I'm thinking about putting together an Intel I7 920 box. That brings up the question of which graphics card should I go with. $ for $ which graphics cards are giving better GPU performance for Seti? NVIDIA or ATI?

---

I'm thinking about putting together an Intel I7 920 box. That brings up the question of which graphics card should I go with. $ for $ which graphics cards are giving better GPU performance for Seti? NVIDIA or ATI?

Thats an easyone....Nvidia works for Seti and ATI doesn't ....Yet.

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

I'm thinking about putting together an Intel I7 920 box. That brings up the question of which graphics card should I go with. $ for $ which graphics cards are giving better GPU performance for Seti? NVIDIA or ATI?

For now - nVidia one (and it will be true at least for few months more IMO).

however side by side comparisons on MW and collatz shows that the average ATI card rocks on the CUDA. this apparently is how CUDA processes the WU. BUt as stated if you are only looking to run Seti then Nvidia is your choice

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I thought Seti supported both NVIDIA and ATI but I guess it's BOINC I was thinking about.

Thanks!

---

I thought Seti supported both NVIDIA and ATI but I guess it's BOINC I was thinking about.

Thanks!

BOINC support Nvidia & ATI, seti@home does not yet have an official ATI app. There is currently an astropusle app for ATI that is under test.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

It's just been confirmed to me that Collatz, in particular,

Collatz C.(3x+1) does integers only, IMHO and the numbers fit completely in the GPU's memory, mostly GDDR5.
I think, that is why those cards appear to be so fast! Hardly any traffic over the AGP/PCI_Ex16 or 8 bus(ses).
Take a look at the CPU times, mostly 0 (zero) or 0.1-0.5sec.

So: not floating point, no difficult data access, no bus traffic.

I don't think you can use that as either a predictor or a comparator for the possible performance of ATI at SETI, however far in the future.

yes the only ATI app for Seti is a Lunatics hybrid app that does part of the Work on the GPU and part on the CPU.

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I thought Seti supported both NVIDIA and ATI but I guess it's BOINC I was thinking about.

Thanks!

Yes, both ATI and NV supported by SETI but in different degree.
While NV has SETI MultiBeam CUDA-based app that do almost all work on GPU, ATI has SETI AstroPulse Brook-based app, that has 2 big disadvantages versus NV case:
1) AstroPulse work is very hard to get, there is plenty of MB tasks but much less of AP tasks (I personally can't get AP tasks for few months already), that is, GPU will just have no work at all.
2) current Brook implementation does on GPU only part of whole algorithm, that is, GPU will be used only occasionally.
Further Brook-based development seems waste of time for me and OpenCL port still awaits when ATI repair their OpenCL implementation.
oclFFT sample that Apple made available to public works OK on CPU, OK on NV GPU but produces incorrect results on ATI GPU.

Appreciate all the input.

In the interim while I'm working out the details (and budget) for an I7 box, I did hook up with the Collatz project to get some GPU cycles on my iMac. I have the Collatz project running only GPU WU's and Seti is happily running along in blissful ignorance of the CUDA cores.

The direction I'm looking at for the I7 box is:

Cooler master HAF 932 case
850W power supply (TBD)
MSI X58 Pro-E or ASUS P6T motherboard
I7 920 CPU
6GB memory
MSI N250GTS 1G (thinking the dual fans are a good idea)
500GB SATA HD
DVD burner
Windows 7 Home 64bit

I know there are faster NVIDIA boards out there but I need to try to keep the cost within reason.

I picked the HAF 932 hoping to take this as far as I want without resorting to water cooling.

I think the 850W PSU should be enough for up to 2 GPU boards. If I decide to take it beyond that I'll probably have to upgrade the PSU.

I'm thinking that I'll try this first without overclocking and see how it does with the stock CPU fan. Then take it in baby steps from there but will probably be more likely to add a second GPU than to do much with the clocking of the CPU. I've never done any of that before so it's going to be a slow process for me.

---

Appreciate all the input.

In the interim while I'm working out the details (and budget) for an I7 box, I did hook up with the Collatz project to get some GPU cycles on my iMac. I have the Collatz project running only GPU WU's and Seti is happily running along in blissful ignorance of the CUDA cores.

The direction I'm looking at for the I7 box is:

Cooler master HAF 932 case
850W power supply (TBD)
MSI X58 Pro-E or ASUS P6T motherboard
I7 920 CPU
6GB memory
MSI N250GTS 1G (thinking the dual fans are a good idea)
500GB SATA HD
DVD burner
Windows 7 Home 64bit

I know there are faster NVIDIA boards out there but I need to try to keep the cost within reason.

I picked the HAF 932 hoping to take this as far as I want without resorting to water cooling.

I think the 850W PSU should be enough for up to 2 GPU boards. If I decide to take it beyond that I'll probably have to upgrade the PSU.

I'm thinking that I'll try this first without overclocking and see how it does with the stock CPU fan. Then take it in baby steps from there but will probably be more likely to add a second GPU than to do much with the clocking of the CPU. I've never done any of that before so it's going to be a slow process for me.

Mwave and newegg have good deals on refurbished boards and if you already have lots of cables that is a good way to go. The i7 920 overclocks like a dream. You can build a great machine kinda cheap if you shop around.

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!