I know this has probably been gone over a thousand times before and to the people who have seen/read it that many times already......I appologize in advance.

It's come time for a video card upgrade.

I currently run a pair of Geforce 9600 GSO 768MB DDR2 Cards, 96 shaders each.

THE WANT:
Minimal gaming....mostly SETI performance......no preference between single slot and multiple slot solution. I would rather not have to sell a kidney to fund the upgrade.

THE EASY WAY?
Now, if I had more money than brains, the obvious choice would be to go all out and pickup a single Geforce GTX 295 and never look back, right ?

THE FACTS:
- the average 'BOINC' rating of a GTX 295 is around 106 GFLOPS (per GPU, so times 2).
- the average 'BOINC' rating of a GTX 260 is around 100 GFLOPS.
- the price of a GTX 295 is approx 3x (or more) the price of the average GTX 260.
**Canadian average prices being $200/GTX 260 vs $600/GTX 295 approx.

THE THEORY:
- 2 x GTX 260's can produce similar (just a bit less) Seti@home performance results compared to a single GTX 295 for about 2/3 the $$ or less ?

The pricing structure seems to remind me a bit of RAM pricing, whereas PCIe 16x slots are compareable to memory slots and GTX 260 cards are perhaps the '512MB' variant (cheaper) and GTX 295 cards are perhaps the '1GB' (more than just double the price) variant that occupy less space and greater performance due to slot realestate and availability ? ? ......confused ? think about it for a sec, you will understand ;)

Anyone care to throw their hat in the ring and sound off about what I wrote above ?

Thanks again,
Allan

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

See this thread the GTX275 is a good option.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=54257


EDIT GTX275=123GFLOPS in Boinc

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Think also to the noise of the GPU fans.

AFAIK, the new GTX295 have both GPUs on one PCB and two fans. Hot air only in the PC case.
The 'old' one had two PCBs and one fan. Hot air in the PC case and back out.

I could only compare 'old' GTX295 and 2 x GTX260 Core216.
Then I would go with 2 x GTX260 Core216.
Not so noisy and less GPU temps.

AFAIK, you can't buy overclocked GTX295.
So I bought OCed GTX260 Core216.

But.. it depend how much PCIe 1.0 x16 or PCIe 2.0 x8 slots you have on the mobo.
Every GPU need this slot for well CUDA crunching.


I guess same wattage also.. GTX295 = 2 x GTX260 Core216


Compare also stock high GPUs with less OCed GPUs.
OCed GTX260 Core216 maybe same price like stock GTX275/285 but ~ same performance?




Uhh.. now I have one question.. ;-)
1 x GTX295 at PCIe 1.0 x16 and 2 x GTX260 Core216 at 2 x PCIe 1.0 x16 slot.
So two slots can communicate faster with the CPU/RAM/mobo.

Difference in CUDA Performance?

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BTW.

All my OCed GTX260 Core216 have 112 GFLOPS in BOINC.

GPU-Z say me little more.. ;-)

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Well, I bit the bullet this morning and went out and bought 2 brand new BFG OC MAXCORE 55 GTX 260 (896MB, 216 Core) cards for my main machine.

With a 'small' overclock, they come in at 110 GFLOPS each according to BOINC (from 100 GFLOPS stock speed), so I am not only happy, but also well within GTX 295 speeds for a little less then 2/3 the money (with the cheapest GTX 295 in stock at the same retailer being about $650 CAD/$565 USD with tax).

The pair have been tearing through WU's for over 6 hours now...and at speeds I am satisfied with considering the price.

At just under $400 CAD ($398.98 actually) including tax (about $345 USD) for the pair, I really couldn't pass them by for that price.

As an added bonus, there is also a $20 MIR per card, but I will probably forget to send them in anyways, so I consider todays price the final price...lol

Now that I finally have decent hardware for crunching (a single Core I7 Xeon E5520 @ 3.7 Ghz, using 8 threads & 12GB DDR3), I am going to work towards getting Optimized Apps up and running.

My end goal is pretty realistic;
I just really want to break into Top 100 RAC for Seti@Home and maintain for atleast a month or so....that's it. Nothing too tricky.

That's it for now ;)
Allan

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

Now that I finally have decent hardware for crunching (a single Core I7 Xeon E5520 @ 3.7 Ghz, using 8 threads & 12GB DDR3), I am going to work towards getting Optimized Apps up and running.

My end goal is pretty realistic;
I just really want to break into Top 100 RAC for Seti@Home and maintain for atleast a month or so....that's it. Nothing too tricky.

That's it for now ;)
Allan

Go get the Lunatics Unified Installer here. I believe registration is required to download, but it's free.

Answer a few questions, click a few buttons, and in less than 15 mins per machine you can have all the opt apps you need installed and customized. The only additional info you need is your level of SSE support.

Go get the Lunatics Unified Installer here. I believe registration is required to download, but it's free.

Answer a few questions, click a few buttons, and in less than 15 mins per machine you can have all the opt apps you need installed and customized. The only additional info you need is your level of SSE support.

Just to get this straight.....

This 'software' is an addition to BOINC ?

INSTALLATION: Basically, SHUTDOWN BOINC, run the installer, start up BOINC and crunch away ?

Can it really be THAT simple ?

Sorry for the stupid question. I just am having a hard time wraping my mind around this.
Allan

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

Well done! ;-)


..you thought also to your PSU, enough wattage and ampere?


I don't have knowledge because of the installer, I done it manually.


BTW.
Found little mistake in my upper post.. it was early in Germany [UTC + 02:00 in summer] and didn't had my first coffee.. ;-)
I meant, maybe OCed GTX260 Core216 cheaper than GTX275/285 but ~ same performance?


------------------------------------------------------------


With my 112 GFLOPS GPU an AR=0.44x WU is in ~ 405 sec. finished.

How with your 123 GFLOPS and your 110 GFLOPS GPUs?


EDIT: I let run Raistmer's latest V11 CUDA app.

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This 'software' is an addition to BOINC ?

Not really, what it does is replace the relevant science application with an optimised or modified version.
With the stock application, a usual MultiBeam Work Unit took about 3 hours on my system. With the optimised application, it takes about 1 hour.

The unified installer just makes it easy to set up an optimised application- you select the application (MultiBeam or Astropulse, or both) and you select whether or not to use CUDA (if your system supports it). The installer then installs the appropriate files, creates a suitable app_info.xml file (that tells BOINC which applications to use) & off you go.
The only drawback with an optimised application is that you have to manually update it when it changes. With the stock application, when a new science application comes out BOINC will update it automatically- the app_info.xml file stops that from happening, but it's what allows you to use the optimised application.


EDIT-
Here is a thread on the unified installer with a screen shot or two.

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Grant
Darwin NT

..you thought also to your PSU, enough wattage and ampere?

Already running an Ultra X3 1000W, Single 12v Rail @ 70A, SLi Edition.

http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_details.php?cPath=97&pPath=632&productID=632

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

Well, I just screwed up....

I didn't realize I would loose all my qued WU's in BOINC after the upgrade to optimized Aps and now I can't get anymore work from the server as I am being told I have reached my daily allowed quota.

6/27/2009 8:12:47 PM SETI@home Message from server: (reached daily quota of 1000 results)


...CRAP.....

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

AFAIK, every day at UTC 08:00 you get the chance to get WUs again.
Also if you reached the max. download for the day.
Also BOINC count the time backwards in the project overview if you could get new WUs.


You could be kind to your wingmen to detach and attach your BOINC, then the Berkeley server will send out the WUs soon to other PCs.
If not, they need to wait to the deadline that the WUs will send out again.
BUT, this will clear and delete the whole setiathome.berkeley.edu folder, in which you installed the opt. apps.
But, you could install a second time with the installer. ;-)


EDIT:
I understood you well.. yes? ..all WUs are deleted on HDD?
If not all deleted, then of course not detach/attach.. ;-)

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AFAIK, if detach/attach to a project.. you would get (in your case) 1,000 WUs immediately.. because the project server think it's a new client..

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Well, back up and running this morning.
All I can say is that SSE4x Optimized App ROCKS !

About 2-4c hotter on the CPU - but WELL worth it.

I can't believe how fast this machine is chewing through WU's now......it's CRAZY !

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I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.