All hail GPU computing!! The CPU cruncher is dead!

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Message 1081824 - Posted: 26 Feb 2011, 23:49:56 UTC

I'm just experimenting with GPU crunching, and it looks like my main test/development system can leap from a RAC of about 1000 using the CPU to instead something like 200 000 using an nVidia GPU for about the same cost. At that rate, the machine should out compute in mere days everything its ever done over the previous years...

Kinda makes CPU crunching look futile when there is a GPU application available.


Happy home supercomputer crunchin',
Martin


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Message 1081826 - Posted: 26 Feb 2011, 23:50:40 UTC - in response to Message 1081824.  

I'm just experimenting with GPU crunching, and it looks like my main test/development system can leap from a RAC of about 1000 using the CPU to instead something like 200 000 using an nVidia GPU for about the same cost. At that rate, the machine should out compute in mere days everything its ever done over the previous years...

Kinda makes CPU crunching look futile when there is a GPU application available.


Happy home supercomputer crunchin',
Martin


Duh?
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Message 1081833 - Posted: 26 Feb 2011, 23:59:55 UTC - in response to Message 1081824.  

Well, look at it this way. If your CPU is off, so is your GPU.
Since your CPU has to be on, why not use it.
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Message 1081835 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:00:30 UTC - in response to Message 1081826.  

Indeed.
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Message 1081841 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:09:09 UTC - in response to Message 1081824.  

200,000 from a single GPU is a bit much to expect.

However for most GPU's (yours are hidden ML1) a great deal
more can be had from a single GPU than multiple CPU's, at a small
fraction of the cost, and a smaller fraction of the electricity cost.

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Message 1081842 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:10:50 UTC - in response to Message 1081833.  
Last modified: 27 Feb 2011, 0:13:50 UTC

Well, look at it this way. If your CPU is off, so is your GPU.
Since your CPU has to be on, why not use it.


One of my cores needs about 15W. My HD4870 is 6 times faster but needs about 90W. Do the math. Maybe its more credits per day but its not more science per watt. And if you add the idle load of the cpus its energy wasting for some "useless" credits. Nvidia cards are better but far from making cpu chrunching pointless.

Edit: 90W is the difference between idle and load consumption. The ATI does indeed the work of an hexacore but for the same energy cost.
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Message 1081845 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:20:03 UTC

Oh, I shouldn't be so sarcastic.

If you could find my first posts when GPU crunching first came around, I was a total ass.

LOL how things change.


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Message 1081852 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:56:16 UTC - in response to Message 1081845.  

Awww, this GPU thing is just a fad, it'll never catch on! :-)


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Message 1081853 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 0:58:08 UTC - in response to Message 1081852.  

Awww, this GPU thing is just a fad, it'll never catch on! :-)
Rolf.

My kibble exactly.
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Message 1081858 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 1:07:06 UTC - in response to Message 1081853.  

Glad you agree, now excuse me while I go hitch up my horse and buggy!


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Message 1081873 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 1:40:40 UTC - in response to Message 1081858.  

doesn't that use those new fangled wheel things? never did trust those..
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Message 1081909 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 3:04:38 UTC - in response to Message 1081824.  
Last modified: 27 Feb 2011, 3:07:08 UTC

...

Kinda makes CPU crunching look futile when there is a GPU application available.



I will see your raise and CALL, i want to see your cards. but we will see how these 6 core xeon chips perform, 24 logical cpus.
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Message 1081912 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 3:32:53 UTC - in response to Message 1081842.  

Well, look at it this way. If your CPU is off, so is your GPU.
Since your CPU has to be on, why not use it.


One of my cores needs about 15W. My HD4870 is 6 times faster but needs about 90W. Do the math. Maybe its more credits per day but its not more science per watt.


"science per watt" Now there's an interesting idea.


And if you add the idle load of the cpus its energy wasting for some "useless" credits.


""useless" credits" Sounds heretical. Next thing you know, They'll be putting you in the Comfy Chair.

Nvidia cards are better but far from making cpu chrunching pointless.


Huh?

Edit: 90W is the difference between idle and load consumption. The ATI does indeed the work of an hexacore but for the same energy cost.


OK.
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Message 1081913 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 4:00:55 UTC

I am running 6 BOINC projects, including a VirtualMachine on a CPU. Only 2 of them could use GPUs. So I would spend more on electricity and produce more heat while having no gain on 4 projects. This is why I am not spending money on a graphic card. I have only an on board graphic chip.Maybe a new generation chip (like AMD Fusion) capable of doing also graphics could be my next choice.
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Message 1081919 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 4:47:46 UTC - in response to Message 1081824.  

I'm just experimenting with GPU crunching, and it looks like my main test/development system can leap from a RAC of about 1000 using the CPU to instead something like 200 000 using an nVidia GPU for about the same cost. At that rate, the machine should out compute in mere days everything its ever done over the previous years...

Kinda makes CPU crunching look futile when there is a GPU application available.


Martin, I'm surprised you've only just realised this!

I got a 5850 last year, and it was doing in 2 minutes the same WUs that my i7
did in 10 hours! 300x improvement! Totally insane. 1440 processors vs 4 for
similar energy consumption.

Yes, it is kind of disappointing when years work costing perhaps $1000 a year
in energy can now be done for less than a tenth of the cost, but that is progress.

As for economic sense: We could save a lot of energy, and still do much more
science in the longer term if we don't use our CPUs now, and instead put
aside what we save to buy GPUs for when our favourite projects do have proper
GPU support.

Unlike a distributed medical application that has some urgency, seti@home isn't
a case of find ET as soon as possible, We are very unlikely to have any
positive results in our lifetimes but we have at last started to put some
coefficients into the Drake Equation.
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Message 1081924 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 5:26:41 UTC

There are many projects that won't run on a GPU. Use your CPU for those.
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Message 1081971 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 9:29:09 UTC

Well feeling may change if AVX on the i7's is all it's cracked up to be.
Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!
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Message 1081982 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 9:39:37 UTC - in response to Message 1081971.  

Well feeling may change if AVX on the i7's is all it's cracked up to be.

Not anytime soon.......
The Lunatics boyz haven't even cracked the Fermis open yet.

THAT will be something.

And God trust me, they ARE working on it.

Meow.
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Message 1081984 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 9:43:06 UTC - in response to Message 1081982.  


Not anytime soon.......
The Lunatics boyz haven't even cracked the Fermis open yet.

THAT will be something.

And God trust me, they ARE working on it.

Meow.


Yeah unfortunately, I wish they would get something cracking on the Fermi's would really like to see what this 480 can do. Be kind of like watching a water fall instead of rock beds.

Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!
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Message 1082005 - Posted: 27 Feb 2011, 10:29:05 UTC - in response to Message 1081984.  


Not anytime soon.......
The Lunatics boyz haven't even cracked the Fermis open yet.

THAT will be something.

And God trust me, they ARE working on it.

Meow.


Yeah unfortunately, I wish they would get something cracking on the Fermi's would really like to see what this 480 can do. Be kind of like watching a water fall instead of rock beds.

My top rigs has 2 GTX295's.
Still the top doggy.

I have a 465 and a 470 in the number 2 rig.

Would just luv to see them cut loose.
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Message boards : Number crunching : All hail GPU computing!! The CPU cruncher is dead!


 
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