# Efficient folding card comparison



## BUCK NASTY (Aug 29, 2010)

Soon it will be Fall here in North America and we should prepare for the folding onslaught that accompanies cooler weather. I noticed this @ bit-tech forums and thought it would come in handy. I know there are alot of GTX460's out there that could be put to good use. Considering the power efficiency and cost of this card, it's a no-brainer.


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## Disparia (Aug 29, 2010)

Thanks.

My main rig card is an HD 4870, probably going to be an HD 6xxx when available so I have to hope for a better client. Otherwise the only time I do GPU folding with this rig is during the winter (I try to not to have the room's heater on, just computers ).

In the < 7" / extra-low power category, does anyone have a better suggestion than this passive Zotac GT240:






Building a storage server in the near future with the Lian-Li Q08. Since the ITX motherboard I'm going to use already has a nice NIC and all 6 SATA ports available, the x16 (x4) slot on the motherboard is open for a TV tuner or a short video card to boost FAH numbers. I'm leaning towards the video card option. An extra 4000 PPD would really help, the additional power draw is marginal, and this particular Zotac model doesn't add noise.


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## mstenholm (Aug 29, 2010)

Thank you Buck. It has been posted (as a link) before but it's still good. The missing text at the second graph is "Point per watt". I'm currently doing my own little investigation -bigadv with and without GPU running. I will post a follow up.

Edit: Preliminary result, as expected, is that you get more points per watt with the GPU running, I just wanted to know how much the extra 100 watt adds in the final score since -bigadv takes a hit when folding at the same time.


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## JrRacinFan (Aug 29, 2010)

Just wanted to show you this. I can vouch for the GTX460 768MB.


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## mstenholm (Aug 29, 2010)

Here is mine (also 460, 768)


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## BUCK NASTY (Aug 29, 2010)

mstenholm said:


> Thank you Buck. It has been posted (as a link) before but it's still good. The missing text at the second graph is "Point per watt". I'm currently doing my own little investigation -bigadv with and without GPU running. I will post a follow up.
> 
> Edit: Preliminary result, as expected, is that you get more points per watt with the GPU running, I just wanted to know how much the extra 100 watt adds in the final score since -bigadv takes a hit when folding at the same time.



I left my i7 at home, so I only have GPU's folding for me. What kind of PPD are you getting with -bigadv right now? Is it still Windows only or is VM back up(sorry for the hijack)?


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## mstenholm (Aug 29, 2010)

BUCK NASTY said:


> I left my i7 at home, so I only have GPU's folding for me. What kind of PPD are you getting with -bigadv right now? Is it still Windows only or is VM back up(sorry for the hijack)?



Windows -bigadv (2682, 85 and 86) are good. I'm doing 30:31 TPF @ 4.05 GHz which is 36.500 PPD. I had a few blue screens but temperature is down so I upped the Vcore a bit and that seemed to have helped. I think that VM is back is an option. See this post http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=15694#p155681


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## DaMulta (Aug 30, 2010)

The 295 is like the SS of folding! I DREAM OF OWNING THIS CARD!!!


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## TeXBill (Aug 30, 2010)

*Gtx470*

my GTX470 with a mild OC is putting out about 14,664 a day that chart must be for stock clocks on the cards....


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## theonedub (Aug 30, 2010)

Fall and winter means I can deal with a GTX 470's heat without issue, the search is on


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## TeXBill (Aug 30, 2010)

*gtx470*

HFM.net style


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## TeXBill (Aug 30, 2010)

> Fall and winter means I can deal with a GTX 470's heat without issue, the search is on


Good luck....
I'm thinking about getting rid of my gtx285 farm and going with all 460's instead.


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## bogmali (Aug 30, 2010)

Guys check this out if you're looking to buy a GTX460..........

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=129860


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

Great deal. The catch is that it can only fold for the EVGA team


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## hat (Aug 30, 2010)

About how much power does the 460 take? I was kind of shocked to see that the physical size of the card is smaller than my 8800GTS, yet it takes 2 6-pin power connectors. Not that having two 6-pins is a problem for me, I'm just kind of shocked that a midrange card would need that kind of power.


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

TeXBill said:


> HFM.net style



Are you wasting a i7 960 on ordinary SMP folding? 368 PPD when you can have +30,000 doing -bigadv. If you need help please ask and I will try to remember what I did to make mine working. If you don't want to have WU's that takes 2-3 days then just add advmethods, not bigadv. That should give you +15,000 PPD on a mildly OC'ed i7.


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

hat said:


> About how much power does the 460 take? I was kind of shocked to see that the physical size of the card is smaller than my 8800GTS, yet it takes 2 6-pin power connectors. Not that having two 6-pins is a problem for me, I'm just kind of shocked that a midrange card would need that kind of power.



According to this source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series a 8800GTS uses 146 W and according to this source http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_460_Cyclone_OC_768_MB/ a 460 uses 145 W flat out. I took the MSI as the 460 reference since it is a great cool runing card.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 30, 2010)

you guys know when folding season gets here im going to rape you all right?


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

Solaris17 said:


> you guys know when folding season gets here im going to rape you all right?



Bring it on. I still have GPU's just waiting for that.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 30, 2010)

mstenholm said:


> Bring it on. I still have GPU's just waiting for that.


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## hat (Aug 30, 2010)

mstenholm said:


> According to this sorce http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series a 8800GTS uses 146 W and according to this sorce http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GTX_460_Cyclone_OC_768_MB/ a 460 uses 145 W flat out. I took the MSI as the 460 reference since it is a great cool runing card.



Interesting how a card with two 6 pin power connectors takes less (albeit ever so slightly less) power than a card with just one. 

I wonder if it would work if I just filled the ground pins on the second connector with paper clips or something...


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## TeXBill (Aug 30, 2010)

> Are you wasting a i7 960 on ordinary SMP folding? 368 PPD when you can have +30,000 doing -bigadv. If you need help please ask and I will try to remember what I did to make mine working. If you don't want to have WU's that takes 2-3 days then just add advmethods, not bigadv. That should give you +15,000 PPD on a mildly OC'ed i7.


I gave it a break since the 400 series folds so well, I will start it back up again soon...
Thanks and I might take you up on the advice for -bigadv.


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

As promissed further up in this tread (and I know it is hijacking) I now have a preliminary result for CPU -bigavd folding. On a 2686 my i7 @ 4,05 consumes, on an average including uploading time, 286 watt (14,7 kWh in total). That WU is worth 77 K and was done in 2,14 days. That is 125 point/watt!! Beat that GPU's. OK the rig did nothing else then folding and only have one fan beside the two on the heatsink and no DVD drive. If I replaced the 260 with an energy efficient card the figures would be more impressive.


Edit: With one 260 GTX folding next to -bigadv folding the figure drops to 107 point/watt so energy wise it is more efficient to only use the CPU and put a low energy card in the rig. Interesting fact, at least so I think. The PPD is of course higher with the GPU, in my case 41.500 versus 36.000 PPD.


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## DaMulta (Aug 30, 2010)

Remember man has made ways where being efficient does not matter!


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

DaMulta said:


> Remember man has made ways where being efficient does not matter!
> 
> http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/sunpower_main.jpg



I know and it is worth considering when you pay $0.35/kWh as I do.


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## thebluebumblebee (Aug 30, 2010)

BUCK NASTY said:


> Soon it will be Fall here in North America and we should prepare for the folding onslaught that accompanies cooler weather. I noticed this @ bit-tech forums and thought it would come in handy. I know there are alot of GTX460's out there that could be put to good use. Considering the power efficiency and cost of this card, it's a no-brainer.



I know that I'm repeating myself, but I want someone who is only reading this thread to know the problems with the bit-tech article.  I applaud them for their effort, but they made a big mistake.  The problem is that they took the PPD that the card generated and divided it by the total system wattage.  That overhead has a greater impact on the lower PPD cards.  Does anyone here believe that the GTX280 is more efficient than the 9600GSO?  If they had just divided PPD by ((system Folding total wattage)-(system idle wattage)).  The following is a chart I put together using bit-tech's PPD numbers and W1zzard's maximum power numbers.  This will completely take the system overhead out of the equation.  Don't tell me the math method is wrong, I'm just using their methodology.  The PPD for the 240GT is from a 353 point WU, which may give it an unfair advantage.  Using a 787 point WU gives 75.76 PPD/watt.  The wattage for the 240GT is from W1zzard's review of the MSI version, not Palit's overclocked and overvolted version which uses 85 watts (which seems wrong).



Card	PPD	Watts	PPD/Watt
240GT	4236	51	83.06
GTX460 768MB	8654	146	59.27
GTX460 1GB	8654	155	55.8
GTX465	10152	199	51.02
GTX470	11731	232	50.56
GTX295	15248	320	47.65
9600GSO	4181	91	45.95
GTX285	9680	216	44.81
GTX480	13892	320	43.41
GTX275	8640	220	39.27
GTX260 216?	6174	168	36.75
GTX260	6075	186	32.66
GTX280	8100	249	32.53


I feel better now that I got that out of my system.



Jizzler said:


> In the < 7" / extra-low power category, does anyone have a better suggestion than this passive Zotac GT240:



No.  The 240GT was a glaring omission in that bit-tech article, but due to their testing methods, that may have been a good thing.  A good (F@H) review of the 240GT at FAH-Addict.net



hat said:


> About how much power does the 460 take? I was kind of shocked to see that the physical size of the card is smaller than my 8800GTS, yet it takes 2 6-pin power connectors. Not that having two 6-pins is a problem for me, I'm just kind of shocked that a midrange card would need that kind of power.





hat said:


> Interesting how a card with two 6 pin power connectors takes less (albeit ever so slightly less) power than a card with just one.
> 
> I wonder if it would work if I just filled the ground pins on the second connector with paper clips or something...


AFAIK, if you can run a G80 8800GTS, you can run a GTX460.  I think the extra power connector is there for OC headroom. (thanks Nvidia)  Also, notice that the power requirements for the card are real close to the 150 watt limit (actually over for the 1GB version) of a PCI-E slot + 1 6pin PCI-E power connector.  A single 8 pin connector would have worked, but they are not common with the lower power PSU's.  You could get a molex to PCI-E adapter if needed.

Edit:  I realize that my PPD/watt numbers above have their own problem, that being that they do not include the load on the system by the client.  I wish we had the "system Folding-system at idle" numbers.


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## mstenholm (Aug 30, 2010)

Thank you tbbb. Each way of representing is useful, bit-tech shows what it cost to turn on their rig and fold with one card. Yours on the other hand show what an additional card in any rig would cost, extra. One thing is for sure - GTX460, 768 is an good folder and so are the rest of the 400 serie, even if they (GPU3-client) steal some more CPU-cycles in the process.

Extra info: I idle at 166 watt (turbo off) and fold at 270 watt (260, 216 in system specs)


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