is it an epidemic?
 

[QUOTE=bcp19;339171] If I were still running my GPUs, ... [/QUOTE]

In the past few months I read about at least 4 here that are no longer running GPUs.

As one who is still contemplating one I am starting to wonder what you 4 know that I need to.

[QUOTE=petrw1;339179]In the past few months I read about at least 4 here that are no longer running GPUs.

As one who is still contemplating one I am starting to wonder what you 4 know that I need to.[/QUOTE]

I am running a GTX 460 (OC) and an AMD FX-8350 (Stock, 4 GHz). My GTX 570 (OC) is supposed to be arriving in California today on RMA.
[INDENT]CPU w/ 8x P-1 = ~255 watts
CPU + 460 w/mfaktc = ~375 watts
CPU + (460 + 570) w/mfaktc = ~660 watts
(Consumption measured by Kill-a-Watt.)

[/INDENT]It remains to be seen what sort of temps the whole box ends up running when summer kicks in. With both GPUs and the CPU at current mild ambient the CPU would be around 50C, the 460 ~65C, and the 570 @ 70-72C. The heat output becomes very noticeable (in a non-welcome sense) as the weather warms up. The 3 fans on the 570 get noticeably louder.

The people who have pulled back on GPU work have had various reasons. Xyzzy said the house wiring and A/C weren't really up to it, it was noisy and expensive, and he just plain got bored with it, at least in his previous setup. I know Chuck stopped at one point because of noise, though he has since restarted with a quieter card. Craig/Nucleon suspended operations for Southern Hemisphere summer, I think. This last may come into play for me, too, depending on how the coming Midwest US summer develops. Pete/bcp19 has his reasons.

I guess it comes down to how much one is willing to invest/put up with versus the gratification derived.

[QUOTE=kladner;339180]I guess it comes down to how much one is willing to invest/put up with versus the gratification derived.[/QUOTE]

A fair assessment...

At the end of the day, the hardware costs pale in comparison to the energy costs.

If one is using electricity to heat one's home, then CPU/GPU compute is effectively free.

On the other hand, if one doesn't have an advantage in generated heat, or worse, has to spend money getting rid of the heat generated, then this work really doesn't Make Sense [SUP](TM)[/SUP].

[QUOTE=petrw1;339179]In the past few months I read about at least 4 here that are no longer running GPUs.

As one who is still contemplating one I am starting to wonder what you 4 know that I need to.[/QUOTE]

The Nvidia dual GPUs with the fan in the middle (instead of at the end) are easy to live with. My thinking is that the exhausted air has a shorter distance to travel so the velocity is lower. The noise was so much reduced that I added a second 690, although I had to jerryrig that GPU with a ribbon cable since the card would otherwise have been jammed against the first one.

[QUOTE=petrw1;339179]In the past few months I read about at least 4 here that are no longer running GPUs.

As one who is still contemplating one I am starting to wonder what you 4 know that I need to.[/QUOTE]
Without listing specifics, I lost the 'joy' of it all.

[QUOTE=kladner;339180]
Xyzzy said the house wiring and A/C weren't really up to it, it was noisy and expensive, and he just plain got bored with it, at least in his previous setup.
Pete/bcp19 has his reasons.

[/QUOTE]

AFAIR from some recent posts, Xyzzy has restarted crunching, with a somehow different setup.

As for Pete/bcp19, well... I think it´s a bloody shame we have lost such a valuable and keen contributor because of some forum disagreements and misunderstandings. I´m not taking any side, I just deeply regret that arguments have turned in to aggravation and that led Pete to feel like quitting GIMPS. I´m just glad he is still with us in the forum.

[QUOTE=lycorn;339248]I´m just glad he is still with us in the forum.[/QUOTE]

The irony is that his frustrations had nothing to do with GIMPS and everything to do with the Forum!

[QUOTE=philmoore;339253]The irony is that his frustrations had nothing to do with GIMPS and everything to do with the Forum![/QUOTE]
Indeed.

[QUOTE]AFAIR from some recent posts, Xyzzy has restarted crunching, with a somehow different setup.[/QUOTE]We are now doing roughly half the work we used to do, but:
[LIST][*]We are using only one box instead of four.[*]It is our primary box so it's existence is more easily justifiable.[*]Overall we are using about a quarter of the electricity as before.[*]The noise is very reasonable. (Before we had to put the boxes in a distant room.)[*]We know our arc of ranking has peaked (and is now declining) so there is a lot less pressure on us.[*]"MfaktX Controller" allows us to use the computer and play games.[/LIST]GPU sieving changed a lot, and even though the newer GPU architectures are not as fast at code as the older ones are, they use a lot less electricity.

In hindsight, with the money we spent, using GPU sieving, we could have built just two boxes. But back then we could barely feed one GPU per box.

[QUOTE=bcp19;339244]Without listing specifics, I lost the 'joy' of it all.[/QUOTE]
I bailed two months ago and folding at home now gets 100% of my computational power. No wankers spreading b.s. All the time.

[QUOTE=swl551;339382]I bailed two months ago and folding at home now gets 100% of my computational power. No wankers spreading b.s. All the time.[/QUOTE]
Do you have any idea what that project does, how it does it, and what are its limitations? Milestones? What have they "folded"? How precisely? "What if you could share your computer power to help find a cure?" What have they cured so far? How is it different from, say, Rosetta@Home?

If you don't really know the answers, I've got a bridge to sell you.