Going from a GTX460 to GTX 600 Series.

Message boards : Number crunching : Going from a GTX460 to GTX 600 Series.
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Profile D.A. Pinniger
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Message 1310955 - Posted: 28 Nov 2012, 8:08:41 UTC

I'm currently running a Nvidia GTX-460 1 gig memory which has a memory bandwidth of 256 bits. On the less expensive GTX-600 series the bit width
drops to 192 bits. What do I sacrifice by going to the smaller bit width?

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Message 1310960 - Posted: 28 Nov 2012, 8:34:48 UTC - in response to Message 1310955.  

I'm currently running a Nvidia GTX-460 1 gig memory which has a memory bandwidth of 256 bits. On the less expensive GTX-600 series the bit width
drops to 192 bits. What do I sacrifice by going to the smaller bit width?

Only your big electric bill...
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Message 1311003 - Posted: 28 Nov 2012, 12:30:46 UTC - in response to Message 1310960.  

Very helpful answer indeed!
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Message 1311039 - Posted: 28 Nov 2012, 14:38:50 UTC

This got me thinking... If I were planning to replace my GPU, I think it would be prudent to first set NNT and finish off the GPU work on board. Is there a way to set NNT for the GPU only and continue to receive work for CPU? It seems to me that setting Boinc not to use the GPU would immediately stop all GPU work and what I have wouldn't get done.

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Message 1311047 - Posted: 28 Nov 2012, 15:07:54 UTC - in response to Message 1311039.  

This got me thinking... If I were planning to replace my GPU, I think it would be prudent to first set NNT and finish off the GPU work on board. Is there a way to set NNT for the GPU only and continue to receive work for CPU? It seems to me that setting Boinc not to use the GPU would immediately stop all GPU work and what I have wouldn't get done.

Set the "Don't use [nVidia] GPU" preference in your account. Although a literal reading might suggest otherwise, in practice it does what you're asking - prevents new CUDA work being allocated (after one last scheduler update), but doesn't prevent you finishing off what you already have on board.
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Message 1311235 - Posted: 29 Nov 2012, 2:43:58 UTC

Gonk! The last 2 post missed it completely, It wasn't about stopping gpu or no new task. The question was what do I sacrifice from going from a gpu memory bandwidth of 256 bytes down to 192 bytes. Anyone else?
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Message 1311240 - Posted: 29 Nov 2012, 3:14:06 UTC - in response to Message 1311235.  
Last modified: 29 Nov 2012, 3:15:03 UTC

Gonk! The last 2 post missed it completely, It wasn't about stopping gpu or no new task. The question was what do I sacrifice from going from a gpu memory bandwidth of 256 bytes down to 192 bytes. Anyone else?

The bandwith of the GPU memory is just one of several factors that makes the final performance of the GPU. Just comparing the bandwith there is not much to say... indeed, if everything else were the same then ovbiously you will lost some degree of performance... but if that lost is noticeable is beyond my guessing skills.

Ussually 600 series GPUs use memory that is much more faster than the memory used on several 400 and 500 series GPU, so it might happen that what you loose on bits its compensated by the raw speed...

Now, if you are thinking in something like a 640 or lower GPU, it will not be worth (compared to the 460) unless you were looking for a reduction of the power bill and you dont care about the reduction in performance...
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Message 1311245 - Posted: 29 Nov 2012, 3:35:03 UTC - in response to Message 1311235.  
Last modified: 29 Nov 2012, 4:33:06 UTC

Gonk! The last 2 post missed it completely, It wasn't about stopping gpu or no new task. The question was what do I sacrifice from going from a gpu memory bandwidth of 256 bytes down to 192 bytes. Anyone else?


I've started to comment three times and gave-up. There are too many things going-on here to make a nice, clean response, so I'm going to try to answer the question you asked and one or two you didn't.

You do lose something when you reduce the memory bandwidth on a like processor. Take a look at the difference in performance between a 3/4 GB 460 and a 1GB 460. The reduced "amount" of RAM meant to make things work-out evenly a reduced bandwidth to the RAM was used and you ended-up with a somewhat slower GTX 460.

But you are talking about moving from one architecture to another so comparing the memory bandwidth of a 460 to a 660 isn't going to translate.

Here's why I stopped trying to answer before now: I don't know why it doesn't translate. I've experienced the difference, I've owned the difference, I've seen the difference and... well, it's all about the way the card was designed to begin-with and often there isn't any difference, or bizarrely, the lower bandwidth card is faster. I don't know why.

As you've no-doubt noticed, the 670 has the same "bandwidth" as our 460s. If you read the reviews you find that an overclocked 660Ti is almost the equal of, or sometimes superior-to, a reference 670. The cards use the bandwidth their own way, so even though, on paper, the 660Ti is *clearly* inferior in every respect to the 670, all you have to do is goose the throttle a little and lo-and-behold, the difference disappears.

But you said, "less expensive" and I don't know where you draw that line; with the 660Ti, or the 660, or the 640 which might have a 192-bit memory bandwidth depending on "which" 640 we're talking about.

My EVGA superclocked 660Ti is faster than a 3/4GB GTX 460. I don't know that it is faster than a 256-bit bus, 1GB, GTX 460.

If you're looking at replacing your 460s with 660Tis, I'm not sure you'll lose anything. If you replace them with the superclocked version, I'm not sure you'll gain much in the way of efficiency.

But I haven't run Fred's (or anyone else's) tests on the two cards under identical conditions to be able to say for sure.

Having said all of that and made everyone's eyes glass-over and riling the heck out of fans of one GPU or another, Juan's observation is right: the 600-series cards are cooler and tend to burn a little less electricity than the 400-series cards with more-or-less the same "crunching power." Even the heat difference between a 460 (which wasn't a hot card) and a 660Ti probably isn't as dramatic in practice as it is in theory.

I know, I know, that only clears things up from foggy to hazy, but the question you asked may not lead to the information you really wanted to know.

EDIT: All of my observations are based on number-crunching and have nothing to do with gaming ability.
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Message 1311252 - Posted: 29 Nov 2012, 3:48:22 UTC - in response to Message 1311245.  
Last modified: 29 Nov 2012, 3:54:44 UTC

Thank you both for good information. Makes sense, and agree it's hard to compare apples to oranges(460 vs 6xx) : )
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Message 1311346 - Posted: 29 Nov 2012, 15:36:31 UTC

Pardon a couple of dumb questions, but what's the difference between a GT and a GTX whatever, and what does Ti denote?

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Message 1311456 - Posted: 5 Dec 2012, 20:20:11 UTC - in response to Message 1311346.  

Pardon a couple of dumb questions, but what's the difference between a GT and a GTX whatever, and what does Ti denote?

a GTX is faster than a GT, and Ti means it's got a Turbo and injection too!! ;-)

Claggy
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Message 1311507 - Posted: 5 Dec 2012, 22:04:30 UTC - in response to Message 1311456.  

Pardon a couple of dumb questions, but what's the difference between a GT and a GTX whatever, and what does Ti denote?

a GTX is faster than a GT, and Ti means it's got a Turbo and injection too!! ;-)


Oh, I thought it meant titanium, and thus stronger and lighter!
(I once used a titanium tweeter (audio speaker) pressing as a window for an antimatter-chemistry experiment, to let low-energy positive muons into a chamber of hydrogen gas at red-hot temperatures and several atmospheres of pressure...)
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Message 1311523 - Posted: 5 Dec 2012, 22:45:22 UTC - in response to Message 1311507.  

sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

LOL
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Message 1311528 - Posted: 5 Dec 2012, 22:50:06 UTC - in response to Message 1311507.  
Last modified: 5 Dec 2012, 22:56:21 UTC

---Snipped----

Oh, I thought it meant titanium, and thus stronger and lighter!

----snipped---

Titanium is indeed used, but I don't know for what reason and/or replacing
an other (conducting) material?

I stiil use an GTX470 and 480, cause 470 has twice the CUDA cores as the 460,
in stead off using 2 460s, I rather use 1 470.

But I'm thinking of adding 2 GPUs the 600 series is the better choice,
also a 470 maybe hard to get new ofcoarse.

Although the 600 series has a different architecture, also 64K regsize,
400 series (FERMI) has 32K regsize and most support PCIe 3.0 x16.
And are more efficient compaired too 470 or 480, which (can) run hot, 98C
or the fan can make a lot of RPM c.q. noise.
B.t.w. The 400 or FERMI series already were/are using GDDR5 memory,
quad pumped.

The CUDA app. provides no info about estimated GFLOPS, on 600 series.
Don't know if BOINC 7.0.28 displays an estimate
Atleast the 600 GPU has to have the same or more CUDA cores as
the 470 or 480 NVidia GPUs.
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Message 1311553 - Posted: 5 Dec 2012, 23:43:28 UTC
Last modified: 5 Dec 2012, 23:53:45 UTC

Speaking of the GTX 600 Series, tomorrow will be an exciting day for me.

After hitting a shipment snag causing a two week delay, I received the empty Corsair box two days ago. It weighs in empty at 19.550 kg. It adds to my current system in use which is suffering from a defect internal disc connector as well as a processor and a grapics card which is not being sold at my computer vendor anymore.

So I went at my web-pages for the local post office today and was able to find out there that the second box also had been received from my vendor. I will go there tomorrow and pick it up.

Right now I am sitting on the floor in my main room. I have connected to the web by means of an additional cable-TV modem I have for Internet use which although having a faulty cable from the modem to the PC is working out well.

So for you who do not know it already, it is a very powerful package I have purchased here. In fact, 2 Gainward GTX 680 graphics cards with 4 GB of RAM instead of the usual 2 GB. They are said not to be working that well when it comes to the PrimeGrid Genefer tasks, but anyway...

Really, after having snooped around at both PrimeGrid as well as here, I am not able to find a similar combination when it comes to the hardware which is being included in this package.

Definitely, the main point about having this platform available to me really depends on having all four hard disc drives which are available internally to be functioning.

Also the cooling system is very important. For intensive computing by meaans of the CPU, I found the temperature of the main processor getting to high all the time. Therefore I have purchased a big Noctua CPU fan which can be mounted atop the speedy processor (which in the end became the new Intel Core 3970X Extreme processor).

For RAM memory, I have purchased a total of 64 GB in eight 8 GB kits which are very handy. In order to get this working, I have purcased an ASUS P9X79 motherboard which is based on the Socket 2011 architecture.

So despite being experienced with computers, I still have been able to get my hands on a platform which as a combination appears to be not to well tried out stuff. Yherefore tomorrow will be an exciting day, but I will take my time at installing all of this in the way it ahould be done rather than blowing everything which has happened more or less before with my equipment.
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Message 1311942 - Posted: 6 Dec 2012, 21:52:17 UTC
Last modified: 6 Dec 2012, 22:19:57 UTC

I managed to write "Yherefore" yesterday rather than "Therefore".

This because I was sitting on the floor of my living room.

I have unpacked most of the equipment in the second box I received today and installed the power supply.

The only thing left is the second of the graphical cards and the memory kits which came in 8 separate boxes - one for each of the eight memory kits.

Except from that, I have installed the 1200 W power supply inside the new PC.

The next challenge(s) will be getting the processor installed on the motherboard and either the CPU fan which I bought after first come across that Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU cooler for the Socket 2011, or perhaps the Corsair H100 Hydro Series liquid cooler which is a more difficult option when it comes to installing.

So does anyone here know whether that Noctua CPU cooler needs that additional cooling paste in order to be tightened to the motherboard or the processor?

I have bought two airflows which should be mounted atop of the memory kits and should expect that at least one - possibly both could fit in such a position, giving sufficient airflow if I am able to find connectors on the motherboard. The new PC will not have the internally roof-mounted Noctua non-processor cooling fan which I currently have which is based on Socket 1366 motherboards.

I happen to know from YouTube videos that installing the processor may need such cooling paste on its own, but what if choosing to install any of the cooling fans in question? Can such a fan be removed once installed if I rather would try installing the Corsair H100 liquid cooler instead?

Thanks for any answer you may have!
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Message 1311953 - Posted: 6 Dec 2012, 22:23:36 UTC - in response to Message 1311942.  

I use Vaseline (petroleum jelly) for all my CPUs - works great, costs zippo and does what thermal paste really is supposed to do: fill the air spaces between the processor and the heatsink. And it doesn't turn solid and crack, or evaporate or run out. And is easily cleaned up with a tissue. (I had 2 dual quad core Opteron systems on SETI 24/7 for a couple of years using the jelly and never had a problem with CPU temps).

I was inspired by an old post at Dansdata (Aussie) from 2002 (!) that you can find by Googling "thermal goop".
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Message 1311998 - Posted: 7 Dec 2012, 0:34:08 UTC
Last modified: 7 Dec 2012, 0:43:33 UTC

Thanks for that reply.

Who does my postings here always end up with me getting things wrong and not writing what I originally meant to say? Even editing my text and reading through it afterwards apparently does not help.

I meant to say that I originally purchased the Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler which is based on liquid cooling because it stood out and that I later also came across the Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler which is an ordinary air cooler, but very big in size and also very new on the market. The latter was chosen because it may be much easier to install into the PC.
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Message 1312011 - Posted: 7 Dec 2012, 1:32:59 UTC

THE LARGE AIR COOLER will fail softer than the water cooler.

the water cooler will do a better job.

the big air cooler will continue to work even if the fan die's just not as well.

If you use the water cooler be vary careful to install the hose's correctly

any mistake here will cost you dearly later.

also you may want to set the bios cpu cutoff temp low say 55c better to have an

occasional shut down then buy new cpu.

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Message 1312325 - Posted: 7 Dec 2012, 22:56:39 UTC
Last modified: 7 Dec 2012, 23:26:06 UTC

I have just installed the processor on the motherboard.

But what about getting the motherboard inside the box. Did enough tightening screws come included with second box?

There is always something being wrong.
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Message boards : Number crunching : Going from a GTX460 to GTX 600 Series.


 
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