Yes, today's topic is "core envy".

Once I was happy with a core and its hyperthread. These were the early days, and the hyperthread was VERY slow.

The I got a "real" two core system. I have even recreated that and am running it now. https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8591492 It is true I was running a GTX 210 back then not a GTX 750Ti.

Then 4 cores became more common.
Then 4 cores with hyper-threading become very common.

But then I discovered that a Xeon could be had with 6 cores and hyper-threading.
Yes.

But I was curious and bought a dual cpu system that could be upgraded to Xeons with 10 cores and hyper-threading. It was slower than the previous Xeon because they only ran at 3GHz :(

I so I rested for a while. Until I read https://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

That was when I began my "death spiral" :)

At that time, a bunch of used e5-2670 v1 cpus had hit the markets because all the Data Centers had started doing generational upgrades.
New, these cpus cost thousands of dollars. And they were going for $100!

There were genuine 8 core with hyper-threading cpus that could run all day and night at their baseline speed of 2.6GHz. I discovered later I could kid these cpus into turbo boosting to 2.9999GHz.

After a while I located a 16c/32t dual cpu system from an after market vendor for around a thousand bucks.

The Millennium at last! :)


HA.

It turned out there was an upgrade the e5-2697v2 with 12c/24t @2.8GHz. But it was very expensive.

I was complaining about the price someplace around here when someone pointed to

an e5-2690v2 with a much more reasonable price at 10c/20t at 3GHz. And yes it will turbo boost to 3.29999GHz :)

Specifically this one: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8610031

But wait, there's more :)

In between there I ran across an engineering sample of an e7-2870.

This has 15 cores and hyper-threading. It runs at 2.90GHz. It cost $100 and the specs claimed it was an LGA 2011 socket.

I was going to plug it right into my lga 2011 motherboard(s) and go to town.

That is when I learned that in addition to LGA 2011 socket, there was version 0, version 1 and version 3 (at least).
Version 0 (which is what I had) works nicely with the e5-26xx v1/v2 cpus. But is incompatible with the e7- cpus which only work in Lga 2011 socket version 1.

That is when I got a significant shock. The only motherboard I could find for sale was $3,000. Since I don't have an unlimited budget that slowed my e7- dreams down quite a bit. I spent a fair amount of time looking for used motherboards.
Eventually I stumbled over a used/refurbished Server vendor who was selling a 4 cpu box with memory, power supplies etc for $1,700. I floated a loan and was ready to pluck down the cash when the vendor mentioned a couple of issues.
1) The box was setup for 220. But they could get that switched to 120.
2) They wondered if I had 30? (I am not sure if it was 30 or 50) amp service since that was about what it would draw (I have 15 amp service/outlets).

That brought my dreams for a 60 CPU/120 thread system to a screeching halt. I wasn't up to paying to have even part of my mobile home re-wired and I am not sure my main breaker would handle the load. Which would make my trailer park landlord very grumpy if I blew the power lead to the trailer.

But wait. There's MORE :)

AMD had announce a 32 core consumer priced (at least it wasn't $3,000) cpu. The Threadripper 2 2990WX.

For only, $1729.95 plus you will need a rated for ver2 motherboard and a very good CPU cooling system (water cooled, really).

I sighed, setup an eBay search for it and went off to upgrade my e5-2670s to e5-2690v2's.

And in the middle of that, eBay hiccuped and offered me a new 2990WX without its packaging for $1,550.

And from there its been one thing after another until I now have a semi-working system at https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8606268

The reason it is working as well as it is working is due to the advice and educational efforts of Keith Myers.

My goal is to feed my "core envy" by trying to run as many Seti CPU tasks (up to 64) at as high a CPU speed as I can (in theory up to 4.1GHz).

Based in the results to date it is looking like 57 threads (90% of available threads and you get more production rule) and maybe 3.9GHz. As I write this on a web browser running on the 2990WX its crunching at 3.8GHz.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

I feel for you. Back in my heyday I was running 12 quads. 48 cores plus hyperthreading. Total of 96 threads. A few more since I had some Mac with dual cores, but then came GPU's and everyone passed me like I was standing still. It's no longer a core world it's a GPU world.

I feel for you. Back in my heyday I was running 12 quads. 48 cores plus hyperthreading. Total of 96 threads. A few more since I had some Mac with dual cores, but then came GPU's and everyone passed me like I was standing still. It's no longer a core world it's a GPU world.

That is true especially in Seti, GPUGrid and probably some others I don't remember.

I have an e5-2670v1 (6c/16t)@2.6GHz on a generic knock off MB from China that I have managed to get to turbo boost to 2.9GHz. It has a Gtx 750Ti. Runs Lubuntu/CUDA91. The 750Ti is running a Seti task every 5 minutes or so :)

That e5-2670 is one of two of my boxes that are also running a mixture of cpu only projects like World Community Grid and Rosetta@Home. Almost all the other projects I have looked at are CPU-based and so also benefit from higher thread counts.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

I have bought a HP Omen PC with a Ryzen 5 1400 CPU. The CPU has 4 cores but can run eight SETI@home or Einstein@home tasks plus a GPU task. The AMD A10-6700 I had before could run only two tasks plus a GPU task. It was sold as 4 cores but the Windows 10 Task Manager said it had 2 cores and 4 logical processors. The only problem with the Ryzen is that its BIOS has no AMD-V enabled, so it cannot run VirtualBox and LHC@home tasks.
Tullio

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