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Thread: What CPU to use for Seti, and why?

  1. #1
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    What CPU to use for Seti, and why?

    I have left the alphabetical sequence and turned to my first DC project: Seti@Home.

    What CPU to use for Seti, and why? Now that's a question not as easily answered as with pure-CPU projects.
    The stats at the Seti-website show that the top-computers are heavily foreseen from dual-core GPUs and, for what's it worth, foreseen from 64-bit Windows versions.
    Problem is that the Seti-scores for those systems are highly influenced by their GPU-scores as regarded to the total scores of a given system.
    Also, for what's it worth, there is a special Top GPU models ranking list, but that seems to have lost contact with the actually running models in the before mentioned top-5. GeForce GTX 570 is king of the hill in that list, and GTX-580, 590 and 680s are not even mentioned....right, at best these are all-time scores and they are definitely not the recent average credit.
    Note the Bulldozer FX-8150, as first AMD CPU, combined with four GTX-590s (two GTX-590 with two GPUs each of course) at #7 of the Recent Average Credit scores.
    All-time scores are headed by a Phenom II X4 920, combined with an astonishing 8(!) GTX 295 GPUs, which translates as 4 actual GTX 295, each with two GPUs. Could not imagine a mobo with eight PCIe slots myself, but who knows?

    So for more 'clean' stats we have to rely on WuProp, that also might give insight in which GPU gives the best results.
    Seti itself sees four different applications, whereas WuProp sees sixteen -and does not even count Seti@home v7 amongst them-, but I'll give it a try.

    Astropulse v505 aka astropulse_v505
    A dissapointing low number of CPUs were in the WuProp database for this application. As the results stand, it seems to be that the i7 with its 8 or 12 hyperthreaded cores gives the best results per CPU per day, but there is an almost total lack of AMD CPUs to compare them with, and not much Intel data either.

    Astropulse v6 aka astropulse_v6
    Apart from that sole model i7 that outruns the pack with a factor of 100 the results look good. Best AMD CPU in scores both per core as per cpu per day seems to be the six-core FX-6100 (20 to 30% OCd), followed closely by the Phenom II X6 1100 and the Bulldozer FX-8150, while the best performing Intel core was that of the Core 2 Duo Mobile T6400. Best Intel CPU however was the Intel Core i7-970, thanks to its 12 hyperthreaded cores.
    Note that you can buy three FX-6100s for the price of a i7-970, and that three FX-6100s will outperform a i7-970 by a factor of 2. You'd need 3 PSUs to go with the three FX-6100s of course, but I take it that the point is made clear.

    Astropulse-GPU client
    There is not much to compare with each other, as there is at the moment just one nVidia card with data, the GTX 550Ti. That takes 96 minutes to complete a WU, while the best Ati/AMD card in the data -the HD 6970- takes 33 minutes. But let's wait for data for the GTX 590 before we jump to conclusions

    Seti@home Enhanced aka setiathome_enhanced
    The 8-core Bulldozers may not have the top-scores per core for AMD (though they come pretty close), the fact that you can multiply that score with eight makes them the best AMD cpus for this application. With a daily score of 5k to 8k credits they can hold their own against the i5-2500/2500K, but have to bow for the i7-2600/2600K, the two best performing Intel consumer chips.
    The per core score of the relatively cheap (just had a price cut bring it under $100) AMD Llano A8-3870K surprises in a positive way (Who does not remember the Llano reviews complaining about an old and underperforming cpu coupled with good graphics?) Insanely good results have been reported for the 24 hyperthreaded cores of the Intel Xeon X5650, but who can afford such a beast?

    Seti@home enhanced GPU clients
    In general the higher Fermi models score better, but a card as the Radeon HD 5770 holds its own against the far more expensive (both purchase and 24/7 running) nVidia models and completes a WU in a mere 5.4 minutes.


  2. #2
    You already check this site ?
    http://lunatics.kwsn.net/index.php
    Greetz,
    Chris


  3. #3
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    Yes, I do know of them! Some day soon, when Moo! and Collatz have ran out of objectives,
    I'll crank up my Seti Score with one of their applications on my Llano board.


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    You have left the alphabetical sequence.................????? What in specific are you referring too? lol, just dense I guess. At first I thought maybe you meant boinc, but then that would kill off seti@home, which is boinc. I liked seti back in the beginning. Then Berkely was going to save the world and did the boinc thing. Been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Myself, I find myself returning to the ogr thing. One of the big drivers is that linux works just great for it. Unfortunately for linux though the gpu apps aren't as optimized as the windows stuff. But probably the major reason for me is that as I entered the realm of the retired, the money for the hobby became more of an issue. And that hits seti in a coupe of areas, one because they actively solicit funds from participants now which they didn't in the early days, and secondly and more importantly is that for the point conscious crowd it requires gpu's and boinc and windows for the highly optimized stuff and thus it takes more bucks to participate than just running a multi-core linux system on something like ogr for me.

    But I'm glad to see that you are happy with your hobby and have found your "true calling" in the distributed computing world! And that is a sincere heartfelt comment, not snide in any way shape or form. I too, totally enjoy my crunching world, and my computer stuff is always what I return to for the most enjoyment..... however I'm doing the budget version of it all nowdays! lol Have a good day there Dirk, and I enjoyed your initial comment in this thread as it brought a smile of long ago happy times crunching seti to my face!! :-)

  5. #5
    AMDave's Avatar
    AMDave is offline Seeker of the exit clause Moderator
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    Brucifer can only take one more step to Nirvana --->Install a OGR cruncher in the Jeep with roaming network access. ummm. Hang-on a second. That's the laptop. Silly me. He's already there! :P
    . . . . . ___
    . . . . . . .\___/\______
    . . . . . . . \__AMD___\\__
    ---------------------------------------------

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Dirk Broer View Post
    Yes, I do know of them! Some day soon, when Moo! and Collatz have ran out of objectives,
    I'll crank up my Seti Score with one of their applications on my Llano board.
    It's not for GPU apps only, they have optimized CPU apps also... up to 2 times faster than stock apps.
    Greetz,
    Chris


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