Got my Xeons folding FINALLY!

[donny_paycheck]

w00t w00t!

They're not fast folders though...Intel has notoriously bad FPU perofrmance, especially in their older processors like these Xeons.

 

[Ebola]

sweet. every bit helps. how are the xeons for other tasks. the 2mb cache has to help out some things.

 

[robertm]

Well I got an old PII400 added to my my dual board that just had one CPU in it. That and a linux install and am dual folding on it. Funny thought I had a 50% load on both CPU with one client and 100% load on both with two clients. Wonder if they have Mutil cpu support in Linux client anyway.


One more CPU running anyway

 

[donny_paycheck]

sweet. every bit helps. how are the xeons for other tasks. the 2mb cache has to help out some things.

For SETI they rock, with 2 instances of the command line client they run in parallel SMP and get better cycles/flop effeciency than an Alpha CPU. The whole WU and the cruncher are stored right in the CPU cartridge on the full speed cache so it doesn't even need to go to the RAM to do anything. I also run a RTCW server intermittently on them and they do well there because RTCW uses the Quake 3 engine, which is multithreaded and will use more than 1 CPU at a time if they're there. For regular tasks that only use 1 CPU though, they run just like a P3 733mhz, maybe a little faster because of the cache.

 

[Cluster]

Nice addition. How do you get it to load into the cache instead of the memory?

 

[donny_paycheck]

Nice addition. How do you get it to load into the cache instead of the memory?

Oh, it does that automatically. Something in the CPU or the chipset (?) decides what goes into the cache and it does it by itself with no intervention.

 

[Cluster]

Oh, it does that automatically. Something in the CPU or the chipset (?) decides what goes into the cache and it does it by itself with no intervention.

how can you tell wether it's loaded in cache or not?

 

[donny_paycheck]

how can you tell wether it's loaded in cache or not?

Hmm...I don't think there is a way to tell. The OS, chipset and CPU all basically just determine what will load into the cache for the best performance....I don't think anything else matters and I don't think there is an easy way to tell if it is or not.

 

[David]

Frequently used data will be stored in the cache, and if this a folding rig, most of this data will be the folding@home WU.

I wonder what would happen with an 8MB cache

Nice to see more CPUs folding - the more the merrier

 

[donny_paycheck]

Well I got an old PII400 added to my my dual board that just had one CPU in it. That and a linux install and am dual folding on it. Funny thought I had a 50% load on both CPU with one client and 100% load on both with two clients. Wonder if they have Mutil cpu support in Linux client anyway.


One more CPU running anyway

I've got a question, which motherboard are you using? That is interesting about the CPU loading also, although the clc and graphical clients for Windows don't multithread so I doubt the Linux one does either. Care to comment on that anybody?

I am going to switch these over to Yatta today when I get off work.

 

[robertm]

Tyan S1839 DLUAN Thunder 100 will take upto PIII600 at some point I hope to get a couple put in this system.

Its hard to say what the linux client might do what I found odd was that I didnt have 100percent load. Even if it does mutil thread there should have been 100% load. So am a little lost on that for now. looked odd at the time and still seems that way

Hmm I thought Yatta had a 600Mhz limit on it oh well I fold them all under my name as I need all I can to get 3rd place

 

[donny_paycheck]

Hmm I thought Yatta had a 600Mhz limit on it oh well I fold them all under my name as I need all I can to get 3rd place

OOPS! You are correct.....my bad. See, I used to have PII-450mhz Xeons so I was thinking as though I was still using them. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[robertm]

NP Well just wait till my new toy get in <add manical laughter here>

 

[funnyperson1]

sweet though i dont know about the older fpu statement those xeons would wipe the floor with dual P4Xeons in SSE FPU performance...hey why dont they make SSE2 versions of folding?.....oh well...also maybe you could trade some seti people for a couple dual MP systems thos would certainly crank out the WUs though they arent as cool as having Xeons....

 

[robertm]

Not as cool as having dual Xeons was a joke right eveyone knows AMD's RULE folding . My new toy is a dual MP1800 <more manical laughter>

 

[funnyperson1]

Not as cool as having dual Xeons was a joke right eveyone knows AMD's RULE folding . My new toy is a dual MP1800 <more manical laughter>

dont get me wrong in folding the two XPs are much faster but its still not as cool as being able to show off you 2mb cache Xeons and showing it off o the women like yeah...that cost 4,000$ rght there.....i wish i could have Xeons just to say that i had them...you know how much that cache would eat up real world apps???

 

[robertm]

just wait till the hammer come down I mean out

 

[donny_paycheck]

just wait till the hammer come down I mean out

That is something all of us look forward to! It is cool to be like "yeah, I've got a pair of those 2mb Intel Xeons...they're pretty fast I guess"...but I wouldn't have them if I hadn't gotten them in trade from a friend. For what I do they aren't worth the money because they're still so expensive.

Also, pretty sweet deal how you're hooking up with some MP 1800s. I have been considering upgrading the board in my main rig with the new WA2A dual socket A motheboard from ABit once it is released. It'll be a 760MPX just like the new Tiger MPX and A7M266-D are, but since it's an ABit it should be the most flexible overclocker out there. It even has the 4 bolt holes around the sockets! Hello dual 8045 HSFs! I'd put the 1800+ in a dedicated folding box in a corner somewhere but there's no need to say that with a dual Athlon MP, each of those CPUs would be folding hard every second I wasn't doing something with them.

 

[funnyperson1]

hey Donny what are those ywo long pci looking slots? i havent seen anything like that........

 

[robertm]

Well I should get all the part for my system this by friday I got the case in today (I find that funny because its the largest box). I ended up with the Asus A7M266-D as I wanted something that would overclock and the Tyan has no OC options. Also the A7M266-D has had a couple revisions so am hoping more bugs are out of the board. Some poeple seem to have had problem with them but thats true with any MB there is always some poeple that cant seem to make the run.

The Asus board has places for the mounting holes but there not drilled but I thinking I might go with Swiftechs Newer modle water block the MCW-372 I have the older model of the 372 at home and am happy with it. Also because of the changes that AMD made to the 4 hole spec I hope the 372s will last me a bit longer. So in the end I will be watercooling these. For now I have a pair of MCX370s I will be using to get things running.

Here is what I order Should make a nice folding system later I have an adaptec 39160 Ultra160 SCSI Controller I hope to be running Raid 1+0 on down the road. And that is a 64Bit PCI slot device that also answers funnperson1's question

CASE ENERMAX|11BSERVER FS-981XPSS S 1
MB AMD762|5P1A4D A7M266-D ASUS 1
VGA ATI|RADEON 8500 64M DDR AGP RTL 1
POWER SP|550W(P4) ATX EG651P-VE(FM) 1
CPU AMD|ATHLON MP 1800 1.53GHz % 2
DDRAM 512MB|64X64 PC-2100 CORSAIR% 1
HD 60GB|IBM 7200R #07N6655 % 1
CDRW 12X10X32|PLEXTOR 121032TA-BPS% 1
DVD|TOSHIBA 16X SD-M1612 OEM % 1
CPU FAN AMD/INTEL|MCX370-0A SWIFTEC 2