ready for some Fermi numbers? GTX 480

[Danger30Q]

I found out why my SLI GTX 480s were taking on average 1100 seconds to complete the beta work units. I turned off SLI and that did the trick. My last few work units have completed in 700 seconds at stock speeds. Oddly, it still shows my gpu clock speed as .81ghz. I've noticed other users will get this to 1.4ghz or so.

My gpu usage is around 55% for both cards.

[WhiteFireDragon]

800 Core, 1900 Memory. However seeing the GPU usage is only around 60-65%, I'm not sure how much it matters at the moment, at least until the code is more optimised to be crunched on Fermi GPUs.

is this a crunching card only or will you be playing games on it also? if you're only going to crunch with it, only the shader clocks matter, i just leave my memory speed at stock. i wish i could leave my core clocks at stock too, but too bad these fermi cards can only have linked shader and core clocks.

65% GPU load looks like good numbers. i'm only getting 50% load, and as i overclock the card, that number drops a little further. my guess is because the card can only do a certain number of work, so a faster OC'ed card doesn't need to work as hard

I found out why my SLI GTX 480s were taking on average 1100 seconds to complete the beta work units. I turned off SLI and that did the trick.

My gpu usage is around 55% for both cards.

i mentioned you need to disable SLI a while ago . and my gpu usage sits at 50% only. perhaps if i OC my CPU more, this number can go up

[pwolfe]

what version of the boinc are you all using?

[WhiteFireDragon]

*oops, double post*

[WhiteFireDragon]

what version of the boinc are you all using?

it looks like you've switch your cards from linux to win7? are you getting WU's now? i just installed ubuntu on the same computer, but could not get my wireless adapter to work with linux. i don't have time to troubleshoot it, so back to win7 .

based on the one's who've responded to this thread, there are only 6 of us with fermi cards. you can view each of our profiles to see what cards we're using, how much points they're producing, and which nvidia driver and BOINC version is being used:

snowcrash (hidden)
WhiteFireDragon
=[PULSAR]=
Danger30Q
eternal_fantasy
pwolfe

[eternal_fantasy]

is this a crunching card only or will you be playing games on it also? if you're only going to crunch with it, only the shader clocks matter, i just leave my memory speed at stock. i wish i could leave my core clocks at stock too, but too bad these fermi cards can only have linked shader and core clocks.

65% GPU load looks like good numbers. i'm only getting 50% load, and as i overclock the card, that number drops a little further. my guess is because the card can only do a certain number of work, so a faster OC'ed card doesn't need to work as hard

I play for around 3-4 hours per day, 4-5 days a week on this PC, and when I do, I suspend the GPUGRID from crunching.

The 800 Core/1900 Memory overclock is already hugely toned down, as I have gaming OC profile of 900Mhz/2200Mhz. I'm watercooling the card so It doesn't make much difference if I lower the Memory clocks even more.

As I said in the post you quoted, it seems that the GPU is limited in how much work it can do by how much work the CPU feeds it. This theory fits our observations, that when HT is turned off, and one CPU core is dedicated to feed the GPU, instead of one HT thread, the GPU usage increases, which in turn reduced the time to completion. In your case the CPU is already bottle-necking the GPU with a set amount of data, increasing the GPU Core speed just means it requires even less work to crunch what the CPU is feeding it.

I've currently turned HT back on for this Supercomputer Week, but once it's done I'll turn it back off, and see how much the CPU speed affects the GPUGRID work units by reducing my overclock, which I suspect plays a significant role.

[Danger30Q]

I do have you to thank WhiteFireDragon for turning SLI off. I actually had a long list of planned changes to make but then I was stuck without a work unit for quite some time. Now I need to get in the habit of turning SLI back on before I game.

[pwolfe]

it looks like you've switch your cards from linux to win7? are you getting WU's now? i just installed ubuntu on the same computer, but could not get my wireless adapter to work with linux. i don't have time to troubleshoot it, so back to win7 .

based on the one's who've responded to this thread, there are only 6 of us with fermi cards. you can view each of our profiles to see what cards we're using, how much points they're producing, and which nvidia driver and BOINC version is being used:

snowcrash (hidden)
WhiteFireDragon
=[PULSAR]=
Danger30Q
eternal_fantasy
pwolfe

Thanks for the links and the help. I upgraded to BOINC 6.10.52 just to see if I could pull a WU.

I think theres nothing more to it than they have not uploaded any Linux compatible WUs. As far as the windows 7 thing, I just booted into windows to see if it would pull a WU, but as it turned out there were none available on the status page.

I'm just gonna leave well enough alone and not even attempt to think this through any further until I see gdf say they have uploaded the Linux batch of WUs. He normally posts such things when they do. Until then, I'm tired of stressing over it.

[Danger30Q]

Can I run a GTX 295 and (2) GTX 480s on a EVGA Classified together?

I have all 3 cards and I'm about to put the GTX 295 up for sale but I thought I would crunch it along with the 480s until it sold, assuming it works with GPUgrid.

[WhiteFireDragon]

I think theres nothing more to it than they have not uploaded any Linux compatible WUs. As far as the windows 7 thing, I just booted into windows to see if it would pull a WU, but as it turned out there were none available on the status page.

I'm just gonna leave well enough alone and not even attempt to think this through any further until I see gdf say they have uploaded the Linux batch of WUs. He normally posts such things when they do. Until then, I'm tired of stressing over it.

yeah i don't think there are any WU's for linux, but there should be plenty for win7. occasionally, you might run dry, but it's odd that you never got any of them. i've been getting a steady stream of them for a while now, so there's gotta be something you're not setting correctly.

Can I run a GTX 295 and (2) GTX 480s on a EVGA Classified together?

I have all 3 cards and I'm about to put the GTX 295 up for sale but I thought I would crunch it along with the 480s until it sold, assuming it works with GPUgrid.

nope, most likely won't work since 480/470's use drivers designed only for themselves, while all the other cards use the same nvidia drivers. i tried this on my gtx480 and gt240 and it was a no go. you could always try it and report back here, there might be a slim chance it works.

[=[PULSAR]=]

Can I run a GTX 295 and (2) GTX 480s on a EVGA Classified together?

I have all 3 cards and I'm about to put the GTX 295 up for sale but I thought I would crunch it along with the 480s until it sold, assuming it works with GPUgrid.

I have tried a 295 and 480 on a classified and it does not work.

[Danger30Q]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions that a GTX 295 and GTX 480 won't work together.

[=[PULSAR]=]

197.75 Official Drivers are now released.

EDIT: Downloaded and installed, testing now will report back tomorrow when 6.73 WU finishes.

[mreuter80]

I found this thread about different BIOS versions on EVGA's forum:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=347659&mpage=1
Has anyone a card with the new BIOS?
From what I'm reading there seems no performance gain, but the voltage reduces -> possible cooler cards.

[pwolfe]

Well I went against my principles and am runnng the grid on my windows partition for the time being, just to see how many ppd I can generate until such time they decide to release the linux app. So far so so good, no errors.

[=[PULSAR]=]

I found this thread about different BIOS versions on EVGA's forum:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=347659&mpage=1
Has anyone a card with the new BIOS?
From what I'm reading there seems no performance gain, but the voltage reduces -> possible cooler cards.

But could also mean not as high of an overclock

[Ghigo]

I am using the newest one but no see overclocking voltages loss/gains.

70.00.21.00.82 from an EVGA SC

If i get boinc to run on this windows 7 x64 , will test some at 850+, keep get cant connect to client if dont install as service.


Pfff boinc .exe just crash on start with an access violation

[WhiteFireDragon]

it's crazy how unoptimized these cards are for win7. i got nearly a double in point production by switching to XP. on XP, each WU takes about 3h 45min to complete, HT off, swan_sync=0, mild overclock, but also loaded at 100% with WCG.

[eternal_fantasy]

GUPGRID currently utilising almost 80% of my GTX 480, With my 980X at 4.32 Ghz and HT Off.



I think they might be optimising more for Fermi now, and I found the utilisation of the GPU very work unit dependent.

As this is my gaming machine, I have to stick with Win7, so hopefully it will get more optimisations.

[=[PULSAR]=]

Good to see how much cpu usage is ACEMD using?

[eternal_fantasy]

It seems that the WU you see in the screen shot above are set to complete in 2 hour 40 min... will be interesting to see if It will develop an error or grant full points, because if it did it would be very intriguing.

Pulsar, It is using one full core while WCG is using the other 5, so 100% CPU usage.

[WhiteFireDragon]

ah it looks like you also got the new WU they just released for fermi. mine finished a few of these new WU's in about 1 hour 52min for 6,756 points each. at the rate mine's going, that's 87k points per day . seems like these new WU's are more optimized?

[=[PULSAR]=]

Just got one of the new WU's also looks to complete in 2:45, GTX 480 owners say hello to owning the PIE

[eternal_fantasy]

So that WU finished around 2h37m, which works out to be around 61800 PPD. Hope there's room to improve even further.

[=[PULSAR]=]

Whats your shader running at eternal?