I love how he just ripped through all the platform choices and what to avoid.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I have been looking around and a number of the AMD Seti boxes are crunching using AMD Ryzen 7 1700 cpu's.

I get that they are a lower cost option if you want 8c/16t and are not worried about maximum CPU production.

They also are not being used to drive huge bunches of gpus.... (that I have noticed)

So what is the attraction? Is a hundred dollar differential from a 2700/2700x that much difference?

Tom

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

I would guess for most cases someone wanted or needed a computer when Ryzen debuted, bought their top of the line, and haven’t considered upgrading since. I don’t think a majority of people crunching are focused on having the latest and greatest hardware.

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Seti@home classic: 1,456 results, 1.613 years CPU time

first gen Ryzen had huge hype. A lot of people jumped on them, and many who are crunching seti on them now are probably using those old chips since they bought them, not feeling the need to upgrade.

most people wont use AMD Ryzen to drive a lot of GPUs because the motherboards for that platform don't cater to that kind of use. you already went down this road, you know from experience that it doesn't work well.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

If you just want to populate the existing slots on a AMD motherboard without all the mining hardware, then the AMD platform is a nice, inexpensive platform for BOINC that gives a good balance of cpu and gpu capability.

If you want to drive a boatload of gpus with mining hardware then a simple Intel platform is best because it has the PCIe lanes to accommodate. And you have to buy into the AMD HEDT ecology (Threadripper) to achieve similar with higher costs than just Ryzen.

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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 just want to populate the existing slots on a AMD motherboard without all the mining hardware, then the AMD platform is a nice, inexpensive platform for BOINC that gives a good balance of cpu and gpu capability.

If you want to drive a boatload of gpus with mining hardware then a simple Intel platform is best because it has the PCIe lanes to accommodate. And you have to buy into the AMD HEDT ecology (Threadripper) to achieve similar with higher costs than just Ryzen.

What i like about the am4 platform is that for Around 280 euro's i have a ryzen 7 2700 a asrock b450 and 16 GB ram memory a cpu that has 20% more performance as Core i7 7700 on multi threaded applications like seti

Note to self: Having turned on the CPU Boost from disabled to "auto" and noticed I go from 3.1999~ Ghz to 3.2~ Ghz overall do I gain that much performance and increase my power draw?

Mumble.... Its still probably time to look at a 3700x if I want to crunch some faster and not use more power.

Tom

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

Note to self: Having turned on the CPU Boost from disabled to "auto" and noticed I go from 3.1999~ Ghz to 3.2~ Ghz overall do I gain that much performance and increase my power draw?

Mumble.... Its still probably time to look at a 3700x if I want to crunch some faster and not use more power.

Tom

All you did is change the reporting. The clock frequency remained the same. Probably increased the power draw a tiny bit as the voltage now can scale as the boost algorithm allows.

The 3700X would allow both higher cpu clocks and higher memory clocks which boosts performance. The power draw would be less.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Although the NVIDIA gpu is being used now that the 1440 driver has been added unfortunately it is not exactly up to speed. A task now takes an average of 19 minutes whereas before it was 8 1/2 minutes. I know 1/2 a run is better than no run at all but it is still retrograde when we should be moving forward.
JSM

Although the NVIDIA gpu is being used now that the 1440 driver has been added unfortunately it is not exactly up to speed. A task now takes an average of 19 minutes whereas before it was 8 1/2 minutes. I know 1/2 a run is better than no run at all but it is still retrograde when we should be moving forward.
JSM

There should have been no change in task completion times with just a simple driver upgrade. Are you running doubles now? Your times are exactly as expected if so.

A question . . . . is there some specific reason why you continue to run the stock applications when the optimized Linux apps are available? That 1060 could be running a task in around 70-80 seconds instead of the 900 seconds with the SoG app.

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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 3700X would allow both higher cpu clocks and higher memory clocks which boosts performance. The power draw would be less.

@Keith:
Lets talk about liquid cooling the AMD Ryzen 9 3900x/3950x.
Assuming I am not fond of assemble from scratch cpu liquid cooling what seems to be the best choices?

Tom

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

The 3700X would allow both higher cpu clocks and higher memory clocks which boosts performance. The power draw would be less.

@Keith:
Lets talk about liquid cooling the AMD Ryzen 9 3900x/3950x.
Assuming I am not fond of assemble from scratch cpu liquid cooling what seems to be the best choices?

Tom

The specifications for cooling the 3950X from AMD is a 280mm AIO minimum. I would agree with that recommendation. The best choices would be the Corsair H115i PRO RGB AIO which is based on CooliT hardware and not Asetek. I have two of its predecessor,the Corsair H110i running for several years now with no issues. Another choice would be the NZXT Kraken 62. The best choice in a 280mm AIO in my opinion is the Alphacool Eisbaer 280mm AIO since it has custom cooling class hardware with a real pump and and a real cpu block and is expandable even. Though I would not put a gpu in line with it since the cpu alone would max out the radiator. The other option would be the EVGA CLC280 which I also have but the fans are atrocious and would need to be replaced with decent ones like the Corsair ML-140 or the Noctua NF-A14 or Noctua NF-14 IPPC-2000 fans which are excellent.
https://www.amazon.com/CORSAIR-H115i-PLATINUM-Liquid-Cooler/dp/B07JWB5BSP?tag=gamersnexus01-20
https://www.amazon.com/RL-KRX62-02-Cooling-Software-Controlled-Lighting/dp/B06XX8Q1CL?tag=gamersnexus01-20
Alphacool Eisbaer 280
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Liquid-Cooler-Cooling-400-HY-CL28-V1/dp/B01N16CAKN
The review of the Corsair and its 280 competitors is at Gamers Nexus
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3457-corsair-h115i-rgb-platinum-cooler-review-asetek-vs-coolit

Or if you have the ability to mount a 360mm AIO that also would be a good choice but the price bracket increases. The barebones EVGA CLC280 is the minimum but the stock fans would be loud as hell and I would only run it with the aftermarket ML-140 or Noctua fans which adds to its cost.

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

TY, Keith. That is what I needed to ponder with.

So the minimum price range would be $750+ $130 = $880 (making the unlikely assumption I could get a 3950x for list price).
That turns into nearly 4 Gtx 10660 Super gpus.

Hmmmmm.........

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

A question . . . . is there some specific reason why you continue to run the stock applications when the optimized Linux apps are available? That 1060 could be running a task in around 70-80 seconds instead of the 900 seconds with the SoG app.

Just reserving a CPU thread, running 1 WU at a time, and making use of some command line values would make a big difference in output even with the SoG application.
But if you're running Linux & have an NVidia video card(s), making use of the Special Application is a no brainer.

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Grant
Darwin NT

That may have been a false alarm. There were three 19 minute tasks which is what I based my post on as I thought this was now the norm but subsequently the times have reverted to less than 9 minutes. Presumably if not a hardware problem then Seti allotted some longer tasks and I just happened to come across them.
The reason I have been running standard software is because I like to take changes slowly after many, many years of IT work and management (:
I am quite prepared to give alternates a go although I will probably use one of the 1800 m/cs rather than the 2990wx. Bearing in mind that TBar had not yet compiled for the 1910 Ubuntu I would appreciate a detailed step guide to install whatever software might improve the throughput. I would point out that I was (and perhaps still am) a RSTS, Basic Plus, and all the variants, expert and not a C++ veteran.
jsm

Well it is likely you would only have issues with the client and manager in TBar's archive. I believe the science applications would not have issues. But check first. You can always download the package and unpack it and check the dependencies in Ubuntu 19.10 and see if any are missing. You can always just drop the science applications into the standard default distro's BOINC folder along with the app_info.xml file to use them and leave the existing client and manager alone. The client and manager don't care about where the science applications originate from when you run anonymous platform.

If you want to compile your own client and manager for Ubuntu 19.10, then the guides are here.
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_porting.php
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BuildSystem
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/SoftwarePrereqsUnix

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

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

@Keith et al,
Lets assume I get lucky and get a 3900x or 3950x in the very near future (like Sunday night or Black Friday) . I have a ROG Crosshair VII Hero MB.
Given that I am NOT planning on running it in turbo-mode (I can't afford the power and I don't have the liquid cooling that would make me comfortable doing it) what version of the mandatory bios upgrade would you go with?

Asus's most recent Bios for this MB was issued Nov 4th.

Tom

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

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VII-HERO/HelpDesk_CPU/ says you need at minimum 2304 for the 3900X and 2703 for the 3950X.

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https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VII-HERO/HelpDesk_CPU/ says you need at minimum 2304 for the 3900X and 2703 for the 3950X.

So far when I go the 2304 link it seems to route me to the 2703 without giving me a choice.

When I go here:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VII-HERO/HelpDesk_BIOS/
I can download a 2304.

So now I have both Bio's available. What bios version are you (other 3900x owners) running? I remember discussions of 3900x bios upgrades that had problems. I don't wish to join the bleeding edge on this, just the "middle position" will do me fine.

Tom

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

Always run the latest Tom, dont go the 2-3% faster route bla bla. Latest agesa versions is modified so its harder to fry your cpu etc.

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Addicted to SETI crunching!
Founder of GPU Users Group