GPU clients

[Brucifer]

I have been looking at some of the discussion of the GPU issues and experimentation on the PS3Grid thread. And I'm assuming rightly or wrongly that those are all centered around the windows boinc world? I read with interest Bender10's comments on power adjustment loading on his home network by taking crunchers offline after adding GPU's.

Distributed.net shows a nvida GPU client for 64-bit linux. At present it is only working on rc5-72. I have never tried running a GPU client on any project. Don't even have a compatible GPU. Bluntly, I'm totally ignorant on the gpu scene period. Thus, I really don't have any idea where to begin on this. It would be nice if someone that has been playing around with the gpu's has tried the distributed.net client. Lacking that, could someone that is not at clueless as I on the subject take a look at the distributed.net download page for the beta stuff related to the CUDA beta client and then offer a bit of advice. Like what graphic card to get for starters... not the top of the line mind you, but a decently constructed card that is going to be able to handle the generated heat. Or if heat is going to be a concern, what mods for cooling the card need to be taken into account. Supposedly, there is supposed to be a pretty substantial gain in output from the cuda client.

And then that begs the questions related to is it worth while to do it rather than run standard quads, or put the bucks into a PS3 and go that route. Anyone playing with both the PS3 and cuda??

[Bender10]

The PS3 is a solid performer (I have 2). But with the addition of CUDA and GPU's, it's performance for PS3grid is only average. It does 1 wu every 20-23 hours, compared to the output of an 8800GT (~15 hours). $300 for a PS3 (~140 watts), and $100 for a 8800GT (maybe 100 watts).

The Ps3 does pretty good on dnet clients, as IronBits will tell you. It seems to do ok on OGR-NG (I have 1 PS3 on that now), similar to OGR-25

Until we find someone running dnet on a GPU, (to get some indepth info from) you are kinda stuck...

[Bender10]

!!HOLY CRAP!!

I just fired up my *nix 64 GPU box on RC5-72...

It is running 470 Mkeys/s...Is that a lot??

[Brucifer]

yeah that is just rocking right along for one system.

So could you give me a blow by blow of what you did, what you loaded, etc. It's impressive enough that I'll spend the bucks to do it.

If you run that hummer for four hours, tell me how many work units you complete on that system if you don't mind. Then I can do some comparisons. The mnodes per sec thing is good for the tekkies I guess, but in my old mind I go by work unit count on rc5. The other thing that would be nice to know is what wattage PS you are running, and if you have a power meter, what is the power consumption in watts of that system when it is running the cuda client on rc5....

edit: Also are you running Xwindows or in text mode? And if you are using X, it the gpu providing graphics for the system too, or do you have another card doing that?

[Bender10]

Yeah,

I guess jumped in with a number too fast, anyway...

To make a better test of it, I suspended the PS3grid wu's, to take the extra load off the GPU's. Boinc is still running, Just no GPU tasks.

The 'work-o-meter' in the Dnet client went down from 470 Mkeys/s to a steady 225 Mkeys/s, with 2 GPU tasks crunching.

The 'work-o-meter' has started to go up again, with the GPU tasks suspended. Right now it is at 270 Mkeys/s and climbing. This setup is completing ~50 packets (points??) every 5 minutes. I'll keep track for a couple of hours to get a better idea.

I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 64bit (Xwindows), 660 watt ps, Evga 9800GX2, "kill-o-watt" meter says: 320 watts. That is running Boinc (4 boinc wu's, 2 PS3grid wu's) and RC5-72.

[Brucifer]

This setup is completing ~50 packets (points??) every 5 minutes. I'll keep track for a couple of hours to get a better idea.

I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 64bit (Xwindows), 660 watt ps, Evga 9800GX2, "kill-o-watt" meter says: 320 watts. That is running Boinc (4 boinc wu's, 2 PS3grid wu's) and RC5-72.

Holy crap..... are you really serious here? 50 units every 5 minutes???? Like 600 an hour????? 14,400 a day???? That isn't fast, that is phenomenal. That is just totally unbelieveable

[Bender10]

I guess so. I've done ~1,180 packets since I started this test a couple of hours ago.

And part of that time, the RC5 client was sharing the GPU's with the PS3grid wu's. I still need to find out how much the GPU wu's slow down when running with the Rc5 client...

[Brucifer]

At that production rate you shouldn't even waste the time of running rc5 on the cpu cores cause there just isn't any comparison between the two. Run your boinc stuff on the cpu cores for projects that aren't supported with the gpu.

Well, no doubt about it, I've got to go out and buy a graphics card now. Also need to get a stout PS too. So basically for a dedicated rc5 cruncher, all one needs is a system that will support the graphics card and a good ps and just let that rock on. Don't need quads or anything fancy really. Get three or four of those bugger running and shut the other stuff down to conserve power, and there would be some ferocious rc5 crunching.

I guess the question is how long those cards will run like that before they self destruct????

[Bender10]

This is ONLY a TEST. I'm only doing this because you got me curious. Not sure where I will go with this.

Also, My output is DOUBLE what a normal nVidia 9800 would be.

I have a 9800GX2....

2 GPU's on 1 double width card. It uses ~160 watts all on it's own.

About the life span. Keep 'em cool, and they should last. A single 8800GT/9800GT is only ~$100-$120, If yo look for a deal.

[Brucifer]

How much noise does the card make??? How much did the card cost?