HD 3800 series folding?

The current versions of Folding@Home do not support anything other than the X1000 series. There was a preview of a new client coming up and I would wait for more information on that to see what solutions are supported.

 

Addendum to the above: the current F@H GPU client only supports Radeon models X1800, and X1650 XT through X1950 XTX. IOW: graphics cards based on R520, RV560/RV570, R580/R580+. RV505/RV515, RV530/RV535 are not supported.

 

Looks like there's a new client coming soon. Read the link to the blog. Given the hints and the plugging of ATI, there's bound to be a RV670 client sooner rather than later.

 

oooo PS3 here comes your competition!

 

Doesn't the X19xx already outfold the PS3 by a healthy margin? Its the numbers of them thats the problem in terms of competing witht te PS3, the R6xx will suffer even more in that regard.

 

Not exactly... While true the GPU clients are performing approximately twice the FLOPs of the average PS3 (per client), they work on an even smaller subset of simulations and are therefore not as useful in a broad sense, thus they are awarded fewer points (an X1900 XT-class card completes one 330-point WU every 12 hours). It's hard to say what the peak GFLOP rate of each client is, as we only have an average of all active clients as per the stat page . It is possible (and indeed probable) that one of the two client types is running more hours per day on average than the other, and so a completely-accurate comparison of the two clients isn't really possible based on these stats.

 

Is there ever gonna be an R6xx client?

 

Yes. Soon.

 

Yay! Now if only ATi could make a competitive single-GPU part for the high-end, I'd be interested in owning an ATi card again. Also, Stanford needs to adjust the point bonus for the various projects. PS3 and GPU projects just don't earn enough points. GPU folding is pointless if you can run the CPU SMP client.

 

As of late? Every time they put out a Linux driver that's any improvement I hear about it, and I don't even keep up on Linux news. Seems to me I've heard of several improved Linux drivers from ATi over the last year or so. Then again, I haven't used them so what do I know?

 

not that i know anything about folding but shaidars quote "GPU folding is pointless if you can run the CPU SMP client."
suggests there are 2 clients cpu folding + gpu folding
cant you run both at once ?

 

Yes. And those that have run them side-by-side tend to get more points out of just SMP folding than running both. The problem is that GPU folding uses an entire core of the CPU to get its job done, and that really takes away from SMP folding. Due to the current point structure GPU folding just isn't worth it unless you have a single-core CPU that is not of the Core family. P4s, AXPs, Semprons, and A64 owners with 2900s/38xxs may want to run GPU folding, but anyone with a better proc will get way more points per day out of SMP folding.

 

I don't think thats accurate. GPU foling outscores CPU folding, so if you have a dual core you'll get more out of running a single CPU and GPU folding.

However, the overhead was caused by the use of DX in the initial version; I don't know how the new core uses the CPU, however being based on CAL means it should have a completely different characteristics. Also, with the new core (currently) being a superset of the PS3's capabilities, hopefully it will score inline with PS3 Folding; the initial GPU core was scored down relatively because it was working on a smaller set of projects. Finally, HD 3800 does have a higher performance math engine than anything the old GPU client ran on.

 

Dave, I know you know far more about GPUs than I, but I think you should check your info WRT folding. GPU folding does not outscore SMP FAH. Example: I score approximately 2300 points per day running project 2653 SMP work units (typical SMP WU) worth 1700 points each. That's on a Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.87GHz. The current GPU folding client can only achieve approximately 700 PPD on the fastest card capable of folding (X19x0 XTX). Even overclocked Crossfire'd cards can't outscore a <$200 dual core processor.

I've heard about the recent science parity with the PS3 client and that's quite an achievement. Really goes to show how far GPUs have come in terms of programmability. Too bad Stanford rates the PS3 & GPU WUs so low point-wise. GPU WUs are worth 330 points, and PS3 WUs vary from 200-385. I also run PS3 FAH basically 24x7 (when I'm not playing a game or watching a B-r movie that is) and get approximately 900 points per day. Still pales in comparison to SMP folding.

I've long been a proponent of a point adjustment for both PS3 and GPU clients, but Stanford has yet to act. Hopefully they wise up, as the active user base for both these clients has not only peaked, but seems to even be in decline.

 

Thats a fairly large overclock you're running there. R580's at default 3D speeds can be scoring reasonably higher than 700 PPD as well. Sure, the scoring has evened out, but thats just 3 month old hardware vs 2 years old - the milage is going to vary singificantly if you've not got the latest CPU and its going to change again with the new client.

 

And yet it is negligible in the overall scheme of things. I still maintain ~1900 PPD without the overclock.

Not by much. I see one submission equating to a PPD value even close to what my C2D achieves with SMP FAH, and that is no doubt in Crossfire. How much power is that consuming and what does it all cost? It is both more costly initially and from a TCO perspective to run GPU FAH than it is to run SMP FAH, at least with the currently-supported hardware. Also, the stock-clocked R580 solutions appear to be scoring 770-780 PPD, it is the o/c'd solutions scoring 800-940 PPD.

So who's fault is it that GPU FAH only supports said 2 year-old hardware? And again, my CPU cost me <$200 and consumes less power @ full load than any of the supported graphics cards, let alone two of them. Also, an original C2D is just as capable of running SMP FAH as my Penryn is, and can still provide better TCO and PPD than GPU FAH.

I'm not bashing GPU folding or GPGPU, I've run it on both my X1900 XTX (when it was first released) and again recently on my X1650 XT. If Stanford decides to adjust the point value upwards I would support them whole-heartedly.