# Best PC For Folding?



## T4C Fantasy (Jun 9, 2012)

lets say you know exactly what you are doing where you are the type of person that can get the most out of cheaper parts compared to people who buy the best and get less performance, but instead you buy the best parts.... what system can get the most PPD in a day examples would be nice... like a system with 2x Xeon E5-2690's and 4x GTX580s?

edit: also this is best case scenario which means you know the best cooling solution and most efficient overclock


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## Disparia (Jun 9, 2012)

Any rules for this hypothetical system?

I think the biggest single system that someone could build themselves would be an 8-way 10C/20T E7 Xeon and 8 GPUs. Of course, at $55-60K it wouldn't very cost efficient.


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## Aquinus (Jun 9, 2012)

Depends on your budget. Can you set some constraints?


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## MoonPig (Jun 9, 2012)

1x Asus Z9PE-D8 WS
2x Intel Xeon E5-2690
7x GTX 680 2GB 
2x Enermax Platimax 1500W 

All watercooled on afew separate loops. You're looking a £8,000


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## Aquinus (Jun 9, 2012)

MoonPig said:


> 1x Asus Z9PE-D8 WS
> 2x Intel Xeon E5-2690
> 7x GTX 680 2GB
> 2x Enermax Platimax 1500W
> ...



You know, I think AMD G34 16-core Interlagos would provide more power for a lower price. Folding can actually utilize a 16-core processor, then just get two or four of them if you find a good board. 600-series nVidia cards aren't super powerful when it comes to compute power, it might be worth it to go with GTX 580s or 7970s instead.


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## MoonPig (Jun 9, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> You know, I think AMD G34 16-core Interlagos would provide more power for a lower price. Folding can actually utilize a 16-core processor, then just get two or four of them if you find a good board. 600-series nVidia cards aren't super powerful when it comes to compute power, it might be worth it to go with GTX 580s or 7970s instead.



To be honest, i haven't followed Folding in a good year or so. Just going by what would seem right


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## BarbaricSoul (Jun 9, 2012)

yeah, the 7970 is much better at GPGPU than the GTX680 with it's GK104 gpu. When Nvidia releases it's GK110 gpu, we'll have a GTX600, or maybe GTX700 card that is a GPGPU beast. Until then, you are are much better off using the 7970 or GTX580.


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## MoonPig (Jun 9, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> yeah, the 7970 is much better at GPGPU than the GTX680 with it's GK104 gpu. When Nvidia releases it's GK110 gpu, we'll have a GTX600, or maybe GTX700 card that is a GPGPU beast. Until then, you are are much better off using the 7970 or GTX580.



Oh right, i thought AMD were still pants at the whole folding thing.

So, an AMD Opteron with AMD GPUs is actually better now?


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## bob80 (Jun 9, 2012)

You could also buy a server designed for GPGPU computing...Or a 4 socket server with 10c/20t CPU.

Of course It would cost a lot.


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## Feänor (Jun 9, 2012)

The absolute best single pc would be something like this:http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/5U/5086/SYS-5086B-TRF.cfm

80 core/160 threads, but probably over 100k$, and good luck powering this thing 24/7!

If you're talking about ppd/w or ppd/$, nothing can beat a 4p opteron rig. You can build one for under 3000$ and get over 300k ppd while consuming around 500w.

No gpu can get close to those numbers, and the cpu cycle they use will lower the ppd production of the smp client by a lot more than ppd the gpu(s) can produce. So even if your quad socket g34 motherboard has 5 pci-e slots, don't bother filling them. For the price of 5 gtx 580, you can build another rig!


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## Disparia (Jun 9, 2012)

^ That's what I had in mind when talking about an 8-way Xeon system earlier. You can build one up for about $55-$60K. $9,900 for the barebones unit, $37,000 for the CPUs, and the rest for RAM, drive, GPUs, etc.

I've been away from the FAH scene awhile so I haven't been keeping up with the numbers, but after a few PPD googles it looks like GPU would bring in more PPD than they would steal from SMP?

Just thinking from a single-system top PPD perspective - dedicated some cores for 100,000 PPD from 4 x GTX590. For power and cost... more 4P systems instead of GPU would be better.


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## Aquinus (Jun 9, 2012)

Jizzler said:


> ^ That's what I had in mind when talking about an 8-way Xeon system earlier. You can build one up for about $55-$60K. $9,900 for the barebones unit, $37,000 for the CPUs, and the rest for RAM, drive, GPUs, etc.
> 
> I've been away from the FAH scene awhile so I haven't been keeping up with the numbers, but after a few PPD googles it looks like GPU would bring in more PPD than they would steal from SMP?
> 
> Just thinking from a single-system top PPD perspective - dedicated some cores for 100,000 PPD from 4 x GTX590. For power and cost... more 4P systems instead of GPU would be better.



Have you ever folded on 32-64 x86 cores? I'm sure the PPD per 16-core opteron isn't too bad and the cost of an interlagos chip is only around 600 USD per CPU, unlike Intel's 8-core Xeon which starts at 1,300 USD. So for the price of one 8c/16t xeon you could have 32c/32t AMD server setup. Folding loves more cores. People don't realize how powerful 8 BD modules are on Interlagos for transactional and parallel computing. It's also more cost effective than the Xeon counterparts.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 9, 2012)

i realize a server would be the best way to go for folding, most likely the most efficient aswel, i see someone on the tpu team with only like 10 work units with 2 million points?

User         Points     WU
F150_Raptor  22957105  158  
Mydog  5107296  35
 Matthew-3770K  482210  229  <-- me


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jun 9, 2012)

im toying with the idea of a 5p hive, but a 4 socket AMD server pc with 32 cores cant be beat for price /performance at folding or performance per watt afaik but imho a  quad of 7970s must do some points in, and would deffinately get way more work units done so by a work done metric Quad 7970's (no cpu client running to hamper them) beats all.
but for ppd the 4p wins ah im daydreaming again.

Raptors got some mean folding/crunching gear im sure he has a 4p but did have an SR2 dual xeon or two before , might be wrong


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 9, 2012)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> im toying with the idea of a 5p hive, but a 4 socket AMD server pc with 32 cores cant be beat for price /performance at folding or performance per watt afaik but imho a  quad of 7970s must do some points in, and would deffinately get way more work units done so by a work done metric Quad 7970's (no cpu client running to hamper them) beats all.
> but for ppd the 4p wins ah im daydreaming again.
> 
> Raptors got some mean folding/crunching gear im sure he has a 4p but did have an SR2 dual xeon or two before , might be wrong



what about mydog
mydog somehow averages 145922 points per work unit rofl

which is more then rapters 145298 average


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## Disparia (Jun 9, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Have you ever folded on 32-64 x86 cores? I'm sure the PPD per 16-core opteron isn't too bad and the cost of an interlagos chip is only around 600 USD per CPU, unlike Intel's 8-core Xeon which starts at 1,300 USD. So for the price of one 8c/16t xeon you could have 32c/32t AMD server setup. Folding loves more cores. People don't realize how powerful 8 BD modules are on Interlagos for transactional and parallel computing. It's also more cost effective than the Xeon counterparts.



No, back when I had that many cores most were working towards WCG, with a dual-quad Mac Pro keeping my TPU FAH badge visible.

As for the rest of your post, we're in agreement. The Xeon example was for a top-PPD producer without consideration of cost or power consumed using obtainable parts. (One that I could only roughly guess the PPD of, maybe 600-700K?) However, for the cost of this system, (17) 4P Opteron systems could be built, yielding over 5 million PPD. A hugely better deal for sure


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 9, 2012)

Jizzler said:


> No, back when I had that many cores most were working towards WCG, with a dual-quad Mac Pro keeping my TPU FAH badge visible.
> 
> As for the rest of your post, we're in agreement. The Xeon example was for a top-PPD producer without consideration of cost or power consumed using obtainable parts. (One that I could only roughly guess the PPD of, maybe 600-700K?) However, for the cost of this system, (17) 4P Opteron systems could be built, yielding over 5 million PPD. A hugely better deal for sure



what about 8x single slot gtx590s? that would be a ridiculous amount of ppd


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## Aquinus (Jun 10, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> what about 8x single slot gtx590s? that would be a ridiculous amount of ppd



Find a 4P mobo that can handle that... That is a lot of PCI-E for any machine, even an eATX board. Keep in mind that 64 x86 cores are more flexible and will still enable you to run a real server. Runnng a ton of video cards for OpenGL limits what the entire rig can do. I can tell you that a 64 core server would make a hell of a OLAP database server. Just keep in mind that what ever you make is going to be a lot of horse power and would be unwise to strictly dedicate it to folding. You're looking at designing a monster, not a folder (which I totally dig).


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 10, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Find a 4P mobo that can handle that... That is a lot of PCI-E for any machine, even an eATX board. Keep in mind that 64 x86 cores are more flexible and will still enable you to run a real server. Runnng a ton of video cards for OpenGL limits what the entire rig can do. I can tell you that a 64 core server would make a hell of a OLAP database server. Just keep in mind that what ever you make is going to be a lot of horse power and would be unwise to strictly dedicate it to folding. You're looking at designing a monster, not a folder (which I totally dig).



yeah but i would like a Monster Folder.... its for a good cause.. who cares about the electricity bill lol, the gpu thing limiting the entire pc? wouldnt that be false if you get a dedicated PSU for each video card?

edit: aka yes i mean getting 9 psus for 1 folding machine haha


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## Aquinus (Jun 10, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> yeah but i would like a Monster Folder.... its for a good cause.. who cares about the electricity bill lol, the gpu thing limiting the entire pc? wouldnt that be false if you get a dedicated PSU for each video card?
> 
> edit: aka yes i mean getting 9 psus for 1 folding machine haha



Might as well build a mini-cluster. Get a rack and fill it up!


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 10, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Might as well build a mini-cluster. Get a rack and fill it up!



while everyones input is very useful and could do a little more researching... i think its going way to far from the thread topic.... Best "PC" for folding hehe... reason why i said 2 xeons is because although they are server cpus... extremely wealthy gamers have 2x cpu gaming rigs so i would still see it as a personal computer and not a personal server lol.


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## Aquinus (Jun 10, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> extremely weathly gamers have 2x cpu gaming rigs so i would still see it as a personal computer and not a personal server lol.



That's only because they're trying to increase the length of their e-peen and don't realize that dual-cpus don't actually help games. In fact unless it's scheduled properly. Server CPUs result in decreased game performance because server CPUs are clocked lower and used shared memory between two CPUs which requires on CPU to access the other's memory using QPI which results in higher latency and straight up suffers in single threaded processes.

Honestly, if you want a parallelism work-horse, you're making a server, not a workstation and if you're making a workstation, you're not using Xeons or Opterons unless your workloads are highly parallel.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 10, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> That's only because they're trying to increase the length of their e-peen and don't realize that dual-cpus don't actually help games. In fact unless it's scheduled properly. Server CPUs result in decreased game performance because server CPUs are clocked lower and used shared memory between two CPUs which requires on CPU to access the other's memory using QPI which results in higher latency and straight up suffers in single threaded processes.
> 
> Honestly, if you want a parallelism work-horse, you're making a server, not a workstation and if you're making a workstation, you're not using Xeons or Opterons unless your workloads are highly parallel.



so.. its like saying.. Gamer: look at me i have 2 cocks but  each of them consume eachothers sperm so the load is insufficient!.


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## Aquinus (Jun 10, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> so.. its like saying.. Gamer: look at me i have 2 cocks but  each of them consume eachothers sperm so the load is insufficient!.



No, it's more like saying "I have 4 balls instead of 2 so I have twice the amount of sperm" when the regular amount will get a women pregnant just as well.


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## T4C Fantasy (Jun 10, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> No, it's more like saying "I have 4 balls instead of 2 so I have twice the amount of sperm" when the regular amount will get a women pregnant just as well.



lol thats the way the cookie crumbles...


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## Feänor (Jun 10, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> yeah but i would like a Monster Folder.... its for a good cause.. who cares about the electricity bill lol, the gpu thing limiting the entire pc?



Ïf you want to fold seriously, then cpu folding is the way to go. SMP units have a exponential bonus system for points (the faster you finish a work unit, the higher the bonus added to base points will be) and the gpu units don't. 

When i leave my i7 970 folding alone, it nets my around 42000 ppd. Adding a gpu drop the smp output to 35k. Adding a second gpu gets me 30-32k for the cpu and 15-17k per gpu. So yes you're right, the gpu ppd will compensate for the cpu loss. BUT, that is when folding regular SMP units. 4p systems using linux fold very special work units, called "bigadv". The bonus points on those are HUGE and as the gpu you install add points in a linear way, the bonus points will drop exponentially. So for this specific case, no it is not a good option.

If you want to have yourself a monster folder, get a rack, multiple 4p g34 motherboard to fill it, MANY 12-cores magny-cours cpu (they are a little better at folding than interlagos), 4 stick of ram per cpu (try to get the best timings possible for ddr3-1333 ram) and a gold or platinum 600-700w psu. Install linux and follow one of the many good linux folding guide to optimise your rigs.

You may want to pm buck nasty or bogmali, they have a lot of experience with folding and can give you good advice.


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## mstenholm (Jun 10, 2012)

Feanor said:


> The absolute best single pc would be something like this:http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/5U/5086/SYS-5086B-TRF.cfm
> 
> 80 core/160 threads, but probably over 100k$, and good luck powering this thing 24/7!
> 
> ...



Right on in both posts.


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## thebluebumblebee (Jun 11, 2012)

Feanor said:


> Ïf you want to fold seriously, then cpu folding is the way to go. SMP units have a exponential bonus system for points (the faster you finish a work unit, the higher the bonus added to base points will be) and the gpu units don't.
> 
> When i leave my i7 970 folding alone, it nets my around 42000 ppd. Adding a gpu drop the smp output to 35k. Adding a second gpu gets me 30-32k for the cpu and 15-17k per gpu. So yes you're right, the gpu ppd will compensate for the cpu loss. BUT, that is when folding regular SMP units. 4p systems using linux fold very special work units, called "bigadv". The bonus points on those are HUGE and as the gpu you install add points in a linear way, the bonus points will drop exponentially. So for this specific case, no it is not a good option.
> 
> ...



Well said.  Gaming and Folding PC's have two different purposes in life, so don't confuse the two.  As for electricity, it IS the number one cost with Folding and the 4P G34 rig is the best PPD/watt.  You can beat the AMD PPD with an Intel rig, but the cost goes through the roof as mentioned before.
(I'm not back yet, just had to respond to the mis-information in this thread)


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 1, 2012)

Now with all the high end systems explored, what would be a good entry level system for someone just starting out with crunching on a very tight budget? A single cpu socket board type system and single graphics card. Why I ask is that I maybe considering giving folding@home a go for awhile.


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## [Ion] (Sep 1, 2012)

ThE_MaD_ShOt said:


> Now with all the high end systems explored, what would be a good entry level system for someone just starting out with crunching on a very tight budget? A single cpu socket board type system and single graphics card. Why I ask is that I maybe considering giving folding@home a go for awhile.



You can score used GTX460s for just under $100, and they'll do about 13-15k PPD each.  If you threw one in each of your WCG rigs, that wouldn't be too expensive and would give great PPD (although GTX460s do draw close to 150w each).


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 1, 2012)

Hmm thats actually doable. What if I wanted to commit 1 full rig to Folding? Say like my 4400+ considering it is a Sli capable board? Would I drop 2 460's in it and run them in Sli and also use the cpu? I actually have another system in the works to replace that one for crunching.


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## [Ion] (Sep 1, 2012)

ThE_MaD_ShOt said:


> Hmm thats actually doable. What if I wanted to commit 1 full rig to Folding? Say like my 4400+ considering it is a Sli capable board? Would I drop 2 460's in it and run them in Sli and also use the cpu? I actually have another system in the works to replace that one for crunching.



Don't run them in SLI, FAH works best when there's a separate instance running on each GPU.  You could run SMP on the CPU as well, but it would do ~10-15% of the PPD of one GTX460, so you might as well leave it on WCG


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (Sep 1, 2012)

cool thanks.


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