I am a recent convert to CUDA crunching having activated my ancient GF8800 in one of my machines. I am interested in adding a CUDA capable card to 2 more machines. I have no wish to spend a lot. So can anyone suggest a good card around £60-£100($90-$150). I have been looking at the GT210/220, are these worth it for CUDA?

Bernie

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I am a recent convert to CUDA crunching having activated my ancient GF8800 in one of my machines. I am interested in adding a CUDA capable card to 2 more machines. I have no wish to spend a lot. So can anyone suggest a good card around £60-£100($90-$150). I have been looking at the GT210/220, are these worth it for CUDA?

Bernie

First.. check the power capabilites for your machines. I use a GT 220(came with the machine) because it has close to 1gig memory on it, very important to me in other-than-SETI video reasons.

However it can be out crunched by a very economical 9600 GT with 512 MB. the 9800 GT might do even better for a very economical price.

Of course the higher 2xx series (GTX 260-280) will absolutely out crunch any of these. Again, watch the power requirements.

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Janice

I would go with a gtx 260 or a 460 when the prices come down.

Or if you're limited to a 300W PSU, a GT240.

Which is what I'm about to try later today.

Goto http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=61293

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=61134

http://www.rjsharkey.com/SETI/GPU.htm

I'll point you to this thread and page...We've been trying to rank the cards on crunching power and electrical power use. The webpage is up to date...thread not since you can't edit.

For $150 the bet you can get is teh GTS 250, but it is only a touch faster than the 9800GT or 240

For $150 you can probably get 2 of the 9800GT or GT 240...The 240 runs without extra power connectors too, under 75 Watts each so I'd call them a good choice...recent testing shows them faster than the 9800GT as well which takes closer to 100 Watts.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5467136&CatId=3669 canadian dollars.

For $150 you can probably get 2 of the 9800GT or GT 240...The 240 runs without extra power connectors too, under 75 Watts each so I'd call them a good choice...recent testing shows them faster than the 9800GT as well which takes closer to 100 Watts.

Now about the 9800GT needing extra power connectors, this is wrong.

I have 2x PCI-Express 2.0 (Low Power Edition) POV 9800GT's in 1 rig that do not have any extra power connections.

They do however require a PCI-Express slot that is electrically 2.0 compliant, there are several brands out there that are of this type but they won't work in an older 1.0 electrically compliant PCI-Express slot so beware of this fact.

Cheers.

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If you have low power GPUs, then you are right.. this are 'green edition' GPUs? So the clocks are lowered and power consumption is less.

On the nVIDIA site, 2x PCIe connectors needed for '9800GT' (max. 105 W).
This would mean the GPU could get 225 W from the PSU..

A PCIe slot can deliver 75 W, a 6 pin PCIe connector 75 W a 8 pin PCIe connector 150 W, so currently max. 300 W for a graphic card.


Bernie..
Max. ~ 150 US$ this are ~ 116.- €, so..

A GT240 have a well (better) RAC/wattage ratio (compared to the older graphic cards).

A GT240 you could get for ~ 65.- € in Germany. Example: 'alternate.de' (scroll down to the GT240 GPUs).
I would go with a manufacturer OCed for example the 'ZOTAC GT240 AMP' (~ 77.- €).

I have manufacturer OCed from EVGA and GIGABYTE and well experiences (GTX260-216).
But from this shop, the GIGABYTE is lower OCed and EVGA no OC editon available.
After looking to the EVGA site, the 'SC edition'_(.pdf file) is also lower OCed.
So maybe go with the ZOTAC.. ;-)


BTW. A GTX460 you could get for ~ 160.- €. And 2+ WUs/GPU simultaneously.
But I guess double wattage if CUDA, compard to the GT240 (if you must look to the power consumption ;-).

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I have looked at all the useful info. Went to my local computer fair today and comparing price and other factors, went for a GT240 1GB ram at £65($100). Just set it up, seems to be about twice as fast as the CPU.

I have also fired up an older machine with an GF8600 GTS 265meg in.

So with the original GF8800 GT with 512 meg I now have a diverse selsction of cards to work with.

Will be interesting to compare these in a couple of weeks.

Bernie

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I'd say that is a good choice...@Wiggo, does anyone still manufacture low power 9800 GTs? They used to be available, but I haven't seen anyone carrying them recently.

I would go for GT240, if you don't want/have to change your PSU.
But the butged is mostly deciding......
GTX260-216 is a good choice and a good RAC/Watt ratio.
I won't use 'older card's, f.i.9800GTX+, they are OK, but only compute factor 1.1
and factory OC'ed, so they (can)get extremely hot! Burnt one finger on it!
Or 8500GT, have just swithed one for a GTS250, much better and the 300Watt PSU, is enough.
(They can run, evenly loaded,, 90% of their rated power, I'tested a 350W PSU, with resistors/coils and capacitors, to emulate a PC's behavior as good as possible, but a steady load is most important, for the +12V I used car bulbs, as they come quite close to the current needed.)
And those 4 12V 5Amp bulbs sure gave a lot of light..
I'm gettin of trac, Graphic Cards we were talking about.;-)

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My (manufacturer OCed GTX260-216) 4x EVGA running since ~ 1 1/2 years and 1x GIGABYTE over ~ 1/2 year 24/7 with auto fan control, reached ~ 85 °C and everything fine.. ;-D

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I have looked at all the useful info. Went to my local computer fair today and comparing price and other factors, went for a GT240 1GB ram at £65($100). Just set it up, seems to be about twice as fast as the CPU.
...

LOL

It seems your Celeron is to slow to feed the GT240. 10,000 seconds for a
midrange WU - this GPU can do it in 1/10 of the time...

Thats the longest time for a WU done by a GPU i ever heard. ;-)

Helli

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A loooong time ago: First Credits after SETI@home Restart

I'd say that is a good choice...@Wiggo, does anyone still manufacture low power 9800 GTs? They used to be available, but I haven't seen anyone carrying them recently.

Over here in Australia, through my suppliers, both Point Of View (POV) and Leadtek still have these cards available.

Cheers.

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I have looked at all the useful info. Went to my local computer fair today and comparing price and other factors, went for a GT240 1GB ram at £65($100). Just set it up, seems to be about twice as fast as the CPU.
...

LOL

It seems your Celeron is to slow to feed the GT240. 10,000 seconds for a
midrange WU - this GPU can do it in 1/10 of the time...

Thats the longest time for a WU done by a GPU i ever heard. ;-)

Helli

You can insert URLs in messages? ;-D

'http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=1701427180'

Maybe the new CUDA app (x32f Preview, Cuda 3.0) is not well for GT240 GPUs?

I guess, this AR should not longer than ~ 1,200 secs. Max ~ 1,800 secs.

You used the Lunatics Installer V0.37?
After - you made manually changes?


I would test the app (V12) which was in V0.36 .. if this is faster, before I change the system.. ;-)
Or original MB 6.09..

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I have looked at all the useful info. Went to my local computer fair today and comparing price and other factors, went for a GT240 1GB ram at £65($100). Just set it up, seems to be about twice as fast as the CPU.
...

LOL

It seems your Celeron is to slow to feed the GT240. 10,000 seconds for a
midrange WU - this GPU can do it in 1/10 of the time...

Thats the longest time for a WU done by a GPU i ever heard. ;-)

Helli

You can insert URLs in messages? ;-D

'http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=1701427180'

Maybe the new CUDA app (x32f Preview, Cuda 3.0) is not well for GT240 GPUs?

I guess, this AR should not longer than ~ 1,200 secs. Max ~ 1,800 secs.

You used the Lunatics Installer V0.37?
After - you made manually changes?


I would test the app (V12) which was in V0.36 .. if this is faster, before I change the system.. ;-)
Or original MB 6.09..

I have made no manual changes, I had noticed that it was taking too long, this has always been a slow machine, so I will remove the GT240 and look for a better home. Waste of £65. Still that's life.

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I have made no manual changes, I had noticed that it was taking too long, this has always been a slow machine, so I will remove the GT240 and look for a better home. Waste of £65. Still that's life.

I hadn't guessed that the 'E3200' is so bad..
With a FSB of 800 MHz..
How is running your system RAM?

There should be somewhere other the problem..

It's a WinXP OS, so not much load of unneeded stuff..

Before you change the home of the GT240, look with help of 'CPU-Z' if everthing is running like it should..
..and after if - let run the stock 6.09 only for to compare..

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