I'll be the first to admit that I'm no longer up on folding -- I've had a number of boxes running for a number of years. Ranging from an P4 2.4 to a couple of decent Intel Core 2 6400 boxes. I'm running a total of 8 clients and am just under 1600 PPD (I should really retire the old PIII, at 50ppd it's really not worth the trouble).

I now see that 5-6k ppd isn't unusual for people -- are you guys just all running that many more boxes (ie., 25 clients) or are there newer clients out there that are giving ultra-high folding performance. If there is something that I should be using, that gets more work accomplished for FAH, then I should probably switch.

In any case, here's what I'm running, please make recommendations if I should be running different clients (all are running FAH 5.04 console as a service, the dual core and HT machines are running two instances).

Intel Core 2 6400, 2GB RAM, ATI X1950pro (2 clients)
Intel Core 2 6400, 1.5GB RAM, on-board Intel 945G graphics (2 clients)
Intel P4 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI 1600 (2 clients HT)
Intel P4 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI 1600 (1 client)
Intel P3 1.0GHz file server, 1GB RAM, ? video (1 client)

Thanks for the help

Dave "an old folder that's still kicking" S.

The SMP client is giving about 1700 points per work unit. My Core 2 duo E6420 with a mild overclock to 2.6 Ghz will take about 25-26 hours to complete one.

If a someone has 2-3 Core 2 Duos or 1-2 Quads, it's easy to do 5-6k per day. If you have PS3, it's even more.

you could try the GPU client on your 1950pro and use the SMP client on your other core duo computer

I read the stuff on Stanford's site about the SMP client, but they made it sound like it was for quad core only -- it will run on a dual core?

I see there is a v6.0 beta 1 and V5.91 beta6 for the GPU, as well as a v5.91 beta SMP. I assume these are what you're referring to? The beta's are stable?

Also, what are the advantages/disadvantages of the GPU vs the SMP (since I have 1 box that could run either version). Does one perform substantially more work? Can both run on the same box at the same time? FWIW, I'm a little leery of the GPU version since my video card is a little noisy at load, while my CPU is silent at load. The GPU would have to do substantially more work for me to even consider...

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate the help!

Dave S.

FAH recommends quads for the SMP client, but it runs fine on dual core machines, and generates a lot more points than the regular client

I'm folding with a core 2 duo E4500 and two amd X2 BE-2300's all running the SMP client under linux. As far as I can tell you get about 20% more PPD with Linux SMP than windows SMP.

With Linux you have to remember to use the "- smp" flag each time you start it up, otherwise it will delete the current WU and start a regular non-SMP one.

Here's a linux howto. 1 box is getting 4500PPD with 1 box.
http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=124
People are also getting good results with SMP Affinity Changer with windows.
http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=136

I'd love to see that when I switch.

Despite all of these efforts we need to create a DeepRed Club, which currently would have zero members. Deep Red is now reserved for those getting 6000+ points per day.

And I'm hoping Bolek and Viking take the bait.

We continue to hover around 130 users, seems we lose 'em as fast as we get new ones. But the contributions are increasing. We averaged less then 500PPD this summer, and last month was like 650, now we are averaging 750+ PPD. But we're less than 4000 PPD shy, as a team, of earning 100,000 PPD.

We all expect Bolek to take up this slack.