I actually use 2 PC to work for SETI, my old pc and my new one, working 11 WU together at the same time. Now i had an idea...the bitcoin hardware is simply said a monster cpu and could eventually do the thing also, and maybe better then a pc ?
What if i would buy one, could i use it for SETI or is it just a bad idea ? Not an expert here but i love doing distributed computing so i would do it if it makes sense.
Can i control this device from my pc, since it doesnt have an own user surface to install the BOINC-client.
When i take as an example the AntMiner S7, here the link:

https://www.bitcoinmining.com/bitcoin-mining-hardware/

it has a working capacity of 4.73 Th/s, how much better is this compared to a i7-6700K @ 4.00 Ghz ? Sorry, totally unexperienced with such things.

Would you advice doing this, are there experiences ?

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Antminer and other dedicated miners are ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) so they have dedicated hardware optimized for hashing and little or nothing else. Assuming they could even do SETI@home tasks, I'd expect their performance would be rather poor compared to a general-purpose CPU.

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Antminer and other dedicated miners are ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) so they have dedicated hardware optimized for hashing and little or nothing else. Assuming they could even do SETI@home tasks, I'd expect their performance would be rather poor compared to a general-purpose CPU.

I see. But i like the idea anyhow, to have a little device additionally with tons of CPU power, ideal for distr. computing...are there comparable devices out there ? Dont want to buy another pc, takes lot of space and would just be wasted when i only use it for SETI.

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Yes, they are called "GPUs". These get over the issues of having dedicated, hardware optimised devices like Bitcoin miner ASICS. You already have two "low end" GPUs running, so if you want to improve up the performance of your systems, without breaking the bank, and saving a bit on power at the same time simply replace the GTX550 with a GTX1050ti (cost about 100 euro). If you want to join the "big boys", then you replace the AMD fury with as many GTX1080 or GTX1080ti as will fit in the case, (cost about 700-900 euro each) and will make your eyes water with their performance - instead of getting a RAC of 3k6 that system would have a RAC of at least 36k, possibly a lot more - look at my rig which reports as having 3 GTX1080- it is actually one GTX1080 and two GTX980 - the 1080 delivers just under half of the RAC!

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

Yes, they are called "GPUs". These get over the issues of having dedicated, hardware optimised devices like Bitcoin miner ASICS. You already have two "low end" GPUs running, so if you want to improve up the performance of your systems, without breaking the bank, and saving a bit on power at the same time simply replace the GTX550 with a GTX1050ti (cost about 100 euro). If you want to join the "big boys", then you replace the AMD fury with as many GTX1080 or GTX1080ti as will fit in the case, (cost about 700-900 euro each) and will make your eyes water with their performance - instead of getting a RAC of 3k6 that system would have a RAC of at least 36k, possibly a lot more - look at my rig which reports as having 3 GTX1080- it is actually one GTX1080 and two GTX980 - the 1080 delivers just under half of the RAC!

Well i tried one time to use GPU-mode in Boinc, but i play games very often and they started stuttering at once, even the AMD fury is a high end Graphic card, so i switched GPU use off again.
And because of me playing often i think its better to have the GPU-use-thing you mentioned on another pc, i mean i could buy a case, a strong cpu, and a huge main board with as much as possible graphic-card slots, and then buy the nvidia card you mentioned, several of them. Would i need a big RAM for this or would 8 GB do ?
And i need some good coolers then for sure also.

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FYI: I have 2 dual E5-2670 (32 thread) machines running with the following: 1) 3 GTX980 (running 3WU each) + 24 CPU threads of MBs - Task Manager says Physical Memory usage is 6.04GB (of 32gigs). 2) 2 x GTX 1080 (3 each) + 25 T of MB - TM says 3.85GB in use (of 16). 1) is producing about 95K RAC at the moment, 2) 85K.

Just look under processes in TM to see what BOINC is running for you, and look at the RAM each requires ("working set").

So 16GB would probably be overkill for you.

FWIW, I have another temporary machine running an I7-980 (12T) and a GTX 1080 + GTX 980 on 8GB, and it is doing fine - around 60K RAC.

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Well i tried one time to use GPU-mode in Boinc, but i play games very often and they started stuttering at once, even the AMD fury is a high end Graphic card, so i switched GPU use off again.
And because of me playing often i think its better to have the GPU-use-thing you mentioned on another pc, i mean i could buy a case, a strong cpu, and a huge main board with as much as possible graphic-card slots, and then buy the nvidia card you mentioned, several of them. Would i need a big RAM for this or would 8 GB do ?
And i need some good coolers then for sure also.

I would just set Exclusive Applications in BoincManager for the games you play and put in a GTX1070, GTX1080 or AMD card. That will stop BOINC from processing while you play your game and you won't get any stuttering.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Yes, they are called "GPUs". These get over the issues of having dedicated, hardware optimised devices like Bitcoin miner ASICS. You already have two "low end" GPUs running, so if you want to improve up the performance of your systems, without breaking the bank, and saving a bit on power at the same time simply replace the GTX550 with a GTX1050ti (cost about 100 euro). If you want to join the "big boys", then you replace the AMD fury with as many GTX1080 or GTX1080ti as will fit in the case, (cost about 700-900 euro each) and will make your eyes water with their performance - instead of getting a RAC of 3k6 that system would have a RAC of at least 36k, possibly a lot more - look at my rig which reports as having 3 GTX1080- it is actually one GTX1080 and two GTX980 - the 1080 delivers just under half of the RAC!

. . Hi Bob & Mark,

. . I can fully support what Bob has said. One GTX1050ti could increase your RAC tenfold if you are running 24/7. If you doubt that have a peek at my rigs and note Mi_Burrito. It is a humble Core2 Duo (only 2 processor cores) and one GTX1050ti running stock clocks. It has a RAC of 13K and that is despite the fact that I am using it a lot lately to try and get a handle on Linux. So consider it seriously as a realistic alternative to those data mining units.

Stephen

:)

Well i tried one time to use GPU-mode in Boinc, but i play games very often and they started stuttering at once, even the AMD fury is a high end Graphic card, so i switched GPU use off again.
And because of me playing often i think its better to have the GPU-use-thing you mentioned on another pc, i mean i could buy a case, a strong cpu, and a huge main board with as much as possible graphic-card slots, and then buy the nvidia card you mentioned, several of them. Would i need a big RAM for this or would 8 GB do ?
And i need some good coolers then for sure also.

I would just set Exclusive Applications in BoincManager for the games you play and put in a GTX1070, GTX1080 or AMD card. That will stop BOINC from processing while you play your game and you won't get any stuttering.

. . Or a GTX1060 if you want to conserve Euros. Even with the GTX1050ti you would be fine as long as you set the manager to NOT use the GPU for crunching while ever you are playing games. The initial idea of Seti@Home was to make use of computer power when ppl are not using it for their own needs. But if you seriously want to have massive grunt get a Ryzen CPU with a good Mobo that takes three GPUs and water/Nitrogen coolers, 16GB of DDR4-3000 ram and put it in a High Air Flow case with a 1000W PSU. Get yourself 3 x GTX1080ti's with water coolers and go for it. Overclock it and drive them babies hard :)

. . But remember to have fun too :)

Stephen

:)

Hi Original User Who Asked,

To use specialised hardware for a free project (that gives supposedly a toaster when you hit a million credits)? Who would build that? What would that cost? Who would buy that?

And .. the work is memory intensive and computationally challenging. It is doing 1 spike finding, 2 autocorrelations, 3 pulse finding, 4 triplet finding, 5 Gaussian fitting,.. in a loop (for N times, N is a big number) and before any of those always a geometric transform (an accelerating rotation) on complex plane + a complex FFT. I doubt that today an USB stick has the ability to do all those without some serious drawbacks.

Petri

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To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

First thanks for all the numbers and informations ! Seems a lot more expensive then i thought to have my RAC raised. I´m a bit confused here because in my sig it says BSrac(eventually bullsh...RAC ?) of 7200 ..so this is the RAC you all speak of ? Where you have 30 k or 60 k i have 5 k for SETI...well thats not that much.

Im sure i will take a i7-6700k cpu from intel again, and 16 GB RAM, to be on the safe side.

If you would be me..what case and what motherboard would you buy to get those GTX 1080ti in ?
And which GTX 1080ti exactly would you take ? there are so many types of this card in amazon.

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The GTX 1080Ti is a serious commitment financially. If purchasing for gaming reasons, yes it is worth it if you want the current best possible platform. It would also be a fantastic BOINC number cruncher when you aren't gaming. That and a good support CPU, memory and motherboard would do wonders for your RAC. It all depends on how much you are willing to spend. A single 10~~ series card is more than enough for gaming. No reason to go to SLI or Crossfire configuration anymore because adding a second graphics card does not scale anymore for FPS. OTOH, adding a second graphics card solely for crunching DOES scale RAC accordingly.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

If you plan on going for a 1080Ti, then don't go for the base model..ie FE

Every review talks about throttling with the FE. That means, you aren't able to take advantage of the boost that normally occurs with these cards.

I'd wait and see what new models the partners come out with. You would want something that has at least a ACX design and is able to keep the card below the throttle temperature if this is going to be a dedicated cruncher.

Worse thing in the world is to spend that kind of money and see it slowing itself down because you are hitting a throttle limit. Take your time and see what comes out.

Personally, I prefer hybrid models. I never hit a throttle limit as the cards never get near their max. I run 1070s at 2.01GHz all day 24/7 (42-44C) without problems.

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Looking again at your current systems I would buy two GTX1050, at about 100euro each and replace your existing GPUs with them. This would more than double your RAC for minimal outlay.
As three of my four systems are running 24/7 and not being interupted by other work it would be unfair to compare the RAC of those three with yours. The nearest would be my "daily driver", which is the only one not running Linux - I've use the "exclusive programs" option to stop processing when this one is being used for anything other than emails, browsing and the like.

Don't forget that developing an ASIC can cost upwards of a million, so in that context a few hundred, or even a couple of thousand, for a good set of GPUs is not a lot.

As to which GTX1080ti - Amazon is not the best place to hunt, seeing where you live look for the big European computer parts dealers, they all have much better product filtering making your searches simpler. In the UK we have (at least) two that will ship to Germany Scan (www.scan.co.uk) and Overclockers (www.overclockers.co.uk) the latter is owned by a German company.

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

For now i use my AMD fury and work with exluding mode, so when i play games the GPU does not do WU's.

In the settings i set the client to "GPU works like settings are"(sorry no english OS here)..but how do i see that my GPU is working now ? Have no games running and it should be active but nothing seems to have changed so far.

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The BOINC manager GUI has two modes of operation "normal" and advanced. In the advanced view one of the tabs is called "tasks", sort this by "progress" and you can see what tasks are actually running and how far they have progressed, against each task you will see the application that is being used - names like "ATI_SoG_....." or "...CUDA...." are running on the GPU.

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

I don't see any GPU app installed on either of your two systems. So that is why you see no GPU tasks running. For some reason BOINC has not sent you the GPU apps. What checkboxes have you set in your account Seti@Home Preferences? You should have ticked the checkbox for both Nvidia and ATI to get the GPU apps and GPU tasks for your two systems. So far, all you have processed is CPU work on both systems. Start up BOINC and let it run for a minute and then copy the first 35 lines of the Event Log and post them back here in this thread. The Event Log shows the startup of BOINC and will tell us if it even detects any GPU cards or drivers for them.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

The BOINC manager GUI has two modes of operation "normal" and advanced. In the advanced view one of the tabs is called "tasks", sort this by "progress" and you can see what tasks are actually running and how far they have progressed, against each task you will see the application that is being used - names like "ATI_SoG_....." or "...CUDA...." are running on the GPU.

I see, so i just need to wait a bit longer, until the Boinc has gotten new WU's, as it is now the WU´s actually running are all normal ones. Btw many thanks for all the advice, maybe it looks a bit funny that i just use my AMD with the exclude-option(which i didn´t knew) now after asking so many big and pricey things ;)

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I´m a bit confused here because in my sig it says BSrac(eventually bullsh...RAC ?

https://boincstats.com/en/page/faq#61

How is BOINCstats RAC (BS-RAC) calculated, and why use it instead of project-RAC?

BS-RAC is the gained credit of the past x days divided by x, where x is the number of days in the day-history (also used for the 60 day history chart), with a maximum of 60 days.

Some projects do not correctly update project-RAC which makes this RAC too high or too low compared to reality.

BS-RAC is more accurate than project RAC because it is updated every day together with the daily update and it represents your true average credit per day.

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If you enable GPU processing it normally takes two or three 5minute report cycles to actually get some tasks for the GPUs. Often you will get one, wait a bit, then get a few more, and finally, after a couple of dozen tasks being returned and validated things start to settle down.

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