Dedicated Folding Rig

[sheroo]

I've been comtemplating building a dedicated folding rig for a while, but don't really know were to start.

Been looking at 460's on ebay, which seem to go for about £60-70 and output about 10k ppd. However I'm also very conscious about my electricity bill, and that while the 460 route might be good, they may not be the best choice for me. For me the worst thing that I could do would be to build a rig which chewed up the juice and produced a poor ppd total.

So what I wanted to do was try and gather some info about what you guys are doing, what ppd you are getting with what hardware? If you were starting from scratch what would you go for? What would be the best bang for buck (purely in folding terms) and best watts to ppd ratio? And what is the bottom line in terms of electricity costs?

riotcity posted this info in another thread, and I think its a really good starting point - so what do you guys think?

CPUs have been the best ppd/watt for a long time now. GPUs are great performers and can put out lots of points, but they also use a lot more electric.

The best ppd/watt systems are multi-cpu setups, namely an SR-2 with dual Xeon chips or a 4-way 12 core Magny-Cours setup from AMD (48 total cores). Of course, these systems have a much higher initial price than a single CPU or GPU, but once all is said and done nothing can beat these setups in terms of ppd/watt.

Here are some rough and conservative numbers to paint a picture: A 560 Ti uses 170 watts according to nVidia and will average let's say 15,000 ppd. That's 88ppd per watt. We'll disregard the rest of the system to make an even comparison to the CPU.

A 2600k @ 4.5ghz probably uses 120 watts or more. At 35,000ppd that's 292ppd per watt.

In contrast, my SR-2 can put out about 180,000 ppd with the right WU. I would guess at most the system uses 350-400 watts (2 80 Watt Xeon chips overclocked). That's 450ppd per watt.

Of course GPUs still have their place, they are probably the cheapest initial investment to start making a decent ppd right off the bat, and you can add 2 or 3 to a single rig. For me, it was worth the large upfront cost to have a setup that doesn't output much heat (living in Florida this was important).

 

[Firat]

My system = 125ppd/watt

Total watt = ~350-400watt

Total ppd = 50-55k

I7 2600k = 30-35k ppd (4.5ghz)

Gtx 570 stock (750mhz) = ~20k

Hope that helps

Bare in mind my CPU only takes 100 watts according to hwmonitor and my Gpu takes ~200w

So total = 300w rest is other hardware ie pumps, hard drives etc

 

[sheroo]

Would you say that 1 Watt 24/7 365 roughly = £1? Is that a good starting point?

 

[Firat]

Would you say that 1 Watt 24/7 365 roughly = £1? Is that a good starting point?

Assuming my system = 350w. Price per year 24/7 = £370/year And ~ 20 million points/year

= 54k/1 pound

Sounds good! So over a year every pound spent = 54k points

So basically I pay ~ £1/day for 54k points

This calculation is based on 1kwh = 12p (how much I pay)

 

[sheroo]

Assuming my system = 350w. Price per year 24/7 = £370/year And ~ 20 million points/year

= 54k/1 pound

Sounds good! So over a year every pound spent = 54k points

So basically I pay ~ £1/day for 54k points

This calculation is based on 1kwh = 12p (how much I pay)

I've just had a look at my electricity costs and it works out about 12p/unit as well.

 

[riotcity76]

IMO it really comes down to:

GPU - Lowest initial cost / lowest efficiency

CPU - Medium cost / Medium efficiency

Dual CPU - Highest cost / Highest efficiency

Basically, to save more in electricity, you will be spending more up front. It's a balance.

Since most users probably won't be going the dual cpu route, that leaves single CPU vs GPU. You can add multiple GPUs to a rig, but you can't add multiple CPUs without getting a new motherboard, ram, etc. So having multiple single CPU rigs becomes cost prohibitive and won't save you a whole lot in electricity. The best option for most people is probably a SB/SBe CPU running with 1 or 2 560Tis. Adding a 3rd GPU into the mix is an easy way to get more points, but then you really have to start worrying about heat and electric use as you start hitting 700+ watts on a single rig.

Hope that helps.

 

[sheroo]

@riotcity - thanks for crystalising it for me.

I think for me a middle of the road approach is best, and therefore a single CPU setup.

So I've got an matx case, an old 380w PSU, some 1333 DDR3 and loads of fans. If I could keep the electricity costs to say £10/month. That would mean a total system draw of no more than 120W.

Am I right in thinking that 1 stick of ram is fine, or is PPD affected by how much memory you have or dual/single channel speed?

Would a cheapo SSD be best to minimize power draw, or would a hard drive spend most of its time spun down?

What do you think is the best Motherboard & CPU combination that fits with the above to give maximum PPD?

What is the best OS to use?

Sorry for all the questions.

TIA.

EDIT:

Can I use a USB stick as a dedicated OS drive?

 

[kilobravo]

Best os for smp folding is ubuntu linux.And its free,think you even could install it on a usb stick.

 

[sheroo]

Best os for smp folding is ubuntu linux.And its free,think you even could install it on a usb stick.

So does that mean I could just have a usb stick as the only drive in the system? Can you still monitor linux clients from Windows PC's?

 

[riotcity76]

So does that mean I could just have a usb stick as the only drive in the system? Can you still monitor linux clients from Windows PC's?

Yes, I believe you can run it from a USB stick, though I haven't done it personally so I'm not 100% sure on that. It's also very easy to monitor a Linux client using HFM.net.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1601608

That is the best guide I've found and will show you how to run the Linux client step by step. This is the guide I used when setting up.

Yes, memory speed and single/dual/triple channel can matter. By how much, I'm not quite sure. There's a noticeable difference when running the bigbeta units on an SR2, but for regular SMP folding the difference won't be as much.

i7s are the best bet for folding and whatever mobo will let you overclock it a lot.

 

[sheroo]

Cheers for the info - food for thought indeed. Not sure I could climb up that linux learning curve, I'll do a bit more research.

So its lookin' like a 2600K & a decent matx motherboard is the way to go.

 

[kup]

I'm running Linux (Ubuntu 10.10, fastest for Folding, imo) from a USB stick. Works fine.

 

[sheroo]

I'm running Linux (Ubuntu 10.10, fastest for Folding, imo) from a USB stick. Works fine.

So you've got no other drive in the rig at all, and are just using a USB2 stick to load & run Ubuntu? Does the version of Ubuntu matter - what about 11.10?

EDIT:

What size USB stick do you recommend?

 

[riotcity76]

I can't remember why but I've heard not to use 11.10. 11.04 is what I'm using, but really only because it works better with my wireless card.

Regardless, make sure you use the EXT3 filesystem. 11.04 defaults to EXT4 I believe and this has been known to cause some issues.

 

[kilobravo]

Cheers for the info - food for thought indeed. Not sure I could climb up that linux learning curve, I'll do a bit more research.

So its lookin' like a 2600K & a decent matx motherboard is the way to go.

Installing linux from a burned cd is just as easy as windows.Download and burn the image to cd,run cd and you are installing ubuntu.

Installing the smp-client with Terminal is just following the thread from Riots link,and if you have questions we are here to answer.

A 16gb usbstick should be enough.

 

[sheroo]

Hey guys, I'm getting somewhere.

I've been around in circles a few times, but finally got a 64 bit install of Ubuntu 10.10 installed and working. Got the folding client running.

And am monitoring it from my main rig.

So as proof of concept I've got it all working.

In that install guide what does "BFS" refer to, and what does it do? btw this is running on my old Q6600 rig, which is soon to be torn down and sold off.

 

[riotcity76]

Very nice! I'm not really sure what BFS does, but it's recommended for Intel systems so I have it installed on my Ubuntu install.

One thing - you're going to want to add the -smp flag to the F@H install. Right now you have a uniprocessor WU which is why the ppd is so low.

You will also need to put in your passkey so you can start earning the bonus points. Go here to get a passkey, then re-run the F@H configuration (./fah6 - configonly) and put in your passkey and also put in the -smp flag.

Edit: Regarding bonus points: You need to complete 10 smp units with your passkey to start receiving them. You also need to maintain an 80% completion ratio to keep earning the points.

 

[sheroo]

Yeah I noticed the -smp flag and set that before I went to bed last night.

I used a passkey.

It still seems extremely slow? I thought a Q6600 would produce about 3k PPD. The WU I currently have is worth 591 points its been going for 6 hours and has only done 46% - maybe I need to install BFS?

EDIT:

I have installed the BFS, but it still seems really slow, and now the WU is starting again from the beginning

? How do you pause a WU so that you can resume it later? - OK found out it was just me being a noob.

 

[sheroo]

How is this lookin'?

Does it look about right?

 

[Pickster]

How is this lookin'?

Does it look about right?

Yeah that looks alot closer to the mark.

What speed is the Q6600 running at?

Edit:

Also, anyone that knows, what kind of points increase can be expected from folding under Linux?