ready for some Fermi numbers? GTX 480

[WhiteFireDragon]

actually not yet lol. but i did order it and the package is on the way. i've never bought a video card over $100 before since i'm not a gamer, and for some reason i had the balls to blow almost $600 on a gtx480. as a matter of fact, TWO of them haha. what a great way to spend my last paycheck

i'm surprised there's no crunching/folding numbers on these yet. will post results as soon as i get them, so stay tuned.

edited to include Fermi GTX 470 and 480 guide and results
================================================== =======

GTX 470 & 480 Setup Guide

i'm assuming you already have BOINC installed and know how to install/setup all the hardware. this is also for windows, and i don't know anything about linux haha, although they should be similar.




#1
download the specific drivers.

i noticed that nvidia has only one driver for all their desktop cards, EXCEPT the new fermi cards, which has their own drivers. here is the LINK for the download. make sure you select the correct OS. as of writing this guide, the latest driver for fermi is 197.41 (make sure it's not 197.45, because that's the drivers for all other cards).








#2
uninstall old video drivers, and install new drivers.

uninstall the existing video drivers either from the control panel or device manager. restart your computer, and install the new drivers you just downloaded. if you're anal about it, you can run ccleaner first to wipe all remaining bits of the old nvidia driver, then install the new one. if you're lazy, you can just skip uninstalling it altogether and just install the new drivers over the old one. after the new drivers are installed, restart again.






#3
next, you need to add/change a profile to use ACEMD beta version v6.23 (cuda30) only, because any other version will give an instant error in the WU.

after logging in to gpugrid.net, go to Your account, and click on GPUGRID preferences. on this page, you need to select any of the separate preferences profiles (home, school, or work) to add/edit. in my case, i choose "school", but it really doesn't matter which one you pick, as long as all the computers with fermi cards use this profile.

in the Run only the selected application option, make sure you tick ONLY the ACEMD beta, and untick the other two boxes. in the Run test application option, select Yes. if the If no work for selected applications is available, accept work from other applications option, make sure it's unticked so you don't get any non-beta WU. after it's set similar to mine below, click Update preferences.




#4
now you need to apply one of the computers to the profile just set.

go back to Your account, and this time select View your Computers on this account. click Details on the computer that has the gtx480/470, and at the very bottom next to Location, select the profile that you created/edited to run only the beta applications. click update.








#5
go to the BOINC manager, select the Projects tab, highlight the GPUGRID project, and click update. you're now ready to rock n' roll!!




================================================== =======

Points and Results

if you have results on these cards, please post them. things that greatly affect the output are overclocks, OS, dedicating a full thread or not, hyperthreading, and whether you also game while crunching or not. i had a 6k/day boost in points by having max stable OC, and also dedicating a full thread to GPUgrid. here are my results:

points: 32k/day
clocks: stock
OS: win7 64bit
dedicated thread: no
HT: yes
gaming: no

points: 38k/day
clocks: 800/1600
OS: win7 64bit
dedicated thread: yes
HT: yes
gaming: ~1 hour/day

points: 77k/day
clocks: 775/1550
OS: win XP 32bit
dedicated thread: yes
HT: no
gaming: none
comments: WCG at 100% load also

[=[PULSAR]=]

Just bought one today also. How come so much...$600? Seems like gpugrid will have the issues ironed out within the next week.

[WhiteFireDragon]

Just bought one today also. How come so much...$600? Seems like gpugrid will have the issues ironed out within the next week.

im in california, and there's just so many computer stores here lol. price gouging, and on top of that, tax is a bioch on things that costs a couple hundred.

what issues has gpugrid been having?

[=[PULSAR]=]

On 30 March they released a beta for Fermi but has had some issues because the creators of gpugrid haven't had a 480 or 470. GPUgrid did just receive a 480 and 470 on 23 April and they are ironing the kinks out as we well type.

[[XC] Oj101]

I'm really interested to know how they do with GPUGrid and F@H, could you please post numbers for each? Thanks

[Snow Crash]

I am typing from a PC with Win7 64 that already has a GTX480 installed, just waiting on GPUGrid.
pwolfe has 2x 470s installed on a linux box and waiting also.

[=[PULSAR]=]

I'm really interested to know how they do with GPUGrid and F@H, could you please post numbers for each? Thanks

I'll give it a shot on F@H for ya and let you know the stats. It has been a while since I've used it but we will see I know different WU's have different projected ppd rates.

[[XC] Oj101]

If you could run it for a week and tell me the average PPD... You'd be helping a good cause anyway

[Snow Crash]

ack ... cross posting :-(

[=[PULSAR]=]

If you could run it for a week and tell me the average PPD... You'd be helping a good cause anyway

Alright, I do it for the super computer week and see what the average is like. Wasn't F@H suppose to release a new GPU2 client for Fermi architecture?

[[XC] Oj101]

I don't know, I kind of gave up on F@H after my HD2900s as I found it was very touchy and needed to be babied. It could've just been my Windows installation at the time but I never got back into it and swapped to WCG instead

[INFRNL]

I think F@H is still working things out as well
I hope these perform as everyone hopes

[WhiteFireDragon]

I think F@H is still working things out as well
I hope these perform as everyone hopes

yes, 3.5 times the amount of what high end cards output now is a pretty big claim. i'm hoping it can just get close to these numbers.

[WhiteFireDragon]

I am typing from a PC with Win7 64 that already has a GTX480 installed, just waiting on GPUGrid.
pwolfe has 2x 470s installed on a linux box and waiting also.

ah yes i just noticed you had one on the grid. not sure if you noticed, but you got all errors today with the gtx480. i hope it's from the bugs and not your overclocks.

[Snow Crash]

GPUGrid is clear on the fact that their app crashes on GTX480 but I thought I would try anyway

To this test card's limits I'm running a couple other projects.
I'm not going to do any *optimized app* installations as I am a simple kind of cruncher.

SETI works good with shaders up to 1732 (1803 is a little shakey and 1823 grey screens).
It is hilarious to watch WUs crank through in 15-17 SECONDS instead of hours, the uploads and downloads can hardly keep up

<edit> Seems like this is actually erroring without telling me, finishing and sending up bad results. I may test again with a lower clock to see if I can get some valid reutrns</edit>

SETI has some WUs that are calculating signals from low angles and they run slower on a GPU than on a CPU.
It's a known issue. There is an opti app that will switch to your cpu when these WUs are detected.

Working out OC for Colltaz right now, Stock is good, 1532 is good, 1632 is good, 1732 good.

Interesting temps and fan speed.
Collatz @ 1732 shaders is pushing the GPU usage at 85% which is in about the same ballpark as GPUGrid (Win7 HP 64, i7-920 w/HT on, 4.2 GHz)
I manually set the fan at 70% and temp is ... wait for it ... 73c Ambient is ~23-24 c.
It's looking pretty good to me so far, temps and fan noise are well within my tolerance levels
I have not put an extra 120 mm fan blowing on the backside (like I do on the GTX295) because It just doesn't need it.

I have no intention of running any of these projects as soon as GPUGrid is ready, just trying to get a feel for the card's limits.

[CaptMorgan]

That's great Snow Crash, so all your doing now is waiting for GPUGRID to give the go ahead-hope that happens soon. Glad it seems to be working with the other projects might get an 470 soon myself

[INFRNL]

guess this gives me a little time before i bite. no sense it getting one if we can't fold yet. although i need to sell off another gtx275 or 2 before those lose value an i can use that money to help fund the 480. i hope a 480 can produce well more than 2 275's can otherwise would not be worth the investment

[CaptMorgan]

guess this gives me a little time before i bite. no sense it getting one if we can't fold yet. although i need to sell off another gtx275 or 2 before those lose value an i can use that money to help fund the 480. i hope a 480 can produce well more than 2 275's can otherwise would not be worth the investment

I was thinking that no doubt once everything is sorted out the 480's will produce some good results-but hardware in numbers will not hurt either. Though to what you said about waiting- I hope prices for the 470/480's don't go up as time goes on

[Snow Crash]

I only have one basis for equating the 480 for CUDA ... on Collatz sftp (the major dude who contributed a 470 and a 480 to GPUGrid) said his 295 would crunch a WU in 18minutes. My 480 is cranking them out in 7 minutes. That is not to say GPUGrid will do better or worse in optimizations but as the only piece of evidence I can point to it looks pretty good to me. Lastest post from GPUGrid regarding fermi is they expect to have a linux version ready tomorrowthey are now focused on optimizations and they may have a Windows version ready also. Hold on to your hats, I'm gonna put up some serious numbers (well for me anyway )

The guys at GPUGrid really do move along quite quickly. If you follow all the different tech they try out and the papers they publish, top it off with the public project ... they are Xtreme

[=[PULSAR]=]

So Fermi cards are now working properly and producing validated WU's?

[WhiteFireDragon]

i have a chance to trade my GTX 480 + $200 cash for two GTX 470. is this worth it for crunching outputs? i figured the GTX480 has 480 shader processors clocked at 1400mhz, and two GTX470 has 896 shader processors combined ( 448 x 2) at 1215mhz, so two 470's should give much more output correct?

I only have one basis for equating the 480 for CUDA ... on Collatz sftp (the major dude who contributed a 470 and a 480 to GPUGrid) said his 295 would crunch a WU in 18minutes. My 480 is cranking them out in 7 minutes. That is not to say GPUGrid will do better or worse in optimizations but as the only piece of evidence I can point to it looks pretty good to me. Lastest post from GPUGrid regarding fermi is they expect to have a linux version ready tomorrowthey are now focused on optimizations and they may have a Windows version ready also. Hold on to your hats, I'm gonna put up some serious numbers (well for me anyway )

this is very exciting to hear. now i'm wondering if the processor can keep up if it's also loaded 100% with WCG.

[Snow Crash]

responded to your Q here in the other thread.
Like all GPU projects you will take a little hit on both sides if you are running with HT on.
If no HT then gpu usage is only slowed down by 1-2% at most.

[INFRNL]

I only have one basis for equating the 480 for CUDA ... on Collatz sftp (the major dude who contributed a 470 and a 480 to GPUGrid) said his 295 would crunch a WU in 18minutes. My 480 is cranking them out in 7 minutes. That is not to say GPUGrid will do better or worse in optimizations but as the only piece of evidence I can point to it looks pretty good to me. Lastest post from GPUGrid regarding fermi is they expect to have a linux version ready tomorrowthey are now focused on optimizations and they may have a Windows version ready also. Hold on to your hats, I'm gonna put up some serious numbers (well for me anyway )

The guys at GPUGrid really do move along quite quickly. If you follow all the different tech they try out and the papers they publish, top it off with the public project ... they are Xtreme

if this is wht we can expect on the grid as well, then this is excellent news

then another question is like white dragon asked...load up with 470's or 480's 2x470 is approx $200 more, but is the production worth it. only time will tell; hopefully we make the right decision. my pln is 480's but 470's might be the way to go and save some $ or wait for the next rev of these cards; hopefully soon

[=[PULSAR]=]

Posted by the people of gpugrid.

So far, the performance of a GTX480 is only 30% faster than a GTX 285.
Fermi is completely different from a G200 chip, it's not just plug&play for a code optimized on the G200 as ACEMD.

We are trying to understand what's the problem. A factor two (100% faster) should be really the minimum for the hardware.

I'll keep you posted.
gdf

[WhiteFireDragon]

crap. only 30% faster than gtx285, but price difference is more than 30%