My current graphics card is a humble GeForce GTX 750Ti.

I am considering an ASUS EX-GTX1050-O2G OC Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB GDDR5 as a replacement for better SETI@home.

It is a newer card but the graphics card memory size is the same at 2GB as my current graphics card, is the memory size important for SETI@Home crunching? Cards with more memory go up in price a lot.

The answer to that is....

It depends...

We know that Nvidia cards only use a portion of the total Ram on a card for OpenCl applications.

If you intend to run stock or lunatics but don't intend on modifying the parameters of the applications, (ie using commandlines and increase the amount of RAM per each OpenCl work unit). Then you should be fine.

If you intend to use Petri special cuda app and linux, you should be fine.

But if you intend to run more than 1 work unit at a time and intend to modify the amount of RAM of the card used, then you will probably run into some issues.

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One thing to watch for is less cuda cores with less memory. I'm not sure about the 1050, but many drop a core or 2 with less memory.

If I were you, I would consider a 1050 Ti if you are making the upgrade.

I run 2 SETI@home tasks at once on my 750 Ti with -sbs 512 and I don't believe the total video memory used has reached 1GB.
I have not run Einstein tasks on my 750 yet. So I'm not sure about the memory usage there, since I noticed you also run that project.

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

I run 2 SETI@home tasks at once on my 750 Ti with -sbs 512 and I don't believe the total video memory used has reached 1GB.
I have not run Einstein tasks on my 750 yet. So I'm not sure about the memory usage there, since I noticed you also run that project.

Interesting, how do you config SETI@home to run two tasks at once on a single graphics card? Maybe that's all I need to do is set it to two for my existing card.

My current graphics card is a humble GeForce GTX 750Ti.

I am considering an ASUS EX-GTX1050-O2G OC Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB GDDR5 as a replacement for better SETI@home.

It is a newer card but the graphics card memory size is the same at 2GB as my current graphics card, is the memory size important for SETI@Home crunching? Cards with more memory go up in price a lot.

Petri's binary require nearly 1500 MB on a GTX 1050 Ti (which have better value for money than 1050).
Your X server may need 300-400 MB (depends of your resolution)...more if you plug 2 monitors.
You can decrease the amount of memory used in Petri's code when playing with the unroll value.
Default is 6 on a GTX 1050 Ti.

On a GTX 750 Ti :
#UNROLL_VALUE,GPU_SETI_RAM
5 : 1382
4 : 1310
3 : 1238
2 : 1166
1 : 1094

Of course if you decrease unroll, you'll loose speed....

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Hi

I have narrowed my choice down to two Nvidia cards:

Either

1) Asus NVIDIA GeForce STRIX-GTX1050TI-O4G-GAMING 4 GB GDDR5 128 Bit Memory HDMI/DP/DVI PCI Express 3 Graphics Card

or

2) Asus DUAL-GTX1060-O3G NVIDIA GeForce OC Edition 3 GB GDDR5 192 Bit Memory PCI Express 3 Graphics Card


Price wise not much in it. Is one any better for GPU crunching SETI@home?

For 24/7 don't go for any card with "fancy" fans, go for cards with simple ball bearing fans as they last far longer. I've got too many GPUs around that had multi-fan setups with failed fans for my liking - my oldest serving GPUs (and the longest running I've had) area pair of single fan Asus GTX780s which were bought before a pair of twin-fan Asus GTX780, both of which suffered multiple fan failures before emitting their smoke - that pair was replaced by single-fan Asus GTX960s which are running today (or was it the pair of single fan GTX970s - I can't remember the sequence, there wasn't much difference in purchase dates). Others will say that you've got to go to hybrid or liquid cooling, but with the lower running temperatures of the 10xx series I have my doubts.

There won't be much performance difference between a stock 1050ti and a stock 1060, with the 1060 being a bit, but purchase price and running cost favors the 1050ti.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I'd go with the 1060's, but I may be a bit prejudice as I have a pair of them in this rig.

I also have a pair of slightly slower 3GB Gainward 1060's in this rig.

Cheers.

For 24/7 don't go for any card with "fancy" fans, go for cards with simple ball bearing fans as they last far longer.

Here ... Here. My last "fancy" fan cards were GTX 460s and 560s. They didn't last a year under SETI. I still have GTX 670s running and runnable. I have had no problems with single fan, blower style reference cards. [Caveat] I did just recently purchase a single fan GTX 1060 6GB card. I will see if it lasts longer than my last "fancy" fan cards.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Yikes, how do you define "fancy fans"? This that graphics cards with two fans? I would have thought two fans would cool more than a single fan.

I run 2 SETI@home tasks at once on my 750 Ti with -sbs 512 and I don't believe the total video memory used has reached 1GB.
I have not run Einstein tasks on my 750 yet. So I'm not sure about the memory usage there, since I noticed you also run that project.

Interesting, how do you config SETI@home to run two tasks at once on a single graphics card? Maybe that's all I need to do is set it to two for my existing card.

You'll need to create a cmdline file via notepad and saved as a text file (i.e. mb_cmdline_win_x86_SSE3_OpenCL_NV_SoG). I'm running Lunatics so the name for your file will most likely be different. This is the cmdline that I've been running on my twin 750 Ti w/ 2 tasks each and .5 CPU, running under Lunatics, someone might have better settings -use_sleep -sbs 512 -spike_fft_thresh 2048 -tune 1 32 1 4 -oclfft_tune_gr 256 -oclfft_tune_lr 16 -oclfft_tune_wg 256 -oclfft_tune_ls 512 -oclfft_tune_bn 32 -oclfft_tune_cw 32 -hp

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

Yikes, how do you define "fancy fans"? This that graphics cards with two fans? I would have thought two fans would cool more than a single fan.

I define "fancy fans" as any AIB or aftermarket manufacturers cooling solution that deviates from the reference design. Both Nvidia and ATI use single blower fan cooling designs for their reference designs for a reason. Those blower fans are almost always Delta sourced for industrial design use. I've never seen one fail. The typical twin fan design uses sleeve bearings or poor quality bearings and were never meant for constant 100% card utilization that is distributed computing. They were only designed for transient gaming.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I have 1 Asus twin fan GTX660 that lasted 4 years before being replaced by a GTX1060.

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Guess the 600 series is when the AIB products got serious about using quality fans for their twin fan designs.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Both Nvidia and ATI use single blower fan cooling designs for their reference designs for a reason.

They're cheap, but good enough.

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Grant
Darwin NT