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Posted: 6/4/2009 3:13:05 PM EDT
Wonder what his electric bill is each month?












 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:15:17 PM EDT
[#1]
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:17:04 PM EDT
[#2]
we should stop this person huntington disease is meh.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:17:33 PM EDT
[#3]
Uh, what is folding?
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:18:30 PM EDT
[#4]
I guess it's alright if you can write it off on your taxes as a "donation to charity".

Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:18:47 PM EDT
[#5]



Quoted:


Uh, what is folding?


http://folding.stanford.edu/
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:18:51 PM EDT
[#6]







Quoted:




Uh, what is folding?








So.... this guy is curing genetic disorders.... by connecting a bunch of electronics in his home?
 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:19:02 PM EDT
[#7]
I wonder how a comparable number of Tesla racks would fare.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:20:10 PM EDT
[#8]
Cool music.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:20:41 PM EDT
[#9]
what the hell does that thing do for/to you?
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:20:46 PM EDT
[#10]
but does that get you laid? NO!

Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:20:52 PM EDT
[#11]
Holy crap.

Most I've ever done is just have my G5 and PS3 going simultaneously for a short bit.

Quoted:
but does that get you laid? NO!

Your assistance in finding cures for diseases may well make you live longer, though.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:22:15 PM EDT
[#12]



Quoted:


Holy crap.



Most I've ever done is just have my G5 and PS3 going simultaneously for a short bit.


I have a PS3 going 24/7 for over a year, but man, this guy has some serious cash invested in this.

 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:24:24 PM EDT
[#13]
Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as

an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to

head comparison.



I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone

started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.



Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially

a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.



CJ






Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:32:09 PM EDT
[#14]
Quoted:
Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as
an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to
head comparison.

I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone
started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.

Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially
a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.

CJ




I've been told by my father (who's worked in the simulation and computing industry for years) that "back in the day" they talked about how they might someday have a teraFLOPS supercomputer.

Now you can go buy a $500-$600 video card and get > 1 teraFLOPS (albeit only single-precision, but still).
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:34:24 PM EDT
[#15]



Quoted:



Quoted:

Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as

an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to

head comparison.



I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone

started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.



Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially

a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.



CJ









I've been told by my father (who's worked in the simulation and computing industry for years) that "back in the day" they talked about how they might someday have a teraFLOPS supercomputer.



Now you can go buy a $500-$600 video card and get > 1 teraFLOPS (albeit only single-precision, but still).


Yep, and these GPUs support 10s of thousands of simultaneous threads too, without breaking a sweat.

 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:41:05 PM EDT
[#16]



Quoted:



Quoted:

Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as

an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to

head comparison.



I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone

started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.



Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially

a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.



CJ









I've been told by my father (who's worked in the simulation and computing industry for years) that "back in the day" they talked about how they might someday have a teraFLOPS supercomputer.



Now you can go buy a $500-$600 video card and get > 1 teraFLOPS (albeit only single-precision, but still).


New G200 chips can do double precision.



 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:42:53 PM EDT
[#17]
If you will notice in the lower shots you can see the support structure for what looks like a row of server racks.  I seriously doubt this guy has this setup in his abode.  Likely it is in an academic setting or in a small corporate server room acting as a test bed or a tax writeoff.  The infrastructure around the rack looks too professional for a home.  And this is coming from a guy that has a 7ft server rack at the house.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:43:27 PM EDT
[#18]
Quoted:

Quoted:
Quoted:
Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as
an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to
head comparison.

I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone
started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.

Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially
a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.

CJ




I've been told by my father (who's worked in the simulation and computing industry for years) that "back in the day" they talked about how they might someday have a teraFLOPS supercomputer.

Now you can go buy a $500-$600 video card and get > 1 teraFLOPS (albeit only single-precision, but still).

New G200 chips can do double precision.
 


But not @ 1 teraFLOPS for a single card. You can actually do double-precision calcs on a lot of GPUs (esp. GPGPUs). However, you get less than half of the performance because the architecture is not designed for the wider data.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:44:23 PM EDT
[#19]
That rig said it had 23 GForce 295's.  last time i looked 295's were about $600.  HE HAS $13,000+ WORTH OF GPU'S





somehow i don't think the guy is too worried about his electricity bill.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:45:33 PM EDT
[#20]
I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?

I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:45:56 PM EDT
[#21]



Quoted:



Quoted:




Quoted:


Quoted:

Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as

an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to

head comparison.



I figured this would happen eventually.  With graphics cards getting so incredibly powerful, it was only a matter of time before someone

started using the GPU for more general purpose computing applications.



Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially

a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.



CJ









I've been told by my father (who's worked in the simulation and computing industry for years) that "back in the day" they talked about how they might someday have a teraFLOPS supercomputer.



Now you can go buy a $500-$600 video card and get > 1 teraFLOPS (albeit only single-precision, but still).


New G200 chips can do double precision.

 




But not @ 1 teraFLOPS for a single card. You can actually do double-precision calcs on a lot of GPUs (esp. GPGPUs). However, you get less than half of the performance because the architecture is not designed for the wider data.


I know.



 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:47:23 PM EDT
[#22]
I used to do that 24/7, but then  i realized the extra $$$ it was costing, to run my PC, then in the summer all the extra time the AC is on because of it.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:48:33 PM EDT
[#23]





Quoted:



I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?





I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...



Yes.  There is a version of folding@home that specifically uses the GPU's power rather than the CPU's power.  
Incidentally,  Atlas has also been upgraded dramatically.











Atlas Folder is:




23) nVidia GTX295 (46 computing units)



32) 9800GX2 (64 computing units)






14) MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboards



14) AMD dual and quad core processors (9950 and 5050e)



28) Gigabytes RAM






Microsoft Windows XP x64 on all






2 Middle Atlantic Products Slim-5 19″ racks



14 Middle Atlantic Products Clamping Rackshelves, model RC-4






Estimated Single-Precision Computing FLOPS:




23 nVidia GTX295 at 1.788 TeraFLOPS each



41.124 TeraFLOPS total






32 nVidia 9800GX2 at 1.152 TeraFLOPS each



36.864 TeraFLOPS total






77.988 TeraFLOPS




www.atlasfolding.com





And, YES, as you can see here, these cards do well OVER 1 teraflop per card!
CJ
 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:48:42 PM EDT
[#24]
Quoted:
I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?

I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...


Correct. You still need a CPU to keep up with dispatching tasks to the GPUs, but the computations are done on the GPUs.

GPUs are designed around a parallel architecture, and thus are ideally suited to any highly-scalable computational work. Hence the emergence of the GPGPU over the last few years (go take a look at the nVidia Tesla I mentioned earlier, or Intel's Larrabee project).
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:49:07 PM EDT
[#25]



Quoted:


I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?



I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...
Yes, the GPUs are doing the calculating, the cpu is just doing the minor processing to upload / download data, etc.  Housecleaning chores.





 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:54:31 PM EDT
[#26]



Quoted:


I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?



I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...


you need a NVidia CUDA enabled card.  i think that started at the 8800gt series.



and folding on a GPU is scary fast.  what takes an i7 290 oc'ed to 3.2 ghz  a day,  can be done on a 9600gt in about 4 hours.



anyone
that has a computer with a 8800gt or newer video card should look into
downloading folding at home, also download the cpu client while you are
there.  it runs in the background and might cure disease someday.



 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:56:02 PM EDT
[#27]





Quoted:
Quoted:


I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?





I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...



you need a NVidia CUDA enabled card.  i think that started at the 8800gt series.





and folding on a GPU is scary fast.  what takes an i7 290 oc'ed to 3.2 ghz  a day,  can be done on a 9600gt in about 4 hours.





anyonethat has a computer with a 8800gt or newer video card should look intodownloading folding at home, also download the cpu client while you arethere.  it runs in the background and might cure disease someday.


 



Yes, your 6600gt will not work. You need an 8 series or above to use CUDA apps.



I did it for a while on my GTX285, but the raised electricity bill and heat put out was a bit much.





 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 3:57:20 PM EDT
[#28]



Quoted:





Quoted:

I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?



I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...


you need a NVidia CUDA enabled card.  i think that started at the 8800gt series.



and folding on a GPU is scary fast.  what takes an i7 290 oc'ed to 3.2 ghz  a day,  can be done on a 9600gt in about 4 hours.



anyonethat has a computer with a 8800gt or newer video card should look intodownloading folding at home, also download the cpu client while you arethere.  it runs in the background and might cure disease someday.

 
I have a geoforce 9800GT and a dual core athlon, I was running f@h on the GPU and one client on each athlon core.  The 9800GT just ripped through workunits, it was amazing.



I stopped running it on the PC because my PC would start shutting down randomly, I think I was overheating it, and didn't want to risk any damage.





 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:21:10 PM EDT
[#29]



Quoted:





Quoted:

I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?



I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...


Yes.  There is a version of folding@home that specifically uses the GPU's power rather than the CPU's power.  
Incidentally,  Atlas has also been upgraded dramatically.







Atlas Folder is:


23) nVidia GTX295 (46 computing units)

32) 9800GX2 (64 computing units)




14) MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboards

14) AMD dual and quad core processors (9950 and 5050e)

28) Gigabytes RAM




Microsoft Windows XP x64 on all




2 Middle Atlantic Products Slim-5 19″ racks

14 Middle Atlantic Products Clamping Rackshelves, model RC-4




Estimated Single-Precision Computing FLOPS:


23 nVidia GTX295 at 1.788 TeraFLOPS each

41.124 TeraFLOPS total




32 nVidia 9800GX2 at 1.152 TeraFLOPS each

36.864 TeraFLOPS total




77.988 TeraFLOPS



www.atlasfolding.com





And, YES, as you can see here, these cards do well OVER 1 teraflop per card!
CJ





 
He has a whole series of youtube videos on how to build a rig like that, I just found.





 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:23:37 PM EDT
[#30]
i have no clue what the hell is going on


i need a bullet size comparison ratio.


if my standard pc im on right now is a 9mm, what caliber is this guys comp?
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:25:43 PM EDT
[#31]



Quoted:


i have no clue what the hell is going on





i need a bullet size comparison ratio.





if my standard pc im on right now is a 9mm, what caliber is this guys comp?


About 1000 howitzers.


 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:30:25 PM EDT
[#32]
someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me what the fuck I'm looking at, what the fuck it does and why the fuck I should care....
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:35:01 PM EDT
[#33]




Quoted:

someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me what the fuck I'm looking at, what the fuck it does and why the fuck I should care....




This. I'm lost.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:35:21 PM EDT
[#34]
Quoted:
someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me 1 what the fuck I'm looking at, 2 what the fuck it does and  3 why the fuck I should care....


1computer. 2 don't know. 3it is surely your new overlord.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:35:40 PM EDT
[#35]
Quoted:
Yeah, though the word "extreme" has been massively abused and over-used in the past couple of years, that truly would qualify as
an extremely powerful processing cluster.    I'd like to see what earlier supercomputers that setup would be able to beat in a head to
head comparison.

All of them.

I have one of these as my main desktop computer(CPU consists of two dual-core PPC 970MPs, for reference).



I looked up specs a few months ago because I was wondering how it compared to the supercomputers from back in the day and I was blown away. It's 76 times as powerful as a Cray YMP from only 20 years ago. No joke.

Quoted:
Stuff one of those in your PC and your quad core Intel processor looks like a primitive toy in comparison,  relegated to what's essentially
a support function for the far more powerful GPUs.


Well not really. GPUs can do what they do really fricking fast, but for general computing they'd be slow and inefficient as ass (comparatively). Don't toss your CPU just yet. As the F@H guys have put it before, GPUs are GREAT at folding, but only for certain types tasks. They don't do the broad range of stuff that the regular PowerPC and x86 CPUs that are part of the F@H project can do.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:36:50 PM EDT
[#36]
Quoted:

Quoted:
someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me what the fuck I'm looking at, what the fuck it does and why the fuck I should care....


This. I'm lost.






Quoted:
i have no clue what the hell is going on


i need a bullet size comparison ratio.


if my standard pc im on right now is a 9mm, what caliber is this guys comp?


capnrob97
About 1000 howitzers.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:38:25 PM EDT
[#37]
hi.  I'm a Mac
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:40:40 PM EDT
[#38]
Quoted:
someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me what the fuck I'm looking at, what the fuck it does and why the fuck I should care....


you are looking at a homebuilt super computer that is using the video cards (GPU) to process information instead of your CPU (Central processing unit)
it process information REALLY fast
it is looking for cures to diseases
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:46:19 PM EDT
[#39]







Quoted:




i have no clue what the hell is going on
i need a bullet size comparison ratio.
if my standard pc im on right now is a 9mm, what caliber is this guys comp?







 

 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 4:54:05 PM EDT
[#40]
Quoted:
Quoted:
someone, IN ENGLISH, tell me what the fuck I'm looking at, what the fuck it does and why the fuck I should care....


you are looking at a homebuilt super computer that is using the video cards (GPU) to process information instead of your CPU (Central processing unit)
it process information REALLY fast
it is looking for cures to diseases


Sooo it could download lots of porn really fast?
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 5:02:29 PM EDT
[#41]
Heres what's going on....

This guy built a bunch of computers and filled each motherboard with as many graphics cards as he could.

Graphics cards are good at doing many mathematical operations concurrently. That's why they are good at graphics.

New cards can now run programs like a computer, but a shitload of them at the same time. They're basically a powerful CPU with a REALLY good connection to the EXTREMELY FAST onboard video RAM. This is vital for graphics and awesome for computing power.

One application is called protein folding. Understanding how proteins fold is vital to developing cures. Understanding how they can misfold is vital to learning why some diseases like cancer and mad cow disease form. Proteins are the nanobots of biology. We're talkign about a video card simulating a chain of atoms and figuring out which ways it can move. Since a protein could fold any number of ways the video card, which is awesome at running many things concurrently, can explore every iteration and possibility of folding.

Take a piece of paper. How many ways could you fold it? Would would the end result be? Thats kinda whats going on here. The guy has just built a computer thats got alot of processing power. Each system is individual. Each video card and GPU processes a little piece or runs one simulation and then reports the result back to a server. Its similar to describing a movie to an audience, and then having each audience member draw one frame of the movie and handing it in. After every one hands it in you should have a complete movie.

-Foxxz
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 5:03:14 PM EDT
[#42]
the PS3 cluster is pretty sweet.  I was a member of that group for awhile.   I'm now Team USA on the rosetta project.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 5:17:39 PM EDT
[#43]
Quoted:
Heres what's going on....

This guy built a bunch of computers and filled each motherboard with as many graphics cards as he could.

Graphics cards are good at doing many mathematical operations concurrently. That's why they are good at graphics.

New cards can now run programs like a computer, but a shitload of them at the same time. They're basically a powerful CPU with a REALLY good connection to the EXTREMELY FAST onboard video RAM. This is vital for graphics and awesome for computing power.

One application is called protein folding. Understanding how proteins fold is vital to developing cures. Understanding how they can misfold is vital to learning why some diseases like cancer and mad cow disease form. Proteins are the nanobots of biology. We're talkign about a video card simulating a chain of atoms and figuring out which ways it can move. Since a protein could fold any number of ways the video card, which is awesome at running many things concurrently, can explore every iteration and possibility of folding.

Take a piece of paper. How many ways could you fold it? Would would the end result be? Thats kinda whats going on here. The guy has just built a computer thats got alot of processing power. Each system is individual. Each video card and GPU processes a little piece or runs one simulation and then reports the result back to a server. Its similar to describing a movie to an audience, and then having each audience member draw one frame of the movie and handing it in. After every one hands it in you should have a complete movie.

-Foxxz

OOOOHHHH! Gottcha.

Quoted:
the PS3 cluster is pretty sweet.  I was a member of that group for awhile.   I'm now Team USA on the rosetta project.

Please explain this. I'm curious.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 5:28:08 PM EDT
[#44]
To put it in perspective,  the fastest Intel PC processors can hit about 70 gigaflops or so.  (70 billion floating point operations per second)


(This information is a few months old so it could easily be out of date.)





Atlas is running over a thousand times faster than that.

CJ

 
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 5:33:34 PM EDT
[#45]
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 6:02:16 PM EDT
[#46]
Quoted:
To put it in perspective,  the fastest Intel PC processors can hit about 70 gigaflops or so.  (70 billion floating point operations per second)
(This information is a few months old so it could easily be out of date.)


Atlas is running over a thousand times faster than that.

CJ  

The Nehalem chips can put out well into the hundreds, but that's a recent development. Previously, yeah, Core i7s topped out around 70.

This is a big reason why Apple stopped talking up how many gigaflops their computers could put out quite so visibly after switching to Intel. The quad G5s do 76 gigaflops, and those were from late 2005. Intel's Nehalem-based chips have only just finally passed that. And notice they're advertising how many gflops Mac Pros can do again.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 8:07:35 PM EDT
[#47]
I have been folding for Team EVGA for quite some time. EVGA loves to give out free hardware, GPU's, motherboards, evga bucks for helping fold on their team. Check them out here. http://www.evga.com/folding/.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 8:10:59 PM EDT
[#48]
Quoted:

Quoted:
I'm still confused - they're using the GPU to do the work, not the CPU?

I have an idle Athon 64 3500 system with a 6800 GT graphics card sitting I could join with...

Yes.  There is a version of folding@home that specifically uses the GPU's power rather than the CPU's power.  



Incidentally,  Atlas has also been upgraded dramatically.


Atlas Folder is:

23) nVidia GTX295 (46 computing units)
32) 9800GX2 (64 computing units)

14) MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboards
14) AMD dual and quad core processors (9950 and 5050e)
28) Gigabytes RAM

Microsoft Windows XP x64 on all

2 Middle Atlantic Products Slim-5 19″ racks
14 Middle Atlantic Products Clamping Rackshelves, model RC-4

Estimated Single-Precision Computing FLOPS:

23 nVidia GTX295 at 1.788 TeraFLOPS each
41.124 TeraFLOPS total

32 nVidia 9800GX2 at 1.152 TeraFLOPS each
36.864 TeraFLOPS total

77.988 TeraFLOPS


www.atlasfolding.com


And, YES, as you can see here, these cards do well OVER 1 teraflop per card!




CJ


 

Thats because the GTX 295 is two GTX 260/280s in one card, and the 9800GX2 is two 9800GTXs in one card.

Link Posted: 6/4/2009 10:11:27 PM EDT
[#49]
I got a commodore 64 that I've done some mods to that easily would do .98 petaflops but I spilled a glass oh koolaid on it and messed it up.
Link Posted: 6/4/2009 11:21:21 PM EDT
[#50]
Quoted:
I got a commodore 64 that I've done some mods to that easily would do .98 petaflops but I spilled a glass oh koolaid on it and messed it up.


Not to worry bro, I have two of those in my garage, I can hook you up. Is that the Motorola 8088 processor?
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