A few days ago I saw that zotac was introducing PCI and PCI 1x based GT520 cards for use in older PCs. My first thought was "sweet, GPUs in my old PC". Would it even work? With winter coming I figured the 1.5GHz dell with a card or two might make a nice space heater in my basement, but only if it could crunch a lot of units.
http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gt-520-zt-50610-10l.html
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A few days ago I saw that zotac was introducing PCI and PCI 1x based GT520 cards for use in older PCs. My first thought was "sweet, GPUs in my old PC". Would it even work? With winter coming I figured the 1.5GHz dell with a card or two might make a nice space heater in my basement, but only if it could crunch a lot of units.
http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gt-520-zt-50610-10l.html
I'd rather have the GT430, it has twice the Cores than the GT520: http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gt-430-zt-40605-10l.html and is also available in PCIe 1x
Presently Crunching here on a PCI 8400 GS: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=2355855
Claggy
430's can be found for as low as $55 on newegg so you're paying a major price premium for interfacing with the PCI bus. Also, with high end cards having a noticable performance hit on E@H from 8x PCIe instead of 16x I suspect that falling all the way down to PCI (roughly 1x PCIe equivalent) would hurt the performance of even fairly modest cards like the 430 and 520.
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Does anybody knows if there are driver issues then with installed NVIDIA PCIe cards? So i mean one of my boxes runs a 8800GT and a 9800GTX with i think 266 driver version. I think standart driverpack dont have a PCI Driver for 430 PCI? SOoo when i must install a special driver perhaps(?), do the other two cards run? ^^
I think too the 430 is better then the 520.
Any experience with such constellations?
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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at
Does anybody knows if there are driver issues then with installed NVIDIA PCIe cards? So i mean one of my boxes runs a 8800GT and a 9800GTX with i think 266 driver version. I think standart driverpack dont have a PCI Driver for 430 PCI? SOoo when i must install a special driver perhaps(?), do the other two cards run? ^^
I think too the 430 is better then the 520.
Any experience with such constellations?
I'm running the Normal 266.58 driver with my PCI 8400 GS, the GT430, the 8800GT and 9800GTX will also run with this driver, getting a GT520 to run will involve finding a driver that the other GPU's can run too.
(and if that involves running a 270 and later driver, make sure Boinc doesn't suspend GPU running when active, etc, otherwise GPU downclocking may occur.)
Claggy
It sounds like the PCI could be a huge bottleneck. If my goal was to use HDMI on this old box than I'd still probably go ahead and do it and then see what extra computing I could get, but probably not worth it for just $/computation.
Thanks!
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It sounds like the PCI could be a huge bottleneck. If my goal was to use HDMI on this old box than I'd still probably go ahead and do it and then see what extra computing I could get, but probably not worth it for just $/computation.
Thanks!
Don't think using the PCI bus is a huge bottleneck, GPU usage on the 8400 GS is 95 to 99% with BRP4, and this one a host doing Collatz on a AGP HD4650 too,
Claggy
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With winter coming I figured the 1.5GHz dell with a card or two might make a nice space heater in my basement [...]
Unfortunately not...just ca 30 W of heating from the card, same as a small light bulb :-).
Seriously, I think this is a nice product for older PCs and well worth trying out. Thanks for sharing this info here.
48 CUDA cores are not that many, but comparable to what many notebooks will have, e.g. the one I'm typing on now
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=2631392
Your older PC with PCI bus would have slower crunching times than this notebook, but anyway, if this works (check the CUDA logo on the box maybe), it would be a nice way to speed up an old host. If you do this, please let us know about the results.
Cheers
HB
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The space heater part was a bit of a joke. I haven't had a chance to do to many geeky things at home for awhile, so I'll probably get one of the cards suggested and see how far I can push the box. I'm also looking at getting a used Tesla card for fun too, I have a different PC that I think has the right slots open.
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It sounds like the PCI could be a huge bottleneck. If my goal was to use HDMI on this old box than I'd still probably go ahead and do it and then see what extra computing I could get, but probably not worth it for just $/computation.
Thanks!
Don't think using the PCI bus is a huge bottleneck, GPU usage on the 8400 GS is 95 to 99% with BRP4, and this one a host doing Collatz on a AGP HD4650 too,
Claggy
It may be bottleneck however. Even if I am switching from PCIE X16 to PCIE X8 (just to insert another card in the vacant slot) I'm loosing about 5% of RAC.
PCIE X4 is about 15% for BPR4 WUs. However Milkyway or Collatz are not so sensitive to the bus speed.
Does anybody knows if there are driver issues then with installed NVIDIA PCIe cards? So i mean one of my boxes runs a 8800GT and a 9800GTX with i think 266 driver version. I think standart driverpack dont have a PCI Driver for 430 PCI? SOoo when i must install a special driver perhaps(?), do the other two cards run? ^^
I think too the 430 is better then the 520.
Any experience with such constellations?
I'm running the Normal 266.58 driver with my PCI 8400 GS, the GT430, the 8800GT and 9800GTX will also run with this driver, getting a GT520 to run will involve finding a driver that the other GPU's can run too.
(and if that involves running a 270 and later driver, make sure Boinc doesn't suspend GPU running when active, etc, otherwise GPU downclocking may occur.)
Claggy
OK i was only awared of it because one of my ATI 3850´s (for MW) need special drivers, becuase it was AGP and not PCIe. So i through that too with PCI and PCIe Cards in the same System.
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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at
OK, for those who are interested, I am currently testing the GT430 PCI. Here are a few numbers:
Project............Runtime
Einstein...........14h 14m (51280s)
DNETC............1h 26m (5171s)
PPS sieve........1h 25m (5117s)
Cullan/Woodall..0h 14m (856s)
The test machine is a Phenom IIx4 965 with 64 Bit Linux.
As you can see, for memory intense applications like Einstein the card is practically useless unless you have a very old PC. For projects that have less memory access it might be worth trying.
Michael
Wow thx for your test! I had planned such a card or more cards for Einstein or Seti. But Einstein was prefered and happy now that i dont buyed it :/ Only Seti would be interessing now, how fast this card can compute one of them.
On another thread you can see 430PCIe(!) with, i think 1 hour 40 per WU, runtime. That really hurts PCI Version needs over 14 hours O.o
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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at
If you look through the taskID output for that task on the website, there appears to be about 9.5 hours where time was elapsing but no crunching was being done. Perhaps your card was running another project or doing something else during that period. If you add up the actual crunching time (where checkpoints were being committed) it's much less than the run time you quote. Maybe you should try a couple more tasks where nothing else is interfering. The card is probably a lot better than you think.
I don't have any GPU crunching experience so I don't know why the 9.5 hour gap is there.
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Cheers,
Gary.
If you look through the taskID output for that task on the website, there appears to be about 9.5 hours where time was elapsing but no crunching was being done. Perhaps your card was running another project or doing something else during that period. If you add up the actual crunching time (where checkpoints were being committed) it's much less than the run time you quote. Maybe you should try a couple more tasks where nothing else is interfering. The card is probably a lot better than you think.
I don't have any GPU crunching experience so I don't know why the 9.5 hour gap is there.
The 9 hour gap is probably the night time when the machines are switched of.
I don't run them 24/7. I didn't take the time to actually go through the log file and add up all times. The reported times are the run times as reported by the project.
I remember calculating the estimated run time after the first 1.5 hours into the WU. Based on the progress bar and the run time at that point a came up with a total estimated run time of over 14 hours. So it appears to be right. However, I will run a couple of more WUs to test the card.
Michael
I got my PCI GT430 a couple of days ago, just done a couple of Seti@home bench runs with it,
then i set up a Second Boinc Installation on my E8500, and set it running Seti Cuda only (using an Alpha app):
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=6199212
A mid AR task there is taking around 4,400 seconds, compare it to my PCI 8400 GS that takes around 14,500 secs (using the Stock app at the moment):
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=5306154
Claggy
I now have made a second test and the result stays the same. BRP4 WUs take 14h14m with the GT 430. I have also checked my first test WU and the result is also 14h14m as stated in one of my previous mails.
So my conclusion doesn't change. For Einstein the card is practically useless unless you have a very low-end CPU.
Michael
My GT520 PCIe (Linux) takes 2h39m to run an E@H WU. And I Love its low power consumption...
My PCIe GT 440 does an E@H WU in 90 minutes. I originally planned to buy the GT 520 but after I read some reviews and saw the performance being so bad, I went for the GT 440. Some reviews said the GT 520 is so bad, it shouldn't even exist :)
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Team Belgium
My PCIe GT 440 does an E@H WU in 90 minutes. I originally planned to buy the GT 520 but after I read some reviews and saw the performance being so bad, I went for the GT 440. Some reviews said the GT 520 is so bad, it shouldn't even exist :)
GT 440 = 311 GFlops / 65 W = 4.78 GFlops/W
GT 520 = 155 GFlops / 29 W = 5.34 GFlops/W
When you have a low power consumption requirement, GT 520 is better than GT 440. I don't need a very good performance, just want to run some WU's without heating my computer.
Cheers,
Amauri
I now have made a second test and the result stays the same. BRP4 WUs take 14h14m with the GT 430. I have also checked my first test WU and the result is also 14h14m as stated in one of my previous mails.
So my conclusion doesn't change. For Einstein the card is practically useless unless you have a very low-end CPU.
Michael
Ok thx for the test again, very bad result :/
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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at
My PCIe GT 440 does an E@H WU in 90 minutes. I originally planned to buy the GT 520 but after I read some reviews and saw the performance being so bad, I went for the GT 440. Some reviews said the GT 520 is so bad, it shouldn't even exist :)
GT 440 = 311 GFlops / 65 W = 4.78 GFlops/W
GT 520 = 155 GFlops / 29 W = 5.34 GFlops/W
When you have a low power consumption requirement, GT 520 is better than GT 440. I don't need a very good performance, just want to run some WU's without heating my computer.
Cheers,
Amauri
Right, and I went for the card which gave me most performance for my small budget. You'd be surprised how cool the ASUS GT 440 runs even under full load. It never goes above 60°C :) But like i said, I went for performance within my budget
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Team Belgium
Right, and I went for the card which gave me most performance for my small budget. You'd be surprised how cool the ASUS GT 440 runs even under full load. It never goes above 60°C :) But like i said, I went for performance within my budget
Ok, but it isn't so cool, it's dissipating 65W inside your computer and heating the HD, mobo, etc. So you need a better fan to keep a low temperature inside. And this extra heat goes to the ambient air...
An E@H WU takes 159 min. in GT520, against 90 min. in GT 440, so:
GT 520 = 159 min x 29 W = 77 Watt-hours (1 WU)
GT 440 = 90 min x 65 W = 97 Watt-hours (1 WU)
Here in Brazil the summer is very hot, and I don't like air conditioning systems. Better power efficiency is an imperative requirement. Fortunately, you don't have this problem.
Speaking of GT 440 - I like the little GT 440. Mine does a BPR4 unit in 64 minutes. I'm quite impressed how well it works - old GTX 285 with at least triple the power consumption is only twice as fast.
Poor thing never saw 3D or any graphics apart from text console, though... :)
Right, and I went for the card which gave me most performance for my small budget. You'd be surprised how cool the ASUS GT 440 runs even under full load. It never goes above 60°C :) But like i said, I went for performance within my budget
Ok, but it isn't so cool, it's dissipating 65W inside your computer and heating the HD, mobo, etc. So you need a better fan to keep a low temperature inside. And this extra heat goes to the ambient air...
An E@H WU takes 159 min. in GT520, against 90 min. in GT 440, so:
GT 520 = 159 min x 29 W = 77 Watt-hours (1 WU)
GT 440 = 90 min x 65 W = 97 Watt-hours (1 WU)
Here in Brazil the summer is very hot, and I don't like air conditioning systems. Better power efficiency is an imperative requirement. Fortunately, you don't have this problem.
Actually, it isn't heating up much as one side of my case is always open. My drive is actually hotter than my GT 440, when I touch both of them to compare and my drive is placed fairly above my GPU so it's not the GPU that's heating it up (I think it's the CPU with the big ass heatsink from Scythe) :)
And as I mentioned, I bought it for performance within my budget. I'm not trying to dispute that the GT 520 uses less power (we all know it does) but it also has terrible performance. But you went for power efficiency, not like me for performance within a certain budget :)
I'm actually thinking of buying the GT 520 for my workstation. Since I don't play games but am an avid movie watcher, and the GT 520 is more than enough for hardware acceleration of films (VDPAU), I think it'll be a nice fit for my workstation. Power efficient, cheap and quiet (saw an ASUS GT 520 with passive cooling)
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Team Belgium