I need some serious GPU help!

[Dandasarge]

There is a ton of post on this but none of them seem to point me in the direction I can go. I see a lot of posting and data on these 200-500+ cards. What about the sub 100 last years model cards? For those of us who can’t/ wont spend hundreds to upgrade? Maybe best bangs for buck sub 100?

And there are arguments to both sides of the ATI-Nvidia, but what projects work best for which? For the credit whores who don’t care what project they are attached to?

What about PCI-E speeds dose it matter? I’ve been looking at different motherboards and you can find them with 2-4 PCI-E slots but then they have all kinds of speeds from 16x to 4x do they matter?

What about PCI video cards are they any good for this?

Is it really that big of a difference maker to buy a older CPU and slap a 200 dollar video card into? I see some of these numbers and they are huge but will a video card in an older machine out do a 6 core AMD?

Thanks,
Dan

[Fire$torm]

There is a ton of post on this but none of them seem to point me in the direction I can go. I see a lot of posting and data on these 200-500+ cards. What about the sub 100 last years model cards? For those of us who can’t/ wont spend hundreds to upgrade? Maybe best bangs for buck sub 100?

And there are arguments to both sides of the ATI-Nvidia, but what projects work best for which? For the credit whores who don’t care what project they are attached to?

What about PCI-E speeds dose it matter? I’ve been looking at different motherboards and you can find them with 2-4 PCI-E slots but then they have all kinds of speeds from 16x to 4x do they matter?

What about PCI video cards are they any good for this?

Is it really that big of a difference maker to buy a older CPU and slap a 200 dollar video card into? I see some of these numbers and they are huge but will a video card in an older machine out do a 6 core AMD?

Thanks,
Dan

I will answer in reverse order.
*Yes a good video card will totally tromp a CPU in any project that supports both.

* For slightly more then the price of a PCI card that can crunch you can get a better PCIe card.

*No, the speed of the PCIe slot will not matter much.

* For Projects that support GPUs go here ---> Forum FAQ

*For the ATI cards I would just recommend buying the most recent series your budget will allow. For nVidia many of the more recent series cards are just re-fabricated (As in smaller GPU chips) of older cards but not all. I'm not really an nVidia guy so I hope another team member will answer this one.

Hope this helps.

[Maxwell]

Browse around the FAQs and you may (hopefully) find some answers to your questions. But here's what I got off the top of my head.

ATI: MilkyWay, DNETC, Collatz, PrimeGrid. ATI is FAR superior in credits for all projects except PrimeGrid at this time.
CUDA: MilkyWay, DNETC, Collatz, PrimeGrid, GPUGrid, SETI/SETI Beta.

With newer BOINC Clients, both are fairly easy now - set and forget. Of course, if you want to do some optimization, we can help with that, too...

PCIe speeds don't really matter for crunching. They do for gaming, but not crunching. As long as you have one x16 slot (and I can't imagine you wouldn't), you're good.

A few PCI video cards will crunch (9500GT the best PCI card), but aren't worth the money. ~$80 for 3k/day...

Credit-wise, it's all GPU. You can put a thousand dollar CPU in your machine, and it might do 15-20k/day on Aqua. A ~$100 ATI card can probably do 100k/day. Up that video card to $200, and you'll clear 200k/day easily.

Hope this helps some. Others will chime in, too, I'm sure...

[Slicker]

There is a ton of post on this but none of them seem to point me in the direction I can go. I see a lot of posting and data on these 200-500+ cards. What about the sub 100 last years model cards? For those of us who can’t/ wont spend hundreds to upgrade? Maybe best bangs for buck sub 100?

The reality is that prices change almost daily. It would be a full time job to keep up a list with all the price points. However, for $100, here are my suggestions:

1. HIS HD 5770 is $99 after rebate and is rated at 1360 GLOPS. It will get 90-100K/day on Collatz or DNETC. It will NOT run Milkyway since it is single precision.

2. PowerColor HD 4850 for $95 will get about 50K/day and run on any of the ATI projects since it is has both double precision and OpenCL driver support. The 4850 is rated at 1000 GLOPS which is better than a HD 5670 which is in the same price range.

What about PCI-E speeds dose it matter? I’ve been looking at different motherboards and you can find them with 2-4 PCI-E slots but then they have all kinds of speeds from 16x to 4x do they matter?

Going to buy am expensive MB w/ 4 PCI-E slots and then buy a < $100 GPU? If the machine is for crunching, buy a 1 PCI-E MB and spend the money saved on a better GPU. Your RAC will love you for it.

What about PCI video cards are they any good for this?

Yes/No. If is one way to earn a few more credits with a MB that has only 1 PCI-E, but the PCI GPUs are not a great bang for the buck.

Is it really that big of a difference maker to buy a older CPU and slap a 200 dollar video card into? I see some of these numbers and they are huge but will a video card in an older machine out do a 6 core AMD?

Absolutely. I paid $8K for a dual 6 core AMD opteron box (with hyper-threading = 24 cores) and a $400 GPU will produce 5 times the credit.

The only gotcha with putting a GPU into an older machine is that you may also need to upgrade the power supply. Most low end store bought computers come with a power supply just big enough to run what is in it when purchased (300-400 watts). Adding a GPU may draw 100 watts or more which means spending $20 to $100 or more on a PSU. The really cheap PSUs will die rather quickly (within a year or two) and aren't very energy efficient. I'm not convinced the middle of the road ones work any better though. I think the trick is to buy way more than you need (e.g. if you need 400 watts, buy a 600 watt PSU so as it wears out, it still has enough power to run the system).

[DrPop]

I think I hear what you're saying: Most bang for the buck (i.e. points per day / dollar)?

That would land squarely in the camp of a 58xx series ATI card. A CPU will not stack up points wise at all - like maybe 1/10th of the points per day for the same $$$ spent.
Yes, if you have an old computer check to see if it has a PCI-e slot. If so, just add a sweet GPU and call it good. If not, come back to us with a list of the parts you currently have, and we'll get you on the right track to a solid upgrade for cheapest price possible. This (system builds) is something a few of us love helping out on.

You can check Ebay if you want, and see how the price of a 4870 stacks up to these. Don't go lower than a 4870 if buying used.
If you're buying new, I wouldn't go for less than a 5830 because you can O/C the heck out of the 58xx series and have some massive points for the money. They are double precision and will run any ATI supported project.
5830: $135 after rebate at Newegg.com
5850: $180 "
5870: $250 "

If you want a good deal on a souped up 5850 or 5870, PM me before you buy (I am thinking of getting a dual card, 5970, then I can get another one later, so I need to offload one for the extra PCI-e slot) - but they might be a little steep for your budget at the moment, and the 5830 would then be your best bet.

[joker]

I know it is a few bucks extra then what you want to spend but I am very impressed with this card for the price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-497-_-Product Getting right around 200K a day with it on DNETC. If you are on a budget (like I am) then this is very good bang for your buck. My 2 cents.

EDIT: it is OC'ed to 900MHz to get those numbers. That was easy enough using CCC. And if you can sell the free game, you can make it even cheaper.

[Dandasarge]

Also can you run 2 cards if one is an agp? if its possible is it plausible? i mean with drivers and such? I know that you can only have one agp slot on a board but will that same issue cause problems for a board with a PCI-E video card?

I can find boards all over with 4 pci-e for 100-120. probably not the most stable but doable. I've seen some of these new video crunching farms running 4 dual video cards? I'm not even sure i can pay the power bill much less build it.

and whats the compatibility with the 2.0-2.1? can i plug a 2.1 into a 2.0 like a usb? or is that something i got to make sure i match?

[Fire$torm]

Also can you run 2 cards if one is an agp? if its possible is it plausible? i mean with drivers and such? I know that you can only have one agp slot on a board but will that same issue cause problems for a board with a PCI-E video card?

I can find boards all over with 4 pci-e for 100-120. probably not the most stable but doable. I've seen some of these new video crunching farms running 4 dual video cards? I'm not even sure i can pay the power bill much less build it.

and whats the compatibility with the 2.0-2.1? can i plug a 2.1 into a 2.0 like a usb? or is that something i got to make sure i match?

*If buy 2.0, 2.1 you are referring to PCI-E version specs, then v2.1 just adds some specs from PCI-E v3.0

From Wikipedia

PCI Express 2.1

PCI Express 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned to be fully implemented in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Most motherboards sold currently come with PCI Express 2.0 connectors.

So to answer your question, yes v2.1 is backward compatible with v2.0.

*IIRC, Before Win7 it was NOT possible to mix video drivers. I ran an nVidia & ATI card in one system (PCI-E only) and had both of them crunching. I have not come across a motherboard with both PCI-E and AGP slots. I had a hard time just recently finding an ATX P4 MB with two PCI-E slots. Anyhow I think it should be possible with Win7 to do an AGP + PCI dual card setup.

[Dandasarge]

Thanks to all that have replied. I'm sure this info will help others as well. Of course as long as I'm not the last one to learn this stuff? If anyone else has any great info please post!

I know its not possible to keep an updated list of best card as the prices really do change every day but it would be possible to have an idea of what the credit per day is to the series. I also know it would be slightly untrue do to manufacture and overclocking. It would help us teammates trying to get into video crunching the info to make the best purchase.

If I'm looking at 2 cards on sale and one is say a 5770 and one is a 5750 I looking at it would guess that the 5770 is the better because its the higher number. but in honesty i don't know if its 1% better or 50% better. If 30-40 more bucks will get me twice the work units then sure I'll go for it. but at some point the "new" price out weights the performance.