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Billy · 03:25 PM

I happened to look at a task on SETIathome that was paired with a CUDA device; GeForce 8800. It was about 38 TIMES at fast as my computer with the optimized client. Incredible.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/worku...wuid=398451782

arkayn · Jan 22, 2009, 08:12 PM

One thing about that time, that is the amount of time that the processor used and not what the video card used.

They do not have a option to count video card processing time yet.

reader50 · Jan 22, 2009, 08:37 PM

If it really is that fast, it would be a downer for Mac users. Why crunch when the other clients are so much more efficient? I hope arkayn is right, that corrected figures will put it closer to the CPU results. Or that Berkeley will get around to Mac support for GPU clients.

Elphidieus · Jan 23, 2009, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Billy

I happened to look at a task on SETIathome that was paired with a CUDA device; GeForce 8800. It was about 38 TIMES at fast as my computer with the optimized client. Incredible.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/worku...wuid=398451782

But then again you fail to account the performance per watt ratio, if you would call it that way... the GF8800 can consume up to 100W and above for crunching on one single tasks... the same amount of wattage on my quad-core clovertown Xeon on 4 simultaneous WUs (albeit the former still being faster)...

Billy · Jan 24, 2009, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by Elphidieus

But then again you fail to account the performance per watt ratio, if you would call it that way... the GF8800 can consume up to 100W and above for crunching on one single tasks... the same amount of wattage on my quad-core clovertown Xeon on 4 simultaneous WUs (albeit the former still being faster)...

So it isn't very GREEN crunching that way. Does that 100 watts include cooling power? Would it be noisy as well; fans running flat out? How much does one of those cost?

OneMacGuy · Feb 16, 2009, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by Billy

So it isn't very GREEN crunching that way. Does that 100 watts include cooling power? Would it be noisy as well; fans running flat out? How much does one of those cost?

I was using an nVidia 9800 GT to run folding. It burned up the card after about a month of crunching. The card will now do 2D only, any 3D stuff and it goes whack. It ran around 82 Degrees C when it was going 100% on folding.

Gareth Johnston · Feb 17, 2009, 02:15 PM

The real time increase of CUDA is 2 or 3 times from a 2.8GHz CPU. The shorter tasks take about 6 minutes with CUDA and the longer normal units take approximately 20 minutes. CUDA also over claims is still full of problems. It is okay, but until it is actually reliable not really worth the hassle.

Although for Mac OSX we'll probably see this ported before the "official" AstroPulse application sees the light of day.

Elphidieus · May 4, 2009, 02:56 AM

Are there anyone in here got the new Mac Mini with the nVidia 9400M to crunch SETI CUDA on Windows...?

BTBlomberg · May 13, 2009, 12:05 PM

I have read that the issue of CUDA support is not with SETI or BOINC, but with the drivers nVidia supplies Apple. There is apparently some incompatibilities in the code for the current drives that they need to fix. I have also hear it may not be until MacOS X 10.6 that this is fixed. Apple will have OpenCL in place with 10.6 and nVidia is to be writing CUDA drivers for it.

Elphidieus · May 13, 2009, 10:22 PM

I was referring to the Windows side. Cuda is useless on OS X right now. But anyway, I've tried SETI Cuda on a MacBook Alu with Windows XP on Boot Camp, no luck.

Apparently there was an error indicating insufficient video memory on stock Cuda client, and it errors out all the Cuda WUs upon Raistmer's tweaked Cuda client.