What components will give the 'ultimate' s@h cruncher PC?

'Ultimate' is highest RAC for a single motherboard.

So what bits to get for:

1: Highest RAC per component cost?

2: Highest RAC per Watt?


And is there anything better if you were to abandon the old PC way of doing things?...


Ideas?

Happy super-fast crunchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Get yourself an AMD processor 6 core, and A GOOD VIDEO CARD 590

does it on the cheap

ram is cheap now, but maybe not for long thou

:)

Get yourself an AMD processor 6 core, and A GOOD VIDEO CARD 590

does it on the cheap

ram is cheap now, but maybe not for long thou

:)

Sir, I refer you to this post.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=66507

Regards,

A

---

1: Highest RAC per component cost?

2: Highest RAC per Watt?

For both of those you'd probably be looking at an i5 or i7 39xx with several GTX460s / GTX560Tis (or equivalent when Kepler comes out).

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Is there any real point in using SSD's on a dedicated SETI cruncher?

Once it has booted there is very little in the way of drive activity. WU transfers are limited by your connection bandwidth and are way slower than HDD transfer rates and communication between BOINC and the HDD is minimal. If your not downloading/uploading the drive light hardly blinks.

for the price of SSD's I can see no advantage. IMHO your better off putting the money towards a faster GPU

T.A.

To me, it seems most reasonable to have 4 pcs of EVGA's 460 2Win or 560 2Win on some board with 4 PCIe slots, which all allow two slot cards, for total of 8 GPUs. Like X79-UD7(there are 1366 board also, e.g GA-X58-OC, not sure about 1155 and 1156. Imho, there was at least one Sapphire MoBo for 1155 and one Asus with 1156).
Can any OS handle 12 GPUs, as above example with 6 295s?

---

I got some tips from -= Vyper =- when I was setting up my 295 rig and this is one thing he said

"those GPU's (GTX 295) doesn't work properly when O use a driver newer than 190.38, after that only 4 gpu's get utilized out of 8."

So not sure the reasons that the newer drivers wouldn't be able to use more than 4 GPUs.

I to have looked into the EVGA's 460 2Win or 560 2Win cards, but it seems like there pretty buggy and reading reviews at Newegg and the EVGA forum, people are having lots of issues.

---

My Computers:
â–ˆ Blue Offline
â–ˆ Green Offline
â–ˆ Red Offline

Well... "ultimate" is relative and depends on your wallet. How about this dual socket board or an own server closet with a couple(or a couple more) of those babies in it?

---

As many 590s as your electricity power outlet can handle. + an H70 cooler.

Well... "ultimate" is relative and depends on your wallet. How about this dual socket board or an own server closet with a couple(or a couple more) of those babies in it?

Now there is a good question...

Is it better to go for a multi-CPU-socket beast? Or a single socket with a multi-core beast CPU?

For the closest to 'ultimate' (whatever that is exactly), my leanings at the moment are towards an AMD3+ motherboard maxed out with RAM and GPUs. That assumes that the GPUs will far exceed anything a super-expensive CPU can do provided whatever host CPU is chosen can keep the GPUs fed with data.

I'm also considering closed-loop air cooling with the heat exchanged with an external water cooling system... The main hope there is to avoid the insides getting furred up like an ancient vacuum cleaner!


Happy super-fast crunchin'!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Is it better to go for a multi-CPU-socket beast? Or a single socket with a multi-core beast CPU?

If just using the CPUs to crunch, then a muli socket multicore system would be the way to go.
eg a 8 socket system using Westmere E7s. 10 cores, 20 threads * 8 = 160 WUs at a time on a single system.
Unfortunately the cost of such a system would be painfull; $2,700 for each CPU (the base model, top of the line is $4,500).
Power consumption though would actually be very low per WU crunched, compared to running multiple systems with multiple GPUs to crunch 160WUs at a time.

However several quad core systems with multiple GPUs, while not being able to process the same number of WUs at any given time, would still be able to process more WUs per hour than the Octal socket system- by a huge margin.

For the closest to 'ultimate' (whatever that is exactly), my leanings at the moment are towards an AMD3+ motherboard maxed out with RAM and GPUs. That assumes that the GPUs will far exceed anything a super-expensive CPU can do provided whatever host CPU is chosen can keep the GPUs fed with data.

For actual crunching, the Intel CPUs beat the AMD ones by miles.
But if just using the CPU to feed multiple GPUs a basic tripple core AMD based system would be a good way to go. I wouldn't even bother loading it up with RAM- i'd put that money towards a SSD as the boot drive.

I'm also considering closed-loop air cooling with the heat exchanged with an external water cooling system... The main hope there is to avoid the insides getting furred up like an ancient vacuum cleaner!

For that, i'm thinking the best sort of enclosure for the system would be a reasonably large wooden box. I'd have the PSU mounted exernally. The only holes in the box would be for the PSU leads, mouse, keyboard & monitor (and i'd probably keep the KVM holes closed most of the time- use a manager to remotely control the system) & the in & out pipes for the water.

In side the box i'd have a nice large radiator, with as large a fan as possible to draw the hot system air through it, outside a larger radiator & fan to get rid of as much heat as possible (either from a small car or motocycle) depending on how many video cards you have & what rating, even a large (1.2kW) PSU may not be enough to drive them, the system, the fans & the pump- so an extra bench type PSU might be required.

As a safetly for such a system, you could insert a relay connection into the power_good lead from the PSU- if there is no power to the water pump & fans the system won't start. If they lose power, the system will stop (abruptly).

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Can any of the new intel encryption extensions be used in a new optimized app???

---

Can any of the new intel encryption extensions be used in a new optimized app???

highly unlikely, though AVX certainly is.

---

"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.

Can any of the new intel encryption extensions be used in a new optimized app???

highly unlikely, though AVX certainly is.

I suspect once people get a handle on AVX, they will give a huge boost to crucnhing.
Look at the effect of Quick Sync for video transcoding.
eg A i5 2500k, 82.5 fps
i5 2500k Quick Sync, 200 fps.

Quick Sync v non Quick Sync.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

The main reason i upgraded to the AMD FX was it supports AVX as well.
Time will tell.

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I'd take an i7-3930K and pair it with 6 GTX 590's. That type of rig should be able to post some pretty good numbers.

---

My Computers:
â–ˆ Blue Offline
â–ˆ Green Offline
â–ˆ Red Offline

I'd take an i7-3930K and pair it with 6 GTX 590's. That type of rig should be able to post some pretty good numbers.

+ how many power supplies will that take - bare in mind 1 590 needs ~366W peak.

I'd take an i7-3930K and pair it with 6 GTX 590's. That type of rig should be able to post some pretty good numbers.

+ how many power supplies will that take - bare in mind 1 590 needs ~366W peak.

2 1350w Enermax Maxrevo's should cover it. Great little PSU! I've got one running my Red rig right now.

---

My Computers:
â–ˆ Blue Offline
â–ˆ Green Offline
â–ˆ Red Offline

One thing that has not been considered in this thread is the internet connection (both yours and SETIs). I suspect that some of the systems discussed could process WUs faster than you could possibly download them. My main cruncher is on a University 50MB/s LAN connection but it can currently only get WUs at a transfer rate of 2-20KB/s from SETI. Thus it takes arould 1-10 minutes to download each WU and if you are going to be crunching them in less time than that then you will never be able to use the full power of your cruncher.

Things get even worse duringa shortie storm or if you want to crunch AP. Of course if you want to crunch other projects as well as SETI then this will be less of a problem as you will be able to download WUs from multiple projects and many of them have much better crunch/downline time ratios than SETI.

---

I'd take an i7-3930K and pair it with 6 GTX 590's. That type of rig should be able to post some pretty good numbers.

That's currently Not possible, As all currently known GTX590 cards take up 2 slots each, air or water cooling, in any case the motherboard You'd need doesn't exist as all the one's I've seen would support only 4, not 6. So until a 6 slot double spaced motherboard shows up, You won't be able to use 6 in One PC, Now in 2 or 3 PCs You could do this, Just not in one so far. Good Luck.

Also the biggest cases support XL-ATX which only supports 4-pci-e 16x slots.

It could be done using PCIe ribbon extenders on a custom benching rig. As much heat as 6 590s would produce putting them in a case seems like a bad idea.

---

My Computers:
â–ˆ Blue Offline
â–ˆ Green Offline
â–ˆ Red Offline