Sunday, May 25th 2008

New NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 Three Times Faster than HD 3870 in Folding@Home

Just a couple days ago, we informed you that NVIDIA had joined the Folding@Home team. However, at the time, benchmarks for this new client were unavailable. I am now happy to inform you that (internal) benchmarks are available for your viewing pleasure. The rather large green bar was achieved using the new NVIDIA GPU core, the GTX280. As far as exact numbers go, this sucker can fold at 500 mol/day, which is much higher than the Radeon HD 3870 numbers (170 mol/day), five times higher than PS3 numbers (100 mol/day), and astronomically higher than the average computer numbers (4 mol/day). Whether or not this translates into actual gaming performance is yet to be seen, however, it's pretty hard to imagine how something so powerful wouldn't bring back some respectable FPS in games like Crysis.
Source: Nordic Hardware
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83 Comments on New NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 Three Times Faster than HD 3870 in Folding@Home

#51
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
MegastyI'm brushing this bull off now. WTH does a mol have to do with computing power. Theoretical BS is still BS. If someone has the time to give us some gd numbers we don't understand then why don't they give us some gaming results.
That which 3DMark has...

A mol here is a protein molecule whose folding has to be simulated, data relating to its folding collected and sent back to the F@H servers. The simulation of a molecule folding (in 100% accordance to all laws of physics/chemistry) requires lots of computational power. Either you make your CPU do it or, you program the shader units in your GPU to do it. With GPU comes a great deal of parallelism because you can program a shader to even do your maths homework, here you're making them compute for the protein folding.
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#52
DrPepper
The Doctor is in the house
MegastyI taught HS chem for 3 yrs b4 moving on to greater pastures. Its not really a joke to me either but that's just how silly those figures are.
:laugh: It was a serious answer that just happened to sound funny :)
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#53
Megasty
DrPepper:laugh: It was a serious answer that just happened to sound funny :)
I thought so :laugh: But half the kids I came across thought a mol & a molecule was the same thing & I couldn't convince them otherwise for the life of me :mad:
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#54
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
In those charts, mol doesn't refer to mole (the quantity), it refers to number of molecules processed in a given time.
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#55
Millenia
AnimalpakSad years for ATI ( OWNED AGAIN ).
Not in my eyes, I personally don't give two shits about hypothetical performance as I can't fork out more than 300€ for a GPU anyways. What matters to me most is the price/performance, and I'm sure many others would agree as well.
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#56
DrGreenThumb
Funny seeing it compared with PS3 hahah or should i call it blurstation 3,
even my 360 gta vI looks way better then my brother ps3 ver

But who would spend that much on a card really....
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#57
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
DrGreenThumbBut who would spend that much on a card really....
The same which spent the same amount buying a 8800 Ultra.
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#58
ShinyG
Nice "figures", but I don't see how this is a representation of the final gaming performance of the card! Of course it's good news to actually see that the next gen card beats the current card of the competition, but that's something obvious!
The only result I see is the boners the fanbois get when looking at "internal" benchmarks...
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#59
jonmcc33
jocksteelukGreat! how does it do on games?
Don't you know that you need to buy a $600 video card just for F@H!??!? Nobody cares about gaming anymore.
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#60
Unregistered
and the point of F@H is what? i know to help find cures to diseases by donating computing power, but do WE get anything out of it? not to sound selfish :laugh:
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#61
DrPepper
The Doctor is in the house
kyle2020and the point of F@H is what? i know to help find cures to diseases by donating computing power, but do WE get anything out of it? not to sound selfish :laugh:
If you live in america you might get a discount if you tell them you helped cure the disease? :laugh:
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#62
Unregistered
DrPepperIf you live in america you might get a discount if you tell them you helped cure the disease? :laugh:
haha might be a reason :laugh:
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#63
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
kyle2020and the point of F@H is what? i know to help find cures to diseases by donating computing power, but do WE get anything out of it? not to sound selfish :laugh:
God forbid, but if 20 years later you're diagnosed with a cancer and they tell you there's an easy cure, chances are that the cure was devised from the data provided by the F@H project, without which your cancer cure could/would have been many-fold expensive/time-consuming/higher failure rate.
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#64
bill_d
and you think if/when they crue cancer they won't charge out the @$$ for it anyway
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#65
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
bill_dand you think if/when they crue cancer they won't charge out the @$$ for it anyway
They will but having a cure is better than not having a cure at all? You really wouldn't want to go through chemotherapy, trust me.
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#66
TheGuruStud
btarunrThey will but having a cure is better than not having a cure at all? You really wouldn't want to go through chemotherapy, trust me.
Yeah, you might as well let the cancer take you, it would be far less painful.
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#67
xtremeownage
This comes to show just what in god names Nvidia has in its secret labs.. Bet u they even have a 55nm prototype with GDDR 4 or 5 memory and faster clock rates. It will be a while before we see nvdia use GDDR5 believe me because unlike Ati they know how to utilise the power of current technology. Thats why they havent even shrank to 55nm,,they still enjoy playing at 65nm.
how much folding does a 3870X2 do?9800GX2? then only can we calculate the actuall percentage increase over the previous high end cards
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#68
Steevo
Some of the clients handed out to my 3870 only took a hour to do. Then my nfarce chipset shit out. So a new used crossfire board is on the way. Ebay baby.
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#69
imperialreign
btarunrThey will but having a cure is better than not having a cure at all? You really wouldn't want to go through chemotherapy, trust me.
I can say from experience that no one would want to go through chemo or radiation therapy - I wouldn't even wish it upon my enemies. It was absolutely horrible, and probably one of the worst forms of medical treatment in existance.


That's why I'm more than willing to help out with F@H - whatever information we help report back would help us find cures for medical issues, or better cures than what we already have.
bill_dand you think if/when they crue cancer they won't charge out the @$$ for it anyway
TBH, most of our medical expenses nowadays doesn't pay for the research for a cure, it goes to paying whatever the drug companies feel like charging for the medication. Cancer patients are literally being ripped off for the treatments they have to pay for.
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#70
jonmcc33
btarunrGod forbid, but if 20 years later you're diagnosed with a cancer and they tell you there's an easy cure, chances are that the cure was devised from the data provided by the F@H project, without which your cancer cure could/would have been many-fold expensive/time-consuming/higher failure rate.
Chances are that they'll never find a "cure" for cancer in your or my lifetime. That's the least of my worries at this point in my life. I have bills to pay for, including electric bills, gas bills and food bills.

Even if diagnosed, 70% of all cancer deaths occur in countries where resources available for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer are limited or nonexistent (ie not the United States). Source: World Health Oragnization

Given my family history, there is pretty much barely any chance I will get cancer. :rolleyes:
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#71
imperialreign
jonmcc33Chances are that they'll never find a "cure" for cancer in your or my lifetime. That's the least of my worries at this point in my life. I have bills to pay for, including electric bills, gas bills and food bills.

Even if diagnosed, 70% of all cancer deaths occur in countries where resources available for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer are limited or nonexistent (ie not the United States). Source: World Health Oragnization

Given my family history, there is pretty much barely any chance I will get cancer. :rolleyes:
not to sound pessimistic, but family history doesn't mean squat for many forms of cancer.

I'm the first member of my family with a history of cancer, and as to the form of cancer I was diagnosed with, there are no known "causes" for it. It just springs up out of nowhere, unrelated to environment or exposure to substances, family history, poor living habits . . .

although your chances might be low - cancer can happen to anyone. I never thought I'd be struck with it, either.
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#72
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
jonmcc33Chances are that they'll never find a "cure" for cancer in your or my lifetime. That's the least of my worries at this point in my life. I have bills to pay for, including electric bills, gas bills and food bills.

Even if diagnosed, 70% of all cancer deaths occur in countries where resources available for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer are limited or nonexistent (ie not the United States). Source: World Health Oragnization

Given my family history, there is pretty much barely any chance I will get cancer. :rolleyes:
You've got easy cure and then you've got chemotherapy. Easy cure is what cancer research looks to achieve. Chemotherapy is expensive, is like an excursion to hell, and isn't guaranteed to work though is a last resort. Greedy corporations that manufacture machines and materials that are part of chemo/radiation therapies are extremely hostile towards people figuring out an easy cure. Reasons are obvious. Due to lack of funds and high rate of rejection, researchers now went large scale with F@H so they save millions on computing. What's wrong if you set your screensaver to F@H and idle time to F@H? If you're concerned about stress to the components, you can always configure F@H client to use 10~20% CPU.
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#73
jonmcc33
imperialreignnot to sound pessimistic, but family history doesn't mean squat for many forms of cancer.

I'm the first member of my family with a history of cancer, and as to the form of cancer I was diagnosed with, there are no known "causes" for it. It just springs up out of nowhere, unrelated to environment or exposure to substances, family history, poor living habits . . .

although your chances might be low - cancer can happen to anyone. I never thought I'd be struck with it, either.
Yes but your chances increase with family history and that's a known fact. Of course lung cancer is helped along by smoking but I haven't smoked anything in my entire life.

Of course if it happens it happens. Nothing can change it. But I'm not going to dwell on the possibility nor hope for some miracle cure by this whole F@H stuff.

Like I said, I have bills to pay NOW and they are more important than burning away electricity for the sake of some project that has been going on for 8 years now and hasn't done shit.
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#74
imperialreign
jonmcc33Yes but your chances increase with family history and that's a known fact. Of course lung cancer is helped along by smoking but I haven't smoked anything in my entire life.

Of course if it happens it happens. Nothing can change it. But I'm not going to dwell on the possibility nor hope for some miracle cure by this whole F@H stuff.

Like I said, I have bills to pay NOW and they are more important than burning away electricity for the sake of some project that has been going on for 8 years now and hasn't done shit.
and I have bills to pay in the present as well; and although we haven't seen anything specific from the F@H project just yet, though it's years of being in operation . . . the thought that the next time around I'll have to face cancer, it'd be nice to see another form of treatment available besides chemotherapy and radiation. As sad as it is, chemo and radiation cause cancer later in life (fighting fire with fire . . . brilliant, eh?), and it's not something I look forward to.

But if my idle processing time goes towards a project that could bring about a better understanding of cancer in general, and better methods of treatment, or aide in finding a cure for terminal diseases and otherwise, I'm more than willing to pay a few extra cents a day on the electric bills.

I guess I just take a different approach because I've been down those roads where treatment is still primitive, and medical understanding of the malignancies is still vague as well. Sure, it might look like the project hasn't accomplished anything yet . . . but, we (humanity) as a whole need to quit thinking of how things going on in the here and now affect us in the here and now . . .

as a famous scientist once said "Marty, you're not thinking fourth dimensionally!"
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#75
Rebo&Zooty
imperialreignand I have bills to pay in the present as well; and although we haven't seen anything specific from the F@H project just yet, though it's years of being in operation . . . the thought that the next time around I'll have to face cancer, it'd be nice to see another form of treatment available besides chemotherapy and radiation. As sad as it is, chemo and radiation cause cancer later in life (fighting fire with fire . . . brilliant, eh?), and it's not something I look forward to.

But if my idle processing time goes towards a project that could bring about a better understanding of cancer in general, and better methods of treatment, or aide in finding a cure for terminal diseases and otherwise, I'm more than willing to pay a few extra cents a day on the electric bills.

I guess I just take a different approach because I've been down those roads where treatment is still primitive, and medical understanding of the malignancies is still vague as well. Sure, it might look like the project hasn't accomplished anything yet . . . but, we (humanity) as a whole need to quit thinking of how things going on in the here and now affect us in the here and now . . .

as a famous scientist once said "Marty, you're not thinking fourth dimensionally!"
this is typical western view, "hows it effect me right now" "why should i care"

Its part of why america is in the state its in, people are to short sited....

oh and also part of this is selfishness, people like jonmcc33 only think about themselves and the how it effects them in the moment, not how it may effect them later or how it could effect their familys/friends or anybody else later down the line.
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