Folding@Home Releases GPU Client

SB_SamuraiSam writes, "Today the Folding@Home Group at Stanford University released a client (download here) that allows participants to fold on their ATI 19xx series R580-core graphics cards. AnandTech reports, 'With help from ATI, the Folding@Home team has created a version of their client that can utilize ATI's X19xx GPUs with very impressive results. While we do not have the client in our hands quite yet, as it will not be released until Monday, the Folding@Home team is saying that the GPU-accelerated client is 20 to 40 times faster than their clients just using the CPU.'"

Power usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody got an idea of what kind of power constant full speed GPU calculations are likely to burn?

Re:good, I think...

[rrhal]

The capacitors in the power section of your motherboard have a finite life. If you are handy with the soldering iron you can replace these in an afternoon for about $15. I wonder how well the new (to motherboards at least) solid core Capacitors will do.

Folding@home versus Grid.org

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, the work the oxford university/grid .org cancer project is more important than understanding folding. It seems that folding@home is not directly working on producing a cure and they are focusing on understanding "how" something happens.

Check out http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/curecancer.html [ox.ac.uk] and decide for yourself. Personally, I don't see direct value/benefit to the folding@home project. I understand that knowing about misfolding is important for certain diseases and maybe even cancers ..but I see the oxford univ. as having the most immediate and long term benefit. And iIt's a shame that project receives no publicity.

Since the "time to a cure" by understanding protein is very long term .. as cpu's get faster .. a delay would have negligible impact to the overall length of time taken. However working on directly on cures for common cancers has a more immediate benefit.

People have wanted to do this for years

[SnappyCrunch]

People running SETI@home have asked and asked about versions with various processor optimizations, or versions that use GPUs, which are very much suited to lots of parallel operations. The SETI@home team answer is that they won't release versions that use specific optimizations for specific hardware because they're worried about the integrity of the results - They want people to be running as nearly the same client as possible. Given that it's very easy to double-check a given piece of data if there's any question about it, it always made me angry that the SETI team seemed to prefer laziness to getting far more out of their clients. I'm glad the Folding@Home team isn't making the same mistake.

Missed the point of "Closed"

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that you can get documentation to program CPUs, at really low level (instruction sets, register maps, glitches and workarounds, etc), without so much fuss and do whatever you want, just visit Intel, AMD etc sites and get the PDFs. While for GPU you only matter if you are big and keep the information secret or go with the provided code.

Probably poor QC

[Kadin2048]

Methinks you got a bad machine. Good that it was under warranty, though.

I've had more than a few crappy machines that I've run at 100% utilization for months or in one case years on end, without catastrophic failures, so I don't think that any consumer machine is "not built for constant processor work." I suspect that there is a higher rate of manufacturing defects in el cheap consumer machines versus higher-end ones because of more lax quality control, but I don't think they're designed that poorly with certain exceptions (ones that have known overheating issues).

Not that I would recommend that anybody actually purchase one, but if I was going to get a $500 OfficeDepot "blue light special," one of the first things I'd want to do to it would be to put Boinc on and peg the processor and GPU at 100% for however long the return policy on the machine was, just to see if I could find any manufacturing defects. If it incinerates itself, back to the store and get a new one -- it was probably defective. Repeat until one survives, and more likely than not it'll probably still work when you decide to recycle it for something new.

Just as an anecdote, I have an old Compaq 600MHz Celeron that's been running at 100% for several years, with the same uptime as the power company (probably not 'five nines,' but not totally third-world either). At any given time the whole case will be rather hot to the touch. Hasn't failed yet. Admittedly, back when this was being used as a desktop computer, I think it went through a motherboard, two hard drives, and a cooling fan -- pretty much everything in it besides the floppy drive and the PSU crapped out -- so I think it's been exorcised of any defective components.

I really am convinced that the price you pay for better hardware -- and for high quality parts in general -- are less changes to the inherent design, but better quality control and a lower overall defect rate.

Good for ATI

[mollog]

I predict that this new client that runs on ATI hardware will cause a spike in sales of their products. I, for one, will be trying to get this card for my computer so that I can improve the rate that folding@home runs on my system. And I'm certain that others have the same intention.

If you think about that, it says something about us that I think is important; people want to help and they're willing to spend their money to be helpful.

The concept of voluntary grid computing is a curious one. Why do people do this? Surely one more little CPU grinding away at a huge problem won't make a difference. Yet even though we all know this, we do it anyway. The result of this collective hopefulness and helpfulness is tangible. But what else is strange is that so little notice is given to grid computing. I don't recall hearing about it on CNN or any other news television program. SETI gets air time because it's so, well, 'out there', but the folding, aids, cancer/find-a-drug stuff is operating in obscurity.

BTW, kudos to Slashdot for helping get the word out. I first heard about grid computing here.