The Folding@Home team updates thread

twoodcc · Feb 11, 2011

alphaone said:
Was moved to get back into DC recently after a long absence. Not adding anything too significant, but I still like contributing. (note that only the first two are actually mine, the rest I just have access to)

-MBP 13" 2.53 C2D (my main computer, gets used for lots of other things including video work so it's not exactly a rapid contributor right now)

-AMD X2 64 4600+ [2.4] (my 6 year old pc in a Shuttle chassis, haven't gotten around to building a new one yet, only has a 7900 series gpu so no gpu folding unfortunately)

-i7 iMac (the quad core sleeper)

-base i3 iMac

I also have access to two 2.0 C2D MacBooks but they probably aren't worth utilizing because of their sporadic use patterns combined with their relatively low speed.

I also have a PS3 which I would use if it was possible for it to fold in the background while playing games, watching movies, etc. But apparently that's not possible.

As far as a new PC goes, I'm torn between spending money on the PC or [more money] on a new 15" MBP whenever the next gen comes out.

Also I feel like I came up with a rather ingenious idea for keeping track of all of the computers' progress (from anywhere). I used a combination InCrease and Dropbox. All of the computers have Dropbox installed on them, and each computer except for the main one has a separate folder all of its own in the Dropbox folder where F@H lives for that machine. These folders are then added to InCrease for monitoring. That way whenever the log file or queue file or whatever is updated, it's immediately synced to the main computer and shows up in InCrease. That way even if I'm traveling and I want to check and see what the boxen are doing at home, I can. And it's all seamless. I'm actually pretty proud of myself for having the idea haha

nice. hey as long as you have permission to fold on those iMacs, we could use the points. the macbooks might not be worth it, depending on what they are used for.

as far as a PC vs mbp, that's up to you. but those new intel processors sure do seem nice. what kind of pc did you have in mind for building?

not a bad idea for keeping track of folding

alphaone · Feb 11, 2011

twoodcc said:
nice. hey as long as you have permission to fold on those iMacs, we could use the points. the macbooks might not be worth it, depending on what they are used for.

as far as a PC vs mbp, that's up to you. but those new intel processors sure do seem nice. what kind of pc did you have in mind for building?

not a bad idea for keeping track of folding

Yeah I have permission to use the iMacs, they're my dad's and brother's, respectively, and they're both into helping out with this project, as my dad's father died of alzheimer's and my brother had cancer recently.

As far as the new computer goes, I will probably do one this year and the other the next, I just need to figure out which. The MBP would be a high end 15" i7 Sandy Bridge whenever those are ready. The PC would also be an i7 Sandy Bridge (2600k, probably overclocked a little) after the Sandy Bridge is ready again, with a GTX 570 most likely. Although I love building PCs I'm leaning towards getting a new MBP because I travel A LOT (literally half my year is normally spent away from home; I fly for an aerial mapping company) and I would really like to be able to play stuff like Civ V at good frame rates and would enjoy having a little bit more battery life for long airline flights. Not to mention the awesome cpu for compressing my blu ray collection and of course, folding. The kicker will be seeing how the specs for the new MBPs actually shake out, especially the gpu.

twoodcc · Feb 12, 2011

alphaone said:
Yeah I have permission to use the iMacs, they're my dad's and brother's, respectively, and they're both into helping out with this project, as my dad's father died of alzheimer's and my brother had cancer recently.

As far as the new computer goes, I will probably do one this year and the other the next, I just need to figure out which. The MBP would be a high end 15" i7 Sandy Bridge whenever those are ready. The PC would also be an i7 Sandy Bridge (2600k, probably overclocked a little) after the Sandy Bridge is ready again, with a GTX 570 most likely. Although I love building PCs I'm leaning towards getting a new MBP because I travel A LOT (literally half my year is normally spent away from home; I fly for an aerial mapping company) and I would really like to be able to play stuff like Civ V at good frame rates and would enjoy having a little bit more battery life for long airline flights. Not to mention the awesome cpu for compressing my blu ray collection and of course, folding. The kicker will be seeing how the specs for the new MBPs actually shake out, especially the gpu.

i'm sorry to hear about that. glad that you have joined this project and have them on board as well.

well hopefully the MBPs are updated sooner rather than later, but who knows with apple. hopefully the iMacs are updated soon too. once you decide on what you're going to do, let us know. if you're building a PC, we'd love to know which parts you're going with, over clocking, etc. if you get a MBP, we want to know what kind of PPD your getting

alphaone · Feb 12, 2011

twoodcc said:
if you're building a PC, we'd love to know which parts you're going with, over clocking, etc. if you get a MBP, we want to know what kind of PPD your getting

I'll keep you updated. Currently I'm working on getting my 10 WU's in under my passkey (at 7 right now) and after that I'll shift the i7 iMac over to -bigadv to take advantage of the pts bonuses and then we'll see what it can really do. Hopefully some big PPD. I'm folding under the name 206pilot.

twoodcc · Feb 12, 2011

alphaone said:
I'll keep you updated. Currently I'm working on getting my 10 WU's in under my passkey (at 7 right now) and after that I'll shift the i7 iMac over to -bigadv to take advantage of the pts bonuses and then we'll see what it can really do. Hopefully some big PPD. I'm folding under the name 206pilot.

sounds good. let us know what kind of ppd that iMac gets with bigadv units.

OrangeSVTguy · Feb 12, 2011

Dreadnought said:
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@ ORANGESVTGUY: please lower your folding output, you'll be overtaking me within the next 5 days... (GRMBL!! And some censored cursing: $@&#^%!!!!)

Should pass you up in less than 12 hours now

alphaone · Feb 12, 2011

Weird question, why is F@H showing up as a user level process? I remember it used to show up as a nice process when I ran it last years ago. It's set to idle level in the setup of course and I never noticed till now because it seems to be behaving as a nice process but it's not showing up as one.

rwh202 · Feb 13, 2011

alphaone said:
Weird question, why is F@H showing up as a user level process? I remember it used to show up as a nice process when I ran it last years ago. It's set to idle level in the setup of course and I never noticed till now because it seems to be behaving as a nice process but it's not showing up as one.

I can't remember for sure, but I think there was some debate about this when leopard or snow leopard came out. Either activity monitor or the OS changed how the nice processes are reported.
I'm pretty sure it's normal and folding still gives up processing when required.

Rob

alphaone · Feb 13, 2011

rwh202 said:
I can't remember for sure, but I think there was some debate about this when leopard or snow leopard came out. Either activity monitor or the OS changed how the nice processes are reported.
I'm pretty sure it's normal and folding still gives up processing when required.

Rob

That's what I thought, just thought I'd ask in case I had some weird bug.

tjb1 · Feb 13, 2011

I have a PS3 I could get doing this if it would even be worth it?

twoodcc · Feb 13, 2011

tjb1 said:
I have a PS3 I could get doing this if it would even be worth it?

every little bit helps! i have my PS3 folding when i'm not using it. fire it up!

alphaone · Feb 13, 2011

tjb1 said:
I have a PS3 I could get doing this if it would even be worth it?

Also just FYI, keep in mind the power consumption.

"The original PS3 model will use about 200 Watts while running Folding@home. A later model PS3 (with a 40 GB hard drive) will use about 115 Watts."

So, either 1 or 2 big light bulbs if you wanna look at it that way.

tjb1 · Feb 14, 2011

alphaone said:
Also just FYI, keep in mind the power consumption.

"The original PS3 model will use about 200 Watts while running Folding@home. A later model PS3 (with a 40 GB hard drive) will use about 115 Watts."

So, either 1 or 2 big light bulbs if you wanna look at it that way.

Well im at school so it would be using there power

Do these tasks kinda lock the PS3 down for a specific amount of time or what?

tjb1 · Feb 14, 2011

Got PS3 and my MBP running them.

Dreadnought · Feb 14, 2011

OrangeSVTguy said:
Should pass you up in less than 12 hours now

Yeah, tell me about it

But on the other hand, I already passed a lot of people in the meantime. To bad I can't use any of the Dell's at work, then I could have given you a run for your money. They new ones are all i7's at 2,93 GHZ with a good GPU, 8 GB of ram and SSD's. So, CPU and GPU folding possible. But we need the processing power ourselves as we're a big architectural firm and need to keep the power usage as low as we can as we're already maxed (old building and the city just can't provide us with more power).

twoodcc · Feb 14, 2011

tjb1 said:
Well im at school so it would be using there power Do these tasks kinda lock the PS3 down for a specific amount of time or what?

tjb1 said:
Got PS3 and my MBP running them.

well i'm not sure, but i don't do anything else on my PS3 when it's folding. I stop the folding when i'm using it.

glad you got them both folding!

OrangeSVTguy · Feb 14, 2011

Is there a place where everyone has their rig specs? I'd like to know what rwh202 has. Averaging 119k+ PPD a day

Going to sell my now-useless-to-me Quad G5 and possibly get a i7 970 6 core as they just dropped in price and possibly another GPU and sell off my 950 and 920.

techfreak85 · Feb 14, 2011

OrangeSVTguy said:
possibly get a i7 970 6 core as they just dropped in price

Woah.... $600 is kinda tempting...

twoodcc · Feb 14, 2011

OrangeSVTguy said:
Is there a place where everyone has their rig specs? I'd like to know what rwh202 has. Averaging 119k+ PPD a day

Going to sell my now-useless-to-me Quad G5 and possibly get a i7 970 6 core as they just dropped in price and possibly another GPU and sell off my 950 and 920.

techfreak85 said:
Woah.... $600 is kinda tempting...

wow that is tempting! i'm tellin ya, if you can afford it, gotta get that EVGA SR-2!

OrangeSVTguy · Feb 14, 2011

twoodcc said:
wow that is tempting! i'm tellin ya, if you can afford it, gotta get that EVGA SR-2!

Don't you need the equivalent Xeon processors for the SR2?

Yeah that would go so beautifully in my Lian Li case

I'd spend $200 if I can fine one for that price.

twoodcc · Feb 15, 2011

OrangeSVTguy said:
Don't you need the equivalent Xeon processors for the SR2?

Yeah that would go so beautifully in my Lian Li case I'd spend $200 if I can fine one for that price.

yeah you gotta have xeon processors. but still, you can overclock them! you can put out over 130,000 ppd with one machine!

OrangeSVTguy · Feb 16, 2011

twoodcc said:
yeah you gotta have xeon processors. but still, you can overclock them! you can put out over 130,000 ppd with one machine!

That's crazy PPD. I need to see if I can find a mobo with dual non-xeon i7 sockets. Do they even make one and would be cool if I could use my 920 along with my 950 in the same box.

**added**
Guess only dual CPU are xeon based

.

Oh well I'll be upgrading to a 6 core 970 very soon

Dreadnought · Feb 16, 2011

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I thought the i-series couldnt handle a dual setup, only some of the higher end xeons. Hence no dual mobo's for i7's.

twoodcc · Feb 16, 2011

OrangeSVTguy said:
That's crazy PPD. I need to see if I can find a mobo with dual non-xeon i7 sockets. Do they even make one and would be cool if I could use my 920 along with my 950 in the same box.

**added**
Guess only dual CPU are xeon based .

Oh well I'll be upgrading to a 6 core 970 very soon

Dreadnought said:
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I thought the i-series couldnt handle a dual setup, only some of the higher end xeons. Hence no dual mobo's for i7's.

yeah i think it only works with xeons. but if you can afford it, it's great for folding (and everything else)

techfreak85 · Mar 4, 2011

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We had a huge day yesterday! 879,000 points in a single day!
Can we hit a million points in a day?
Some more good news: at this rate, we are a week away from overtaking a team ahead of us, and less than a month from passing two more! Our biggest threat behind us is 8 months away, but by that time we will have passed at least 5 teams ahead of us. Great job guys! Keep it up!

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