lemans81

You need to pm taeric.

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pow3rtr1p

OK, thanks.

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onlycodered

What happens to GPU clients? I haven't heard that mentioned? Will people be able to fold on their GPUs in the competition when the NVIDIA GPU client comes out?

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Taeric

http://www.overclock.net/folding-tea...unt-cores.html

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onlycodered

Yes, I know that. But I was just hoping there might be a way to allow for a daily limit if you're already folding on two cores of a CPU. I think it may soon be time to increase the limit of how many "cores" each team member can fold on with the release of these GPU clients.

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Taeric

Again, the point of the team competition is for small time folders. If you want to fold with a lot of folding power, you need to make a choice between splitting some of your folding capacity off or focusing on the individual competition. The number of cores is not going to be increased any time soon.

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Chozart

In our team thread, you told me that those using the nVidia GPU client will be capped at 2000ppd. Is this indeed the final decision, or is this still out for discussion?

The production of the GPU's is indeed astounding in terms of points. I fold on two 8800GTS 640MB (G80), by no means the most powerful of cards. On one machine, I fold GPU solely, on which I score ~4400ppd. On the other machine, I also fold with the CPU (Q6600), and I score ~3300 on the GPU and ~2100 on the CPU. All this folds under the name 'Just_Be_Cause'. For the team, I currently fold under the name 'chozart' with a SMP client on an E6750. With that one, I average ~2400ppd.

If GPUs are allowed the way it's stated in the 'rules' right now, I'll cease folding the CPU in the second rig, and have both GPUs fold for the team. This should result in ~8800ppd for the team I do understand that this fits in the category of 'power folders'... (however, not for long when people start picking up video cards to use for folding only).

Thus, do the rules apply as stated (and can I use the GPUs right now for the team)? Or will the rules be adjusted for this?

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Taeric

The early point value for the GPU2 client are way out of line with any of the other clients. It's too early to tell exactly how that is all going to fall out, so in the short term until we get more info, the easist thing to do would be to treat them in the same way as we're treating quads. That would be easy to implement, and I think it would be equitable (at least in the short term) since the GPU client seems to be scoring similar to a highly overclocked quad at full power. As you stated, having just one new GPU client going is enough to put someone in the power folder category. SLI with this would put you at the doorstep of the top 5 on the team.

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Chozart

Ok, so pending more information and long(er) term results, 2000ppd is the cap for GPU folders (And I assume this is total for the folder and not per GPU. With that I mean, a single GPU counts as 2 cores when capped to 2000ppd. Is this correct?.

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Taeric

For the short term, yes. Let's give Stanford some time to do some adjustments. To me, it's absoltuely insane that a single system could score 8k+ ppd without even folding on the CPU. There was definitely point inflation from the console to SMP, but this jump seems pretty crazy to me. On the flipside, if they were able to code the new GPU client to work on a broader range of WUs than it could previously and it still crunch at the same (very very fast) speed, the points it earns may well with commensurate with the contribution to the folding cause.

One way or another, we need to keep the GPUs in balance with the remainder of the clients if the team competition is going to have any validity. I'm fine with the concept of throttling as it gets folders full credit for their work yet keeps the team competition in line. If that sticks, there will have to be a provision like with quads that team members who choose to use the GPU client with a cap forgo folding on any other systems under their primary folding name (to keep power folders from joining the competition with a big farm and a cap).

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