Low Power War, Round 3: Performance on BOINC

[Dirk Broer]

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating", or as they originally said: "Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng".
Being an AMD User, writing for the AMD Users forum, one could think that I am biased towards a certain brand of CPU/APU/SOC products.
That would not be true however. I like AMD products, but i buy Intel as well when it suits my needs.
The need is for performance at a low price -both in purchase and power consumption.

I will try to generate a table with BOINC applications per project vs. the credit score per core/per day for all quad-core, low-power CPU/APU/SOCs I encounter WUProp data for -provided I do not crash their server with my query's-, starting with the X86/X86-64 platform:

Project	Application	AMD Athlon 5350	Intel Celeron J1900	Intel Celeron N2940	Intel Pentium N3540	Intel Pentium J2900
Albert@Home	Gamma Ray Pulsar Search #4	389.1 (Win32)	na	na	na	na
Asteroids@Home	Periodic Search	1,927.8 (Win64) 2,587.2 (Linux64)	1,393.6 (Linux64)	1,171.0 (Win64)	1,267.8 (Win64)	999.8 (Win64)
Atlas@Home	Atlas Simulation	298.4 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
BealF	Beal Engine	na	na	na	na	na
Citizen Science Grid	DNA@Home Gibbs Sampler	757.2 (Win64)	472.8 (Linux64) 790.0 (Win64)	na	517.2 (Linux64) 631.9 (Win64)	na
	SubsetSum@Home Sum Calculator	714.1 (Win64)	813.8 (Linux64)	na	795.6 (Linux64) 597.2 (Win64)	na
CMS-dev	CMS Simulation	463.0 (Win64)	na	3,069.0 (Win64)	na	na
Cosmology@Home	CAMB	na	368.2 (Linux64)	277.6 (Win32)	698.6 (Linux64)	284.5 (Win32)
DENIS@Home	Carro-Rodriguez-Laguna-Pueyo Epicardial Model (Carro et al. 2011) for human ventricular cells	492.6 (Linux64) 418.1 (Win64)	na	na	320.1 (Win64)	211.7 (Win64)
DistributedDataMining	Biological Data Analysis: Laryngeal Video Classification	610.5 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
Enigma@Home	Enigma 0.76b	1,011.9 (Win32)	743.9 (Win32)	na	850.5 (Win32)	na
LHC@home 1.0	SixTrack	2,664.2 (Win32)	2,376.1 (Win32)	375.8 (Win64)	945.2 (Win32)	na
Malariacontrol.net	Openmalaria	386.6 (Win64)	na	na	403.7 (Win32)	299.7 (Win64)
MindModeling@Beta	ACT-R cognitive modeling environment leveraging Clozure Common Lisp	508.9 (Win64)	na	283.3 (Win64)	482.7 (Win32)	407.3 (Win64)
NFS@Home	14e Lattice Sieve	429.7 (Linux64) 430.2 (Win64)	na	na	445.3 (Linux64)	na
	15e Lattice Sieve	690.9 (Linux64) 865.0 (Win64)	na	na	717.5 (Linux64)	na
	16e Lattice Sieve V5	1,321.6 (Linux64) 1,566.6 (Win64)	na	na	1,389.6 (Linux64)	na
Pogs	fitsedwrapper	1,385.1 (Linux64) 1,348.7 (Win64)	1,221.4 (Linux64)	962.4 (Win64)	1,007.4 (Win64)	na
PrimeGrid	PPSE (LLR)	778.9 (Win64)	na	na	469.2 (Win64)	na
	Sophie Germain (LLR)	697.5 (Win64)	na	na	571.8 (Win64)	na
	The Riesel Problem (LLR)	1,502.3 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
SRBase	Riesel Base	1,425.4 (Win64)	na	na	789.8	na
	Sierpinski / Riesel Base	1,198.3 (Win64)	na	691.2	1,023.7 (Win64)	na
	Sierpinski / Riesel Base - average	1,172.9 (Win64)	na	412.1	na	na
	Sierpinski / Riesel Base - average2	1,442.2 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
	Sierpinski / Riesel Base - short	1,500.8 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
	Sierpinski Base	991.1 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
	Sierpinski Base - short	1,246.0 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
TN-Grid Test Platform	Gene Network Application	321.5 (Win64)	na	na	na	na
Universe@Home	universe-xray sources v3	1,047.9 (Win32)	1,204.5 (Linux64) 899.7 (Win32)	na	na	937.7 (Win32)
Yafu	YAFU	4,526.9 (Win64)	na	na	na	na

na=not available

I have as yet no figures for boards fitted with the AMD A4-5000, a 15W tdp quad-core 1500 MHz SOC that is soldered onto the motherboard, like the Bay Trail/Cherry Trail boards.
Nor do I have results yet for the Intel Pentium N3700, Intels next claim to low power fame (6W tdp).
If the sometimes surprising results of the Celeron N2940 and Pentium N3540 -Bay Trail-M notebook CPUs- are anything to go by, we may soon be facing interesting times....and ditto credit levels.
Based upon the above I do now know for sure I will build myself another Athlon 5350 system, but running Ubuntu -as my present AM1 system is now running 64-bit Win10.

[AMDave]

A quote from 1605. You are definitely spoiling us today.

[Dirk Broer]

In 1605 it had already progressed to "All the proof of a pudding, is in the eating" (William Camden in Remaines of a Greater Worke).
"Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng" actually is from as early as the 14th Century...

[Dirk Broer]

Based upon the above I do now know for sure I will build myself another Athlon 5350 system, but running Ubuntu -as my present AM1 system is now running 64-bit Win10.

Just ordered a MSI AM1I mobo together with an Athlon 5350 and 16GB of Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2C8G3D1608ET3LX0CEU
This RAM is not only low profile, it's also low power -1.35V-, low latency -CAS latency 8- and, more important, quite affordable.
I use it in my ASUS AM1 mobo too -it even has the matching color for that mobo.

We may soon see a more detailed Ubuntu 15.10 vs Windows 10 BOINC credits comparison....I only need a new iTX case now, I think a new Antec ISK 110 would be best.

[Brucifer]

Your 5350 build up.... heat going to be an issue under full load? Why linux over windows? issues other than cost of the OS? Basicallly this is just an amd nuc?

[Dirk Broer]

Your 5350 build up.... heat going to be an issue under full load? Why linux over windows? issues other than cost of the OS? Basicallly this is just an amd nuc?

Heat: no real issue, as explained in my posting about AM1 aftermarket coolers. The stock AMD cooler is good enough under BOINC, provided the case is well-ventilated, one of the criteria for which I had selected the Antec ISk 110 -besides its external noiseless 90 Watt PSU and the front with four USB 2.0 ports.

Linux: Because I already have a AM1 system running under Windows 10 (with an ASUS AM1I-A) and I want to see what performs best under which OS per project.

It is bigger than a NUC, but in an Antec ISK 110 the total system is really small, even for an iTX system.

My next AM1 system (with an Asrock AM1H-ITX) will have a Bitfenix Prodigy case, which is MUCH roomier.
I will add a 230mm front intake fan and a 140mm outtake/exhaust fan, replacing the two standard 120mm fans, which get relocated to the top position.
We'll see how this compares to the Antec solution, cooling-wise

After that purchase my two 100 Watt TDP FM1 systems (APUs A8-3850 and A8-3870K) will be diverted to the fast reaction force, the systems that will come to my aid in case of a major challenge, milestone and/or much needed new shiny badge.

[Dirk Broer]

New chapter in the AM1 story: AMD has released a new model, the Athlon 5370. It runs a tad faster than the 5350, 2200 MHz vs 2050 MHz.

Unclear to me, at this point, is whether it is made from Jaguar or Puma cores and if it makes use of single or dual channel RAM.
The later would improve the maximum bandwidth to the level that Brasswell/Cherry Trail is capable off and above that of Bay Trail.

CPU-World holds a conservative view of the new SOC and mentiones Jaguar and single-channel.

[NeoGen]

Regarding low power devices (although not as low power as you guys work on) I have an AMD GX-420CA SoC with 16Gb of RAM right now running pfSense as my home firewall, it works awesome and for a home firewall setup I found that it's actually a bit too much because even when I'm pushing on the downloads and uploads the CPU usage doesn't even reach 30%. Maybe one day when internet speeds really switch gears, like in some cities where Google provides 1Gbps speed, then it will be actually put to heavy use.

I am also working on getting my AMD R-464L as my handmade Media Center machine, I've been procrastinating on it for a long time, but I'm planning to load it with OpenELEC and 4 or 8Gb or RAM. In theory that CPU should be able to handle a lot of processing, even on h264 and h265 at 1080p or higher, but I am still to test that once I get off my lazy butt and get it done.

I've seen that AMD has refreshed both G-Series and R-Series with new CPUs since then, but I'm guessing the performance difference is minimal for the usage I put them through so no need to upgrade any time soon. I will however keep an eye out when they refresh them with new 14nm parts, probably sometime 2017 or even later. Those will really make a difference in power draw and heat.

[Dirk Broer]

The Socket FT3 GX-420CA is remarkably like the Socket AM1 Athlon 5350,
of which I have three running BOINC 24/7

[NeoGen]

Wow, they are remarkably very similar indeed, the Athlon 5350 seems like an update of the original GX-420CA, the 5350 was launched almost exactly a year later with extra features added. (And the ability for upgrade, not being soldered on the mobo )