8 GPU Testing

[Atlas Folder]

For those interested, I have successfully implemented an 8 GPU folding machine based upon nVidia GTX295s. This is the testbed for what will ultimately be a rackmount GPU system with 38 GTX295s dedicated 24/7 to F@H.

Atlas Folder's first node (Dagny) can hit a theoretical max of about 63,000 PPD utilizing ~7.152 TFLOPS of computing power.

Atlas Folding



Jason

[Zagen30]

Good lord, that's a lot of GTX 295s. I wish I had $10,000+ to spare for F@h, let alone other things...

[ParrLeyne]

Good lord, that's a lot of GTX 295s. I wish I had $10,000+ to spare for F@h, let alone other things...

It's not a $10,000 investment.
{Using Newegg.com pricing, it works out to}
Motherboard MSI K9A2 Platinum @ $145
AMD 9950 CPU @ $163
Memory 2GB DDR2 @ $22
Thermaltake PSU (1200w) @ $309
4 x GTX295 @ $505 = $2020
250GB HDD @ $40
CPU Cooler @ $40
Windows Vista @ 190

Total system price $2,929 USD

[YashBudini]

How's your electric bill? Do you use your home heating system anymore? Does the local PD think you're growing pot in the basement?

[Atlas Folder]

ParrLeyne, I think the price he was talking about was my total buildout. Yes, the nodes like the one pictures are about $3,000.00 each but I'm building at least four of them. My budget is $15,000.00.

YashBudini, I hadn't thought of that! I'm glad I decided not to put it at my house! Instead I'm running the machines at my business which already has a pretty high power usage.

Jason

[YashBudini]

I'd put one in every room if I lived in Canada. Really cheap electricity up there.

All kidding aside I'm jealous. Congratulations.

[ParrLeyne]

How's your electric bill? Do you use your home heating system anymore? Does the local PD think you're growing pot in the basement?

I haven't yet built my own unit, so I can't talk about an electricity bill

I have been really thinking about the heating aspect, actually wery worried. I live in Toronto, which is a very southerly location, in Canada. So, we can get very hot and humid, in the summer, so the thought of adding to my cooling load has been making really think long and hard about options (like connecting the 'potential' water cooler to cooling radiator on the side of my house is my latest thought, that I must admit is making me think). At this time of year, though, it would be great if I could simply stick the "candidate" system outside, it would contribute to global warming, by melting the snow on the front lawn

I must admit that 6.5 cents (CDN, 5.2 USD) per KW/H is a "good thing"

As for growing pot in the basement... I must, sheepishly, admit that this hold absolutely no attraction to me... I'm a real square (I have never used it).

Now, if I could use the heat to grow Cabernet vines, and make a good wine... that's a whole other thing!!!

[MoneyGuyBK]

Nice job Jason...... Thanx for sharing, no thank you for making us drool







Peace

[ParrLeyne]

...I'm glad I decided not to put it at my house! Instead I'm running the machines at my business which already has a pretty high power usage.Jason

Seeing your rackmount made me realize that I have been thinking too much about setting up my folder at my home, since this is "my thing", and forgot completly about my office!
I could set the system up at my offine (of which I'm 50% owner) in the server room!

So, Atlas, I'm in the process of pricing my multi-folder system. Though, in my case, we have several servers/CPUs at the office, so I think think my farm will have more of a mix of SMP/GPU/Uniprocessor systems.

So, Atlas, watch out!!!

[alpha754293]

Very nice. And yes, Toronto actually does get really really hot in the summers, especially with the humidity. I've lived there for like 12 years.

I still vote for the watercooling option as well (or at least some kind of liquid based cooling, even if it isn't water).

You'd probably be able to better manage the thermals coming off of that thing.

[Atlas Folder]

ParrLeyne, I'm a square too. But growing wine grapes sounds good to me!

Any additional folding is a good thing, I hope you do more than me. This project is fun for me and grows my ego sure, but I want to contribute to the science. If you look at my blog you can see why, my family is afflicted with Huntington's Disease.

Jason

[ParrLeyne]

If you look at my blog you can see why, my family is afflicted with Huntington's Disease.

Jason/Atlas,

Although my family has been more fortunate that yours, I take the view that that is more due to pure luck that "divine provinence".

In my case, howeber, my maternal grandparents both died of cancer. So, anything that I can contribute to help science find solutions to Huntington's or, in fact, any disease is something that I want to support.

[Zagen30]

ParrLeyne, I think the price he was talking about was my total buildout. Yes, the nodes like the one pictures are about $3,000.00 each but I'm building at least four of them. My budget is $15,000.00.

This. Unless a bunch of those 295s are going to fall off the back of a truck.

[YashBudini]

Actually I've never smoked regular cigarettes, let alone those funny smelling ones.

I do have 1 concern; With this setup each card has 8 PCI-E lanes. So each very powerful GPU has 4 lanes allocated to it. An experiment I would try is to first calculate the average number of points per GPU per day as it stands now, then remove 2 cards, which would give the 2 remaining card 16 lanes each or 8 lanes per GPU and then see what the average number of points per GPU per day is with that setup. I'm wondering if the PCI-E lanes could be a bottleneck for you.

[Tigerbiten]

A video card will fold at full sped on an x2 PCI-E v1.0 slot or better.
A K9A2 Plat MoBo has v2.0 slots which run twice as fast as the original v1.0 slots.
So only running on an x4 v2.0 slot creates no problems.

Luck ...........