AMD 1090T or i7

[Eroc]

So I am thinking about upgrading my Intel rig in my sig. I like doing one Intel and one AMD rig just for the fun of it, to Learn how they both work/OC.

I do, however, don't want to spend a fortune as it is a secondary rig. Top gaming is not necessary and I will probably end up putting my current 7900 GS into it when I get a 460

I want a system that can put out some RAC and more cores are better but...

I believe a quad w/o HT is better than a Dual w/HT (comparing Intel chips) and I'd even bet an AMD quad would be better than a Intel dual w/HT.

Is it better to get a i7 Quad w/HT for 8 logical cores or a 1090T with 6 dedicated cores?

Now I know this is apples to oranges and the architecture differences may lead to the Intel anyway, but for around $100 less I can build a decent 1090T setup. I just wonder how much more I'd get out of one or the other.

Anyone have any input, examples?

 

[QuietIce]

Regardless of how AMD oriented I am I have to concede that Intels really excel at SETI work. It's possible it's the SSE4 program set that does it, though I'm not sure having never seen numbers on non-optimized rigs. Much as I hate to say it, if it's CPU Crunching you're looking for the Intels have it (though I agree an X6 will most likely beat the Intel X2).


However, from what I've seen of SETI over the past couple of years I'd say that's the wrong way to look at a new dedicated cruncher. As we've all seen, the GPUs are taking over so my way of looking at it is simple. Get the cheapest quad and put it in a board with as many PCIe slots as you can get, then start buying video cards with the left-over money.

The AMD 620/630/640 are the cheapest quads out there and they aren't half-bad when it comes to crunching - but fewer and fewer cores will be used as you add GPUs, so that's not the critical point. For a board I'd look at older 790FX boards. Not only will you get them cheaper but several of them have four PCIe slots, though you need to watch for PCIe slots that aren't double-spaced unless you plan on some type of water cooling for one of them. An AMD 640 with 4x GPUs, which can be added/upgraded piecemeal, would make one heck of a Cruncher and should last for years since PCIe isn't likely to change anytime soon. If I ever get to the point where I have money, again, I can assure you that's the kind of Cruncher I'll be building.

 

[Eroc]

Ahh I see. Well i have an AMD Athlon X2 3600+ Brisbane already and 4 gig of RAM. The abit mobo i have is questionable as it is the reason, i believe, for frying my RAM 3 times now (and one Dimm slot is also no good now). So basically all I'd need is a new mobo for that and a PSU that can handle it and there is a second machine.

I think I'll snag something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130265R

and 2 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125380

this may take a little time as I need a Vid card for my main rig. Looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121420

I have been reading your post about cards and their ` RAC they throw out. It is amazing how much they can do. Great post.

Anyway what do u you think?

 

[Adak]

For an inexpensive superb cruncher/folder, look no further than the intel i5, 2600k.

Fantastic, and overclocks automatically in most cases, far beyond what the regular 2500 or 2600 cpu will do. The "k", designates that the cpu is "unlocked".

Catch our thread on cheap 2600K's in the folding forum, you'll be glad you did.

Edit: i7 2600k, not i5

 

[Eroc]

For an inexpensive superb cruncher/folder, look no further than the intel i5, 2600k.

Fantastic, and overclocks automatically in most cases, far beyond what the regular 2500 or 2600 cpu will do. The "k", designates that the cpu is "unlocked".

Catch our thread on cheap 2600K's in the folding forum, you'll be glad you did.

Do you mean the i5 2500k? This is an option tho i was going to go hyperthreading. Basically "cheapest" i7/board combo. I think i may just rebuild my dual core AMD and gpu crunch.

Thanks for the info and advice. I'll check out the other forums too.

 

[QuietIce]

I need to get some numbers for the newer cards. The problem is, too many people put together a new rig and the video card is part of that - so I never get information on how much crunching the card is doing by itself.

For an inexpensive superb cruncher/folder, look no further than the intel i5, 2600k.

Fantastic, and overclocks automatically in most cases, far beyond what the regular 2500 or 2600 cpu will do. The "k", designates that the cpu is "unlocked".

Catch our thread on cheap 2600K's in the folding forum, you'll be glad you did.

I don't know how it works out in F@H but the money is better spent on a GPU than a more expensive CPU/board. (You'll notice I didn't recommend a Phenom II at all, which includes the X6.) One GTX 260 will out-crunch any quad every day of the week and costs a LOT less so all that's required is a board with 2-4 PCIe slots and a cheap CPU to keep the GPUs fed.

 

[Eroc]

Thinking on it now, I think I'd just get another Phenom II 555BE. Right now they are $84.99 (usually $89.99 which is a great deal too). Its also seems pretty easy to get a core unlocker board as many dual pcie 16 2.0boards have the 870 chipset.

That makes an cheap and easy OCable core unlockable setup.

 

[Duner]

I feel it's better to go with one CPU core for each GPU you're going to use. So if you just want a dual PCI-E slot board, then a dual core is perfectly fine.

As for the i7 2600K. Folding is a whole different ball game. With the bonus system they have built in for 8 threaded crunchers, the CPU's out perform the GPU's. Since there's no bonus system in SETI, I agree with Quietice, GPU's are the way to go.

 

[Careface]

It's possible it's the SSE4 program set that does it, though I'm not sure having never seen numbers on non-optimized rigs.

SSSE3x beats out the SSE4 app on i7s, unless you have some very fast ram, in which case the SSE4 app comes out -slightly- on top.

But yeah, GPUs are still the way to go My GTX216 does ever so slightly more RAC than my i7-960 @ 3.6 w/HT

 

[HankB]

I'm crunching SETI on a GTX 460 (while crunching Rosetta on the CPU.) Earlier today I was looking at some of the WU results and saw that in some cases, the WU was also crunched by a CPU. The difference in time is astounding! Here is one that was crunched by an i7 860 which took over ten times as long to complete: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=747573176

(And that's with two instances of SETI running on my GTX 460.)

 

[Adak]

I'm crunching SETI on a GTX 460 (while crunching Rosetta on the CPU.) Earlier today I was looking at some of the WU results and saw that in some cases, the WU was also crunched by a CPU. The difference in time is astounding! Here is one that was crunched by an i7 860 which took over ten times as long to complete: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=747573176

(And that's with two instances of SETI running on my GTX 460.)

The case for the i7 2600k:

1) It uses approximately 1/3rd less power that just one GPU.

2) your example for the cpu was 2.8 GHz. The 2600k stock speed is 3.4, turbo to 3.8 GHz, and overclocks so easily it almost does it by itself. You add an aftermarket heatsink & fan (like the Hyper 212+ for $40), and you're easily into the 4.2 - 4.6 GHz range.

3) In your gpu figures, you forgot that the gpu must be "fed" by the cpu, quite frequently, or crunching stops.

So the gpu crunching time isn't REALLY the gpu crunching time. It's the gpu being given constant "buckets" of "water", from the stream, by the cpu. It's not going all the way down to the stream, to fetch it's own "water". That fast time is really the gpu crunching time WITH the help of the cpu, included.

If you live in Amarillo, Texas in the Winter, then multiple GPU's are perfect - because everyone knows there's just a barb wire fence between Amarillo, and the Arctic.

But I live in Southern California, and it's already warm here. Running multiple GPU's will turn your room into a sauna - not to mention the electric bill.

In the Winter, fine, if you can handle that increase in the electric bill. In the Summer, you're outta your trucking mind!

 

[QuietIce]

Even an SB running at those high speeds isn't going to out-crunch last years video cards. If you want to save on electricity turn the CPU down and just let the GPU crunch - you'll still be ahead.

 

[HankB]

3) In your gpu figures, you forgot that the gpu must be "fed" by the cpu, quite frequently, or crunching stops.

So the gpu crunching time isn't REALLY the gpu crunching time. It's the gpu being given constant "buckets" of "water", from the stream, by the cpu. It's not going all the way down to the stream, to fetch it's own "water". That fast time is really the gpu crunching time WITH the help of the cpu, included.

In all fairness, the I7 also runs what, 8 threads? That's vs. the two that I run on the GTX 460. With that going for it, I think it would outcrunch a GTX 460.

I can't comment on what happens on Windows, but on Linux I can run a kernel with a real time scheduler. Between that and running two GPU instances, I can crunch Rosetta on all 4 cores and keep the GPU utilization between 90-95%. The overhead on the RT scheduler costs about 15% of my Rosetta throughput. I'm not giving up much to keep the GPU well fed.

I still find it amazing that a GPU crunches that much faster than a single CPU core. Enough so that a decent one can event warrant comparison to (what I think is) Intel's fastest CPU.

 

[Eroc]

Hank, this is great. With what you posted about the cpu times, we can calculate everything else.

For comparison we have the i7. 19,675s for runtime. Now assuming HT lets say it does this WU for all of its threads (8). In 19,675s it completes 8 of these at the same time!! Very good.

Now on to your 460. 1572s to complete the same WU.

It can only crunch 1 at a time. Lets say it runs the same WU over and over. Take the time to complete one by 8.

1572sx8= 12,576s

It completes the same number of WUs in LESS time. Now lets see how many it can get done in the same amt of time for the i7.

19675s/1572s=12.515

So the 460 can complete 12 of this particular WU and be about 1/2 into the 13 WU in the time the i7 gets 8 completed.

Win=460

In the end it all comes down to RAC as well so if the 460 gets 12x117.10=1405 RAC in the time it takes the i7 to get 8x117.10=936 RAC

If I am missing anything let me know.

 

[Duner]

Hank, this is great. With what you posted about the cpu times, we can calculate everything else.

For comparison we have the i7. 19,675s for runtime. Now assuming HT lets say it does this WU for all of its threads (8). In 19,675s it completes 8 of these at the same time!! Very good.

Now on to your 460. 1572s to complete the same WU.

It can only crunch 1 at a time. Lets say it runs the same WU over and over. Take the time to complete one by 8.

1572sx8= 12,576s

It completes the same number of WUs in LESS time. Now lets see how many it can get done in the same amt of time for the i7.

19675s/1572s=12.515

So the 460 can complete 12 of this particular WU and be about 1/2 into the 13 WU in the time the i7 gets 8 completed.

Win=460

In the end it all comes down to RAC as well so if the 460 gets 12x117.10=1405 RAC in the time it takes the i7 to get 8x117.10=936 RAC

If I am missing anything let me know.

What you're missing is that HankB is running TWO instances of SETI on the 460 not one so go ahead and double the output of the 460 and you have a double win. This isn't about GPU vs CPU though. Go ahead and crunch on both, just turn down the CPU enough to feed the GPU's and you'll maximize RAC.

 

[QuietIce]

What you're missing is that HankB is running TWO instances of SETI on the 460 not one so go ahead and double the output of the 460 and you have a double win. This isn't about GPU vs CPU though. Go ahead and crunch on both, just turn down the CPU enough to feed the GPU's and you'll maximize RAC.

It is kinda' sorta' about CPU v GPU because part of the discussion is the cost effectiveness of hardware. If you have to spend $200 more for an i7 system over a plain-Jane AMD quad - $200 that could be spent on a GPU - which is going to produce more? From the numbers just posted I think the answer is pretty obvious.

I know all us old-timers, me included, are used to souped-up CPU's doing our crunching but those days are over. The only time having a monster CPU does any good (for Crunching) are those occasions when GPU WUs are in short supply.

 

[Eroc]

Quiet pretty much answered the way I was going to answer.

Hank may be onto something by running 2 instances of SETI on the gpu. The only way to know is to run one instance for awhile to see if RAC goes up or down. Maybe that's the way to go. Running one instance may have better times but two at slightly slower times may make up for this. (sort of like hyperthreading)

I know he is using a RTS which is probably helping. May be something to look into though.

 

[Reaper16]

well i could probably find this on one of the forum pages but just to say hello and get to know everyone, i'll ask anyway. how well are ati cards for seti? my main rig mb does not support SLI, but does support crossfire. oh, by the way if you all have not downloaded the new drivers for NVIDIA GPU's you should! My 460's are smoking! But there is a new version of lunatics that now supports 6.10 Fermi that cut my times in half.
Landon Oswalt

 

[Eroc]

Yeah I have had those drivers for a bit now. It even helps my gtx260's times. I have a 460 and a 260 in the same box running 2 instances per gpu.

Oh, I am right behind you in RAC Landon Oswalt!! ;-)

 

[PenguinsPal]

How are the times on that GTX260?