double-check of Thursday 11th of February 2021 02:54:31 UTC
393
Ah yes, that's right, I did have 1 double check in the competition so far. Now if I could only get a prime too, even if a small one :)

[NeoGen]

Did one of our top Team members left on Primegrid? I just went up a rank and didn't even catch up with Lysergius yet.

[Dirk Broer]

beslade, aka Brucifer. He made a team change to storm, a PrimeGrid-only team.
And not without success: he discovered three primes since.

[NeoGen]

Got another double check today. But I didn't have a chance on this one, it only arrived to me 7secs before the 1st checker finished it (http://www.primegrid.com/workunit.php?wuid=709138249). Oh well... maybe next time.

[Dirk Broer]

We've had 21 of the 28 days of this challenge so far, and in those twenty-one days no less then 356 primes have been discovered.
BarryAZ of BOINC Synergy discovered a BOINC: TRP prime 9221·211392194-1 of no less then 3,429,397 digits, earning him 51879.546624003 credit, plus the red (highest single score) and green (highest total score) jerseys. boss still leads for the yellow jersey with a comfortable score of 25 primes, ten more then closest opponent, penguin.

317 of these primes have been double-checked, of which no less than 36 by Vaughan alone, ten more then his closest opponent, KajakDC.

[vaughan]

I allowed my TSC clients to die by failing to top-up my account overnight. I'd already spent over USD3000 trying to find as many primes and large if possible but its pointless versus boss who is running so many TSC T4 GPUs I lost count.

Now running a dozen TSC clients plus a handful of AWS Platinum Xeons and my pharm.

[NeoGen]

Tour de Primes is almost over. I haven't found any primes, but I double checked 3 so far, and bumped up my ranking on the team a couple of spots. Also got >10M credits in Primegrid within a month, so it's been quite a productive run for my machine. :)

[vaughan]

Finally found a Mega for this year's Tour de Primes.

6947*2^3357075+1 is prime!!!

[NeoGen]

Wow, congrats Vaughan! That nearly doubled your points there.

[Dirk Broer]

Finally found a Mega for this year's Tour de Primes.

6947*2^3357075+1 is prime!!!

GFN-17-MEGA 87352356131072+1 too!
Congratulations with your 2nd Mega Prime on the last day of the challenge!

[NeoGen]

Congrats vaughan! You were leaving the best for last :)

[KarmannGaz]

Congratulations Vaughan!
I didn't get any, but at least I got another amethyst badge. All good fun!

[vaughan]

Wish there was a badge for double checker of the month as I top scored that one.