Dedicated Bonic computer question

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BSman

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Message 8610 - Posted: 7 Mar 2007, 23:03:05 UTC
Last modified: 7 Mar 2007, 23:41:22 UTC

I am designing a computer to be used in a bonic farm and I am trying to optimise two things, power consumption and flops.

I am currently trying to decide between a few memory configurations:
- 1x256MB
- 2x256MB
- 1x512MB
- 2x512MB
- 1x1GB
- 2x1GB

The question boils down to dual vs. single channel & how much ram does boinc really need. I would prefer 1x??? because it is cheaper and uses less power but what is the performance difference between dual vs. single channel?

Please select one configuration and explain why.
Thankyou.
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Keck_Komputers
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Message 8611 - Posted: 7 Mar 2007, 23:52:20 UTC

Depends on the CPU, motherboard and OS as to what is the best memory config. In general dual or quad channel modes should be used if possible. 1 GB is recommended for winXP, 2 GB for vista, you may be able to get away with less if you do no use the computer for anything but crunching. More may be desirable with multi-CPUs.
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BSman

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Message 8612 - Posted: 7 Mar 2007, 23:56:39 UTC

I would be running Linux, it's a dedicated folding machine. Whats quad channel memory? What do you know that I dont. Also, do you have any idea of the performance increase with dual channel vs single? like 5% or 20% or 1% kind of thing.
Cheers
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MikeMarsUK

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Message 8613 - Posted: 7 Mar 2007, 23:58:31 UTC


Quad channel = a pair of dual channels (on the Clovertown CPU, also the same will appear on Barcelona from AMD).

Depends on which project you're running. It makes a huge difference on CPDN for example.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 8619 - Posted: 8 Mar 2007, 8:11:54 UTC

And on SETI. Approx 25% improvement for Quad channel over Dual channel.
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dcdc

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Message 8761 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 22:57:08 UTC

I've seen it written that rosetta sees a reasonable perfomance increase from dual-channel, but i've seen no figures to back that up. The CPU cache makes a big difference to Rosetta, but not to some other projects.

To save some cost and power i'd recommend running BOINC from compactflash rather than a hard drive. That'll make much more difference to the power consumption than the RAM config.

To protect the flash drive from excessive writes you can just set the BOINC write frequency to, say, 600s. I run a few crunchers from CF (all Win XP), some of which also have HDs but this way the HD can spin down while BOINC is still doing the occasional reading and writing.


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BSman

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Message 8969 - Posted: 21 Mar 2007, 19:45:44 UTC - in response to Message 8761.  

I've seen it written that rosetta sees a reasonable perfomance increase from dual-channel, but i've seen no figures to back that up. The CPU cache makes a big difference to Rosetta, but not to some other projects.

To save some cost and power i'd recommend running BOINC from compactflash rather than a hard drive. That'll make much more difference to the power consumption than the RAM config.

To protect the flash drive from excessive writes you can just set the BOINC write frequency to, say, 600s. I run a few crunchers from CF (all Win XP), some of which also have HDs but this way the HD can spin down while BOINC is still doing the occasional reading and writing.



I am going to use no HDD at all. It is pretty easy (you just need a server to manage your folding boxes(the server need as had drive))
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Aaron Finney

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Message 9027 - Posted: 23 Mar 2007, 17:39:53 UTC - in response to Message 8610.  

Thankyou.


Sorry I do not answer questions about Bonic. Please find the forums for Bonic and post there.

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Nicolas

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Message 9049 - Posted: 24 Mar 2007, 2:25:52 UTC - in response to Message 9027.  

Thankyou.


Sorry I do not answer questions about Bonic. Please find the forums for Bonic and post there.

What the hell do you mean? This IS the forums for BOINC.
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Aaron Finney

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Message 9057 - Posted: 24 Mar 2007, 9:12:15 UTC - in response to Message 9049.  
Last modified: 24 Mar 2007, 9:12:47 UTC

Thankyou.


Sorry I do not answer questions about Bonic. Please find the forums for Bonic and post there.

What the hell do you mean? This IS the forums for BOINC.


Yes, you're quite right. It IS the forums for BOINC. People looking for other topics need to find support and advice elsewhere rather than polluting our help forums with help requests for other things. When someone comes in here looking for Bonic, I can understand the confusion, but this is most certainly not a Bonic forum, and I refuse to help someone as there are surely more qualified people handling that product, who quite likely have their own tech forum.
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Nicolas

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Message 9072 - Posted: 24 Mar 2007, 19:05:02 UTC - in response to Message 9057.  

Thankyou.


Sorry I do not answer questions about Bonic. Please find the forums for Bonic and post there.

What the hell do you mean? This IS the forums for BOINC.


Yes, you're quite right. It IS the forums for BOINC. People looking for other topics need to find support and advice elsewhere rather than polluting our help forums with help requests for other things. When someone comes in here looking for Bonic, I can understand the confusion, but this is most certainly not a Bonic forum, and I refuse to help someone as there are surely more qualified people handling that product, who quite likely have their own tech forum.

Okay, now I get it. I thought it was you who did the BOINC->Bonic typo, but now I see it was the original poster who mistyped it, and you didn't notice it was a typo, rather than a different product.

He's asking for a dedicated computer to crunch BOINC and get credits.
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Aaron Finney

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Message 9083 - Posted: 25 Mar 2007, 10:54:45 UTC - in response to Message 9072.  

*sigh*

some people have no humor at all.
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Profile kinhull
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Message 9091 - Posted: 25 Mar 2007, 16:19:41 UTC - in response to Message 9083.  

*sigh*

some people have no humor at all.


It's difficult to know where someone is coming from when you don't really know who that person is.
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Nicolas

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Message 9097 - Posted: 25 Mar 2007, 19:11:06 UTC - in response to Message 9083.  

*sigh*

some people have no humor at all.


Some people don't know that sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet. Especially when talking to people from other countries and/or who don't have English as a native language. BOINC forums still don't support transmitting the tone of voice either (which is crucial to notice sarcasm).
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Profile KSMarksPsych
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Message 9098 - Posted: 25 Mar 2007, 20:00:08 UTC

Hey guys...

A polite request to let things cool off.


Aaron was being sarcastic. I missed it too. I'm so used to all sorts of spellings of BOINC, I don't even notice when it is misspelled.


Kathryn :o)
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Aaron Finney

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Message 9100 - Posted: 25 Mar 2007, 22:27:29 UTC - in response to Message 9097.  

*sigh*

some people have no humor at all.


Some people don't know that sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet. Especially when talking to people from other countries and/or who don't have English as a native language. BOINC forums still don't support transmitting the tone of voice either (which is crucial to notice sarcasm).


Sarcasm meters FTW! :-D
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River~~
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Message 9219 - Posted: 30 Mar 2007, 14:52:50 UTC
Last modified: 30 Mar 2007, 14:56:27 UTC

so *does* anyone know where the forums are for the BONIC project?

;)





/\
||
\=NB the use of a smiley to indicate humour.


Or humor, as the case may be


;)

^
|
NB the use of repetition to reinforce a suggestion made humo(u)ro(u)sly.



;) R~~

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