Hi!

I know this is not the right forum to ask Folding@home questions, but the Folding@home forum isn't working at the moment.

I have Club3D Radeon X800XL (512MB) PCI Express graphics card. Can I use Folding@home's GPU app? Can you give me the link to the correct GPU app? Does the GPU app use also CPU for crunching? I would like to leave the CPU for BOINC apps.

Thanks!

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You can't use that graphic card to fold.

You must have a X1900.

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yeah you need at least a x1650, and only certain one(s) of that line work.

Their forums have been down for what seems like a week :(

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Oh boy! Why not? ;(

At least, this is a modern 3D card with a large memory and PCI Express. Will they ever make a GPU app for this 3D card model?

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While this is a R@H, not a F@H, forum, some members have been occasionally looking over in that direction to see what is happening.

I know there was a previous thread here which touched on the questions you are asking, and Wikipedia also seems to touch on it.

You also might want to look here.

Once F@H's own forums come back on-line, you'll probably be able to locate the answer you are looking for at the level of depth you are looking for.

Oh boy! Why not? ;(

At least, this is a modern 3D card with a large memory and PCI Express. Will they ever make a GPU app for this 3D card model?

I think it has something to do with the number of pipelines on the graphic card and the models prior to the x1600 just don't have enough bandwidth to make running the client worthwhile.

While running the GPU client doesn't use much of the CPU, you'll notice a decrease in performance on BOINC and F@H GPU when you run both of them at the same time. I imagine this could be corrected if you assigned F@H a higher priority.

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Thanks for the info!

PS. What forthcoming 3D card should I buy to get the best crunching performance? I will buy a new 3D card probably in the beginning of 2008.

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Generally speaking, you should always go with the 2nd or even 3rd newest card - that's usually the best performance for your money. Best time to buy is after a new card released, as that'll usually lead to price drops of the older models. However, when you use it for folding and not gaming, you'll be more concerned about a specific part of the card and how that performs. In the case of F@H GPU it's the amount of pipes. If a new card releases with twice the performance there, then that'll definitely be a huge improvement.

I think your best bet is to post on the F@H GPU forum a couple days before you plan on buying the card. You should get some good suggestions there, especially when more is known about how the cards behave. People will post the time it takes per percentage, which is very consistent. An X1650 takes almost exactly 20mins/% (different manufacturers sometimes produce the card with different specifications, so those may take more or less time)

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I think your best bet is to post on the F@H GPU forum a couple days before you plan on buying the card. You should get some good suggestions there, especially when more is known about how the cards behave. People will post the time it takes per percentage, which is very consistent. An X1650 takes almost exactly 20mins/% (different manufacturers sometimes produce the card with different specifications, so those may take more or less time)

Ok. Thanks! I will.

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The F@H message boards are back up.


My advice in general would be to consider the total system cost when you are pricing a cruncher/folder. So if a card is 25% better cruncher but costs 40% more than the lesser card, it probably is only raising the total system cost by 15% or whatnot, so it is a good purchase. You gotta take into account all the resources that are being tied up.

Get a 2-slot card to keep your system heat down.

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Eric Korpela has said that X800XL is good enough to crunch (for SETI@home). See this message. Is he right?

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Not for F@H. SETI does not need the crunching power, they actually need cash more than crunching power. The R@H site and forums are now up.

If you end up getting another card, do NOT go with the bare minimum or a 256MB card, you will be disappointed.

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