Lately, other sites have given exposure to folding. Now, Bit-Tech releases an article on how to build the best folding "rig".

Seems extensive, considering motherboard, CPU, case, PSU, OS and ofcourse GPU's.

Also some pointers (preferred brand, mixing different cards) when using multiple GPU's for folding - and a few interesting graphs after benchmarking.

@Aristide:

seems all good

In the last pages, some supercomputers for folding.

Interesting. I found out about the 96 shader model (whatever name NVidia gives it, and no, not the 48 shader 9600GSO) from the Stanford forums over a year ago. What's odd is that it's still in the top of the budget price heap, and it's 65nm no less.

I don't know if any 55nm 9800GTs even exist, as NVidia has failed (epically) to tell anyone if they have or not.

I liked their monster rigs, although it did demonstrate the greater PPD/watt of the GTX295.

7 9600GSO: 22,742 ppd, 524 watts, 43 ppd/watt
4 GTX295: 55,013 ppd, 983 watts, 56 ppd/watt

You got it right, for price no object the fastest most expensive wins. But for budget minded the up front costs are hideous. And you have potential heat issues as well, and associated noise with it.

It wouldn't surprise me if some newer laptops are also good at PPD/watt numbers. Some people are GPU folding on integrated video, which is like 5 watts.

Yeah, folding on integrated video can be done, but the big gpu WUs will run past the deadline. I'm pretty sure those 1888 point jobs can't be done in time on a 9300M, and that's roughly equivalent to an ION chip, but the ION might be a little faster. Although more testing is probably required.

I also have begun to wonder about folding on laptops. I was thinking about the alienware m17x, it can be configured with dual 280M chips and it has a 9300M as well, so in theory it could fold a lot. But I'm pretty sure you can only get it in Vista these days, and Vista has that limitation where you have to have the card hooked up to a screen (or a dongle) to get it to fold, so I wonder if that would be a problem. Think I'll hit the forums and see if anyone knows anything....

Take a look at the 2 main graphs here:

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2009/08/03 ... ding-rig/4

The 260 is near the top in PPD, but not near the top in power consumption. Now if only it was single slot and an even multiple of a 9600 GSO it would have been perfect. No complaints though.

Also note the 9800GT versus the 9600GSO, no real complaints there either.

I think this article is more important for a lot of people:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... t-matter/1

OK, I just got a couple 260's installed in a system, and looking at them vs. the 275, Fahmon is telling me this:

275 - 6631 ppd
260 - 6109 ppd

all the cards are currently working on 1888 point jobs, so I think they're all about equal. So I'm not buying the 275 as slower than the 260 on that chart. I suppose my experience could be anecdotal, though. It wasn't very clear from the chart how they did their testing.

I believe your numbers are good the question is how much more power does the 275 use versus the 260?

Yeah, that's a good question. It would take some card swapping and lots of runs to figure that out. Normalizing over WU type would be hard. Well, the 260 is a pretty good card anyways, the refurbished pair I have is still humming away with no complaints. And having just recently moved my htpc to a new case (check it out over in the case forum: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=54981) I have a spare case, might have to find something to put in that...

The GTX295's are so powerful and efficient that I may change what would be my ultimate system. Instead of 4 GTX260's I would build a dual card system with a pair of GTX295s. Lower motherboard costs and I can probably get one that has 16 lanes in both slots. A quad 295 system requires a huge PS, or perhaps 2, making startup costs rather silly. Intel-wise quad PCI-E motherboards severely limit selection. Dual slot boards often have the PCI-E slots further apart as well. I don't think I could build a serious folder on AMD anymore. Budget models sure, but not big ticket ones.

This is a reliable source:
nVidia Chips Comparison Table - Temperature and Power Specs

GeForce GTX 260: 182 W
GeForce GTX 275: 219 W
GeForce GTX 295: 289 W

GeForce GTX 260: 182 W $155 - 216 stream processors($.72 each), 896MB memory
GeForce GTX 275: 219 W $210 - 240 stream processors($.88 each), 896MB memory
GeForce GTX 295: 289 W $500 - 480 stream processors($1.04 each), 1.8GB memory

Kinda speaks for itself, doesn't it? And for laughs

9600GSO: 105 W $40 - 96 stream processors($.42 each), 512MB memory

Oh the GTX 285 is rated 204 watts. So yeah, the 275 was obviously a dumbing down effort.