I got my stream going................. Pun intended, I know, I know, very sic humor.

Anyway, on with the story. I noticed yesterday that distributed.net had released a 32-bit windows stream client for beta8. So I broke down this morning and raided my coin jar where I put all my pocket change every evening. And there was enough in there to go out and buy an ATI (AMD) Stream card. Unfortunately the store was out of the 48xx that I wanted, so I ended up having to settle for a Radeon HD 4650. I figured that it would suffice to get my interest in the effort whetted a teensy weensy bit. All my other stuff is cuda. So I was curious as to how the Stream stuff would compare on a few levels. As for ease of installation. I'm running XP Professional on this system. So the first thing I did was download the beta8 stream client. Then I went and did a google on ATI Stream, and lo and behold there was a "suite" of stuff from ATI so I downloaded that. Then I replaced the cuda card (and put that in an XP-64 system) and then installed the 4650. Fired the system off, and clicked on the "suite" and let the installation go forward. Afterwards a note popped up and said that I needed .NET 2.x installed. So I went to MS and downloaded the latest .NET and installed that, along with a security update or two....

Then I installed the stream beta client. Fired that off in config and put in an email addy, and aimed it at my internal perproxy server. Then I rant the -bench util to see how the timings went. On the plus side, the client picked the correct default core for speed, however there were only 2 to pick from. LOL Then I fired the client off. It takes 24 secs per work unit, and I'm only running single work units at the moment. For comparison's sake and not to get into a cuda vs stream war here, a cuda 2.2 client on a 9800 GTX+ PNY mfr cardtakes 21 secs per unit. They are fairly close together. The cuda one does better on no screen lag when using the system while crunching. The ATI lags noticably, but not to the point where the system can't be used for stuff like forum typing, etc. The ATI was $129 and the cuda one was 147 out the door tax included.

So at this point it's pretty much a wash between the two cards. The ATI is a few bux cheaper and is fine for a cruncher system. Where the ATI card does better is that it doesn't need power plugged into the card. It is totally quiet and isn't giving off much heat at all. The cuda card is much larger and requires the additional power plug. I do have to say that I am impressed with the little ATI card though as the installation went flawless. Of course it isn't going to be flawless on linux............. but then the cuda cards aren't either cause with either you are playing the kernel compile game with SDK's and all. Performance wise they run the same really. So what do you gain with linux? Savings on the cost of the O/S is about it. With the beta game that distributed.net is going through working on the clients, the windows method is much much simpler for doing the GPU thing as far as RC5.

The larger ATI cards (which I would have bought a larger one but the store was out and I needed instant gratification) do much much better on speed. So after going through the installation on this one, I won't have any hesitation on spending the bucks for a higher end ATI when my pocketbook allows again.

But my main thing in posting this is that it is an AMD GPU card, and since this is the AMD users forum, it is nice to finally see AMD getting into the real world in the GPU thing for doing work and not just the gaming thing.
So if I didn't have to pay state sales tax here, the card was $119 at the local Best Buy, and cheaper at NewEgg. So if you have a hankering to get into playing with ATI stream on RC5, this is a relatively inexpensive way to go. This card does better than a GeForce 9800 GT by 4 seconds per work unit. So anyway, as far as distributed.net, ATI is in the game with cuda.