What is it and how does it benefit me?

Dhelsdon · May 7, 2012

Hey all,

I have popped into this section a number of times mostly out of curiosity.

What is Folding@Home, and how does it benefit me?

From what I understand, it uses mostly unattended computers to run the programs but I don't understand what the goal is?

I've personally got a i5 2011 mac mini 8GB ram that I leave on 24/7 for a mine craft server and I use it as a iTunes server. I'd have no problem becoming a part of the macrumors team if it's something I don't really need to maintain. If I can run it and help someone without ever having to really do anything then I'd be glad to help..

Please advise a total noob.

Comeagain? · May 7, 2012

Have you read all the FAQs in this forum, and followed the links?

Dhelsdon · May 7, 2012

I have now

techfreak85 · May 7, 2012

Yes, you can set it to go and not have to worry about it. We would love to have you on the team.

Download the client, get a passkey, and configure it with the -smp argument.

alphaod · May 10, 2012

I think it's for a good cause until I saw the major increase in my power bill from month to month. I was also pouring too much money into buying high end CPUs, and GPUs just for PPD.

techfreak85 · May 10, 2012

alphaod said:
I think it's for a good cause until I saw the major increase in my power bill from month to month. I was also pouring too much money into buying high end CPUs, and GPUs just for PPD.

Most of the power draw comestible from the GPUs. CPU folding doesn't increase the power bill as much as GPUs do.

Naturally, I don't have to pay a power bill.

alphaod · May 13, 2012

techfreak85 said:
Most of the power draw comestible from the GPUs. CPU folding doesn't increase the power bill as much as GPUs do.

Naturally, I don't have to pay a power bill.

Yeah I did a lot of GPU folding. It's was really the only cost effect way to get good PPD. Building a quad CPU rig gets expensive especially hunting those Xeon and Opteron processors just to fold.

And my electricity is very expensive. I usually don't continuously turn on the heat in the winter nor the A/C in the summer because if I do I can easily quadruple my bill.

throAU · May 13, 2012

It doesn't directly benefit you at all - essentially distributed computing is the equivalent of donating your spare CPU / GPU time to charity, to work on "hard" computational problems.

If the result of those computational problems is a research break-through, the world benefits - at some point in the future, maybe.

Louis Wu · May 15, 2012

or, look at it this way -- hopefully you'll be lucky enough healthwise to never benefit from it...

SkyBell · May 19, 2012

As soon as I get an internet connection at home, I plan to do some folding. My eMac is on 24/7 as it is anyway, might as well put it to use. (Though I'm not sure a 7 year old single-core processor would help.

)

techfreak85 · May 19, 2012

Cassie said:
As soon as I get an internet connection at home, I plan to do some folding. My eMac is on 24/7 as it is anyway, might as well put it to use. (Though I'm not sure a 7 year old single-core processor would help. )

Hey, every little bit helps! While it won't put out many points, it still helps the research. I believe you'll have to download a special PPC client here.

Glad you'll be giving the team an extra 2 points per day.

raysfan81 · May 20, 2012

Cassie said:
As soon as I get an internet connection at home, I plan to do some folding. My eMac is on 24/7 as it is anyway, might as well put it to use. (Though I'm not sure a 7 year old single-core processor would help. )

I never could get it working on any of my old ppc macs. Now I'm just folding 24/7 on my windows machines though... its addicting. Sorry guys but I left the macrumors team and moved over to EVGA about a year ago.

WesCole · Jul 30, 2012

throAU said:
It doesn't directly benefit you at all - essentially distributed computing is the equivalent of donating your spare CPU / GPU time to charity, to work on "hard" computational problems.

If the result of those computational problems is a research break-through, the world benefits - at some point in the future, maybe.

I wonder if we could deduct our electric bills from our taxes and use this charity excuse.

If that were the case, I would do this 24/7.

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What is it and how does it benefit me?

Dhelsdon

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Comeagain?

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Dhelsdon

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techfreak85

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alphaod

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techfreak85

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alphaod

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throAU

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Louis Wu

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SkyBell

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techfreak85

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raysfan81

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WesCole

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