But it's a Windows machine, (an old HP DL320 with a raging Pentium4 inside! It's running Win server 2003) and I'm very much a Mac man and know little about Windows.

My question is: While I realise the P4 is... old - to be polite about it - if I put a decently beefy graphics card in it will that then bring it up to decent crunching performance? I'm guessing it will.

If I'm right, then I think I should ask the question that'll launch a thousand arguments: NVidia or AMD? I suppose I'll be able to drop about £200 on it and don't mind going second hand.

Thank you. Have a lovely weekend everyone!

~W

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~W

I don't see why it wouldn't work.
My oldest rig, my first core2 dual core, holds up OK with a couple of cards in it.
You'll have to keep an eye on whether the power supply has enough headroom for the additional draw of the GPU. And that there is enough airflow for handling the additional heat load.

The kitties rely on strictly nVidia here, but AMD has it's supporters too.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Counter questions: What kind of motherboard is in there? What slots does it have?
None, AGP, PCI, PCIx, PCIE?
If you don't know, what specific version of the HP DL320 do you have? G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G5P, G6, other?

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But it's a Windows machine, (an old HP DL320 with a raging Pentium4 inside! It's running Win server 2003) and I'm very much a Mac man and know little about Windows.

My question is: While I realise the P4 is... old - to be polite about it - if I put a decently beefy graphics card in it will that then bring it up to decent crunching performance? I'm guessing it will.

If I'm right, then I think I should ask the question that'll launch a thousand arguments: NVidia or AMD? I suppose I'll be able to drop about £200 on it and don't mind going second hand.

You can get a GTX 660 Ti from your favourite supplier (I use eBuyer) for well under that price now. I got an Asus for 190 notes a while back and it's taken my RAC from 4200 (with a GTX 8800 GTS) to 15200, running four MB instances at once -- and that's on Linux.

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I would support Ageless's comments.

Before heading for a graphics card you need to know what type of primary (slot 0) graphics slot the MoBo sports.

I believe the PCI bust mostly predated the P4 processor, but a little later they brought in the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot before going over on later P4 processor boards to the PCI-E bus.

No advice on the advantages of AND GPU over NVidia GPUs. I run mostly AMD GPUs, but that is my current preference.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I believe the PCI bust mostly predated the P4 processor, but a little later they brought in the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot before going over on later P4 processor boards to the PCI-E bus.

Prior to PCI&AGP, there was the ISA slot as well. But yes, that was why I was asking what slots there are on the motherboard. We can all say which card we like best, but it won't do any good if the OP can't fit it due to height restrictions or no compatible slots.

I looked at pictures of some DL320 motherboards and found one with only PCI slots, another had what most looked like one ISA slot only. All old tech that new beefy cards can't use.

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All those Macs and not a single MacPro. If you just had one old MacPro, you could stick a couple cheap AMD cards in it and score more RAC than your entire existing fleet...

Good luck.

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How come you didn't show a picture of the expansion slot on the riser card, located under that metal piece in the center?

All those Macs and not a single MacPro. If you just had one old MacPro, you could stick a couple cheap AMD cards in it and score more RAC than your entire existing fleet...

Don't I know it! However, I Got to thinking and could do the same with the 2 XServes I have and... job done!

~W

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~W

So I suppose I now have to ask: am I right in thinking that S@H only supports AMD graphics cards on the Mac or is that my imagination and NVidia are supported as well?

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~W

So I suppose I now have to ask: am I right in thinking that S@H only supports AMD graphics cards on the Mac or is that my imagination and NVidia are supported as well?

Not sure on AP status, but for Multibeam, a test application was built some time ago from stock Cuda (Mac & various Linux). Project staff were notified we were prepping for public beta, but have been busy with other matters (if I understand correctly).

Most likely once some final tweaks are made, this (&Linux) will be made available third party. The best idea if you have an nVidia equipped Mac or Linux host, would be to sign up over at Crunchers Anonymous, as testing has been limited to only a couple of hosts. Making some noise over there would probably accelerate what has been a slow process, mostly due to development & testing limitations.

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

I am kinda curious about two things:
1) What kind of slot do you have?
2) What the rating on the power supply?

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So I suppose I now have to ask: am I right in thinking that S@H only supports AMD graphics cards on the Mac or is that my imagination and NVidia are supported as well?

Not sure on AP status, but for Multibeam, a test application was built some time ago from stock Cuda (Mac & various Linux). Project staff were notified we were prepping for public beta, but have been busy with other matters (if I understand correctly).

Most likely once some final tweaks are made, this (&Linux) will be made available third party. The best idea if you have an nVidia equipped Mac or Linux host, would be to sign up over at Crunchers Anonymous, as testing has been limited to only a couple of hosts. Making some noise over there would probably accelerate what has been a slow process, mostly due to development & testing limitations.

There is an AP app for both AMD and Nvidia, but they have not been worked on in a little while.

AMD Multibeam is still non-existent currently.

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I still have one Mac MB nVidia task on my results page; Task 3129070996
It's about the same as the Mac AP nVidia tasks I tried with that card, it's almost twice as slow as in Windows or Linux. Here's the same card in XP, SETI@home v7 tasks for computer 6979629 . It's even only in a 1x PCIe slot in the XP host, still it's almost twice as fast as with the Mac App in a 16x slot.

The AMD Mac AP App however, is slightly faster than the Windows or Linux App using the same cards.

If it only has PCI slots, but you really wanted to use it, you could jam one (or two)of these in there.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2898922&CatId=319

Wont make it a super cruncher of course as it only has 48 CUDA cores. But it will do a LOT better than a P4 alone.

Low profile, passive cooled, only 29w power draw. Should be able to squeeze one into just about any machine.

If it's worth spending ~$50 to do it is the big question. Or put the $50 towards a better card in a newer machine?

Ian

I still have one Mac MB nVidia task on my results page; Task 3129070996
It's about the same as the Mac AP nVidia tasks I tried with that card, it's almost twice as slow as in Windows or Linux. Here's the same card in XP, SETI@home v7 tasks for computer 6979629 . It's even only in a 1x PCIe slot in the XP host, still it's almost twice as fast as with the Mac App in a 16x slot.

The AMD Mac AP App however, is slightly faster than the Windows or Linux App using the same cards.

Speed is certainly one thing that needs looking at. With several identified bottlenecks identified on Windows, the expectation is x42's design changes will address those differences, which are system & driver latency related.

There are first more basic needs, for example no user documentation for the platform, uncertainties on system requirements & dependencies, and what the project needs for beta testing to commence on the beta project.

I can certainly keep plugging away at the design end, but really some user(s) experienced with the platforms (Both Mac & Linux) need to step forward for the polishing portions.

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Well I'm an experienced Mac user, and would love to help as much as I can. I'm in no way a coder but they give me money to pay the mortgage for my sysadmin skills!

I can test on the machines you see on my profile.

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~W