Slow, Long Fermi Tasks

Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Slow, Long Fermi Tasks

Author	Message
skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17638 - Posted: 16 Jun 2010 \| 14:12:00 UTC
	This long IBUCH task only used about 66% GPU, 2516372 1589721 16 Jun 2010 4:53:58 UTC 16 Jun 2010 12:25:38 UTC Completed and validated 18,054.61 17,668.78 7,954.42 11,931.63 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) The shorter OTTO and TONI_HERG tasks seems to be about 8% faster and use more GPU.
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Bedrich Hajek Send message Joined: 28 Mar 09 Posts: 486 Credit: 11,491,468,868 RAC: 4,734,903 Level Scientific publications	Message 17810 - Posted: 2 Jul 2010 \| 1:15:51 UTC
	I have recently joined the "Fermi Club" with a new computer that has 2 480 cards. I am running Windows 7 64 bit professional OS, with 257.21 drivers and boinc version 6.10.56. The cards run at .81 Ghz and take an average of over 5 hours to complete a work unit. This compares to my Windows XP professional 32 bit, with a 195.62 drivers, boinc version 6.10.56 and a 285 card, which completes the work unit in about 3.5 hours. I noticed that some of you, who are running the Fermi 470 and 480 cards on Windows XP machines, have clock speed of 1.4 Ghz and finish the work units in about 2.5 hours. Is this because of Windows XP allows the unit to run faster or did you tweak your machine some how? If you tweaked it, how did you do it?
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Snow Crash Send message Joined: 4 Apr 09 Posts: 450 Credit: 539,316,349 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17811 - Posted: 2 Jul 2010 \| 1:21:33 UTC - in response to Message 17810.
	Congratulations, you have an excellent computer! WinXP is MUCH faster than Vista/ Win7. The best you can do with Win7 is to make sure you create an environmental variable called SWAN_SYNC and make the value be 0. Then, if you are crunching CPU projects set BOINC Manager to use 1 less thread than your machine really has. ____________ Thanks - Steve
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17821 - Posted: 2 Jul 2010 \| 13:30:52 UTC - in response to Message 17811.
	I have one GTX470. It is overclocked to the same speed as your GTX480 cards. So the main difference in terms of performance is that I have 32 less shaders. On XP each one of your cards (at stock speeds) should run about 7% faster than mine. One of my tasks: 2602526 1654070 1 Jul 2010 22:53:58 UTC 2 Jul 2010 3:57:16 UTC Completed and validated 8,740.36 8,518.66 4,503.74 6,755.61 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) A similar one of your tasks: 2601422 1653413 1 Jul 2010 18:24:55 UTC 2 Jul 2010 5:01:03 UTC Completed and validated 19,248.47 4,317.52 4,503.74 6,755.61 ACEMD2: GPU molecular dynamics v6.05 (cuda30) As you can see, your time of 19248 seconds is much slower than my time of 8740 seconds. This is down to using Windows 7. If you ran the same task on Win XP it should take about 8128seconds (7% faster than my overclocked GTX470). As is, my one GTX470 is doing about 10% more work than both of your GTX480's put together! I hope this makes it vividly clear what you must do. I use EVGA Precision to overclock my cards, but there are several other good overclocking tools available. instructions for using swan_sync
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skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17864 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 11:52:18 UTC - in response to Message 17821. Last modified: 4 Jul 2010 \| 11:52:52 UTC
	Bedrich, I suppose you could try the latest Win7 x64 Beta driver, but I would not hold my breath. At least it reports the specs correctly!
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Bedrich Hajek Send message Joined: 28 Mar 09 Posts: 486 Credit: 11,491,468,868 RAC: 4,734,903 Level Scientific publications	Message 17868 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 12:38:30 UTC
	Thanks for the suggestions, but it seems to me that the problem is with the Windows 7, and until Nvidia and / or Boinc upgrades their software to fix this problem, I am stuck with this.
	ID: 17868 \| Rating: 0 \| rate: / Reply Quote

skgiven Volunteer moderator Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 23 Apr 09 Posts: 3968 Credit: 1,995,359,260 RAC: 0 Level Scientific publications	Message 17870 - Posted: 4 Jul 2010 \| 16:35:03 UTC - in response to Message 17868. Last modified: 4 Jul 2010 \| 16:42:10 UTC
	The thing about windows 7 (and Vista) is that they use DirectX 10.1 (or 11 if you have a Fermi) to speed up some system tasks and apps. This includes the GUI (AERO). I think I tried to turn DirectX off and run a Fermi tasks, and it made no difference, but I can't remember for sure. I know on one Vista system I have a corrupt Aero installation, that won't uninstall fully or upgrade. No doubt it has integrated itself too deep. Anyway, I am not going back to Win7 with my Fermi. It might be interesting to try booting to Safe Mode with Networking and running a Fermi WU. An advanced NVidia driver installation, where you could select what you actually install might help!
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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Slow, Long Fermi Tasks

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