I'm switching teams.

[mihapiha]

Hello everybody


I've been folding quite a while. Usually on and off for a few months. But since I'm an enthusiast when it comes to computer hardware, I always made a few more points in a few months than most people do in a year.

This time I've been folding for about 4 months straight without any changes what so ever. In my Team I cannot catch much ground anymore and looking at the stats is not that much fun anymore. Basically I don't really care anymore where I fold and where I am in the rankings.

Until I find a buyer for my folding farm, the folding farm will remain folding though. In a year or so when I get motivated in terms of folding again, I might get myself a new rig. For the time being I am considering switching teams.

My F@H-Stats so far; And I was thinking helping you guys out gain a few places in the rankings.

My folding farm produces about 430k PPD on average with P8101 WUs, 480k PPD with P6101 WUs and about 680k PPD with P8102 and P8103 WUs. I haven't gotten any other big WUs in the last couple of months to compare.

But I guess after this stat will give you an idea what the folding farm produces.

In about 12h the current P8103 WU will finish and then I'll switch teams. I will leave my computer folding here for at least a week because I'll be abroad and unable to change anything ^_^.

I think I've mentioned everything on my mind except what I'm folding with. The folding farm is a Server based quad-socket platform. The Supermicro H8QGi+-F motherboard supports overclocking of Opteron 6100 generation CPUs in Linux with a cracked bios. That's the reason I went with the 6100 generation CPUs. The bios also supports XMP if the memory you use has that. So my folding farm has 4x Opteron 6180 SE CPUs (stock 2.5 GHz) @ 2.75 GHz. The memory is running at 1173 MHz at CL7 7-7-21 timings. I put the minimum amount of memory into the rig, which due to quad channel and 4 CPUs happen to be 32 GB. The four Noctua cooler keep the CPUs nice and cold, and further OC is hindered due to overvoltage problem of the error-prone mosfet on the motherboard. It's just not made for overvoltaging

The folding farm consumes about 700W while folding and idles at 400W, by the off chance somebody is curious about that.

This part is important:
I do offer the possibility of renting my folding farm. It would remain at my place and continue folding. The only thing I'd change is username and passkey. But if I'm folding for someone else I'm not paying the power consumption of that thing. But I take care that it runs the agreed upon time. I was thinking of 30 Euro on weekly bases (which would result on 3 million points or 4 million if we get loads of P8102/P8103 WUs) or 100 for the entire month.

If there is somebody willing to actually buy this thing off me here, do PM me. But this is not a sales-topic and sale won't be discussed here

Here a picture of the rig:

I'm looking forward in folding in this team for a while

 

[alienware]

So basically it runs 48 overclocked cores?

Impressive ! but can it run Minecraft? :lol:

 

[mihapiha]

So basically it runs 48 overclocked cores?

Impressive ! but can it run Minecraft? :lol:

Actually no.

I tried getting a 4870 to run with that rig, and it just wouldn't work. The Windows Server 2012 drivers are really limited. I couldn't get any 3D application running thusfar. But I haven't put that much effort into it anyhow.

The onboard graphic card will do 1280x1024. But nothing higher...

 

[Kidbest100]

OMG... What a beast 0.0

 

[mihapiha]

OMG... What a beast 0.0

It indeed is. To my knowledge it is one of the fastest single systems for F@H purposes. I hear the client is limited to 64 cores or so anyways. But maybe the information I got is wrong. I think I read about that in a quad socket Xeon review which used 10 core CPUs. If my memory serves me right, HT would result in 80 threads, and the client couldn't handle that. So for this padrticular purpose it's as far as you pretty much could go...

 

[SPS]

crazy

 

[remember300]

why not fold cos your folding does it matter on a team you could be making a change to someones life ...
but that is a crazy rig

 

[SnW]

why not fold cos your folding does it matter on a team you could be making a change to someones life ...
but that is a crazy rig

So did mine,
but sometimes a situation forces you to STOP

BTW i don't really get this thread ,
are you or are you not going to fold ?

 

[mihapiha]

I had no idea I was unclear.

The rig will continue to fold until I can find a buyer. In an hour or so the first WU for this team will get finished (about 400k).

Then I found already someone who wants to rent it. So it will continue to fold for this team, but not under my username. Someone else will skyrocket the stats of this team this week.

The user renting the folding farm has the option of remaining quiet and to be a surprise. If he wants to, he'll post himself anyways

 

[tinytomlogan]

Good to have you helping the team dude

 

[mihapiha]

One more Benchmark I thought I'd share with you guys:

It's a tight fit in that case:

 

[yassarikhan786]

This is fantastic for the team, nice one dude

 

[stevehat1]

Welocome to the team, I see that the first WU has been credited.

 

[iBeInspire]

How much did a monster like this cost to build..?
Also, props on all the lives you will potentially save - that is what folding's about right..?

 

[mihapiha]

How much did a monster like this cost to build..?
Also, props on all the lives you will potentially save - that is what folding's about right..?

It cost me about 4000 Euro. I was lucky to get the CPUs from a friend in America for a real steal. Otherwise it's no way I could have gotten this type of a system under 7000. Them CPUs still cost a bloody fortune in Europe. They're at 1500 Euro a piece.

Folding to me is also about fun. And I consider myself an hardware enthusiast. Any reason I can find to build a sick rig, I take. :lol:

 

[mihapiha]

Although the folding farm is merely folding small SMP WUs I think by now it got obvious who rented the folding farm. But don't worry. By the end of next week the first big WUs will be folded for this team

 

[mihapiha]

I'm quite surprised that this topic died. I was expecting more of a conversation, especially since I'm the teams only quad-socket folder (or at least I think I am). I know my folding farm has been active for this team for barely two weeks now, but still I thought people would comment or ask questions or something.

The next WU should finish in a few hours (probably in about 7h) with the next 410k point granate and by then the average PPD should reach the anticipated level of around 430k PPD I promised in my first post here. By know it's rather obvious that rhodrykorb is renting my folding farm. He is now the teams top producer and since I'm getting a lot of good WUs the PPD should even continue to rise. Hopefully it will peak in the 500k PPD neighborhood.

 

[Pickster]

Don't take it personally, the folding forum is home of a slow trickle of posts.

I believe you are correct in that you are the only quad socket folder, and who ever the points are credited to, the team is happy to have them

 

[sheroo]

Haven't posted on this topic, but have been keeping a keen eye on the 4p's progress. It has sparked me to do lots of research on 4p systems, and if I had the funds that's the way I would go, as the ppd/watt ratio seems to be about the best there is atm.

So how much noise does it create, and how much does it pull from the wall? Are you using a HAF 932 to house it? Did you have to tap some extra standoffs? Are you using the OC bios available? Do you think you could squeeze any more performance by changing the memory to 1600 as apparently it is supported with the new bios?

 

[mihapiha]

Haven't posted on this topic, but have been keeping a keen eye on the 4p's progress. It has sparked me to do lots of research on 4p systems, and if I had the funds that's the way I would go, as the ppd/watt ratio seems to be about the best there is atm.

So how much noise does it create, and how much does it pull from the wall? Are you using a HAF 932 to house it? Did you have to tap some extra standoffs? Are you using the OC bios available? Do you think you could squeeze any more performance by changing the memory to 1600 as apparently it is supported with the new bios?

Now that's more like it :lol: I'll answer your questions one paragraph at a time

It creates as much noise as the fans you put in there. I have my Noctua fans running at 12V because the folding farm is in another room. But if you took a little time in tweaking to the right voltage, I'm sure the system would be inaudible. Especially since the reported "load" temperatures I've seen so far were in the low to mid 40s. I think even mid 50s 24/7 should be alright. Most people don't even use the powerful Noctua NH-U12DO A3 coolers but rather mod the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. I'm not the modder although I hear the mods are minor to make that cooler fit on the G34 socket.

The system pulls around 650W from the wall if everything runs stock. Depending on the WU it can go up or down by like 30W, but most of the time I'd see 650W. Because of the 10% overclock, the consumption overall jumped to a 700W average. Now these are primarily the big WUs (6901, 8101 - 8103). I monitor the consumption of the folding farm pretty regularily and I haven't seen any shifts so far. The 700W value stays pretty flat.

The Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced is one of the desktop cases which can actually fit this huge motherboard. It would fit into the Corsair 800D/700D as well. The important thing is, that it can handle an eATX for factor and has another 10 or 11 cm on the top. The cases have to be modded to fit or mount the motherboard though. In my case I had to bend two support standoffs for the second power supply:

These were all the modification I did to the case. I used cable ties to tighten the support of the motherboard. Behind the memory I put some cardboard so the motherboard would remain straight and not bend under the load of the CPU coolers.

I use the newest cracked BIOS. So the OC is available. The performance is limited to the luck of the silicon lottery. And since it's 4 CPUs it's even less likely to get a high OC. One CPU could be holding back the rest. A 10 to 15% overclock on the CPUs is realistic. But only Opteron 6100 CPUs are supported. Overvoltaging would be possible to further increase the overclock, but the mosfet on the motherboard can't take it. You'd need additional cooling for the mosfet to avoid it's premature death.

1600 MHz memory is supported now with XMP profiles with the bios I have installed. The important thing is though, that the memory modules must be low voltage memory (1.5V max.). If this gives much of a performance boost I don't know. I am running now at 1173 MHz (due to the 10% OC) at CL7. I tried overclocking the memory by using the higher frequency and lower timings of 1466 MHz CL9. Since it wasn't stable and I didn't see much of a difference in the TPF, I kinda switched to stable setting back pretty quickly. The difference either way is quite small though. If you're buying a new setup, maybe look for 1600 MHz memory with CL7. The lower the timings the better the Folding@Home performance. 5 Seconds on the TPF with these WUs makes quite a few thousand PPD difference.

I think it's even more important to have an SSD and a fast internet connection though. Even though I'm sitting on 30 MBits down and 5 MBits up, the transmitting of WUs takes about 15 minutes. Without the SSD the process is considerably slower. 5 minutes here can make equalize the memory difference.