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 2014-04-09, 16:52 #1 tapion64   Apr 2014 8510 Posts Theoretical Evaluation of a GPU In terms of trial factoring? In terms of LL testing? I guess what I would like to know is how to estimate a card's GHz-days/day from its specs. From what I've gathered, CUDALucas relies on double precision calculations, so is it simply the card with the greatest number of cores and highest TFLOPS for double? Would mfaktc also benefit from high double precision, or is single precision better? I guess I'd like to see benchmarks for cards like the Tesla K series vs. consumer cards like GTX. I have a GTX 560 Ti which is more than capable for gaming, I don't really need or want a higher GTX card at the moment. If I'm interested in upping GPU compute abilities, is going for a Tesla card like K20 or K40 worth it in terms of GHz-days/day/dollar compared to say the GTX Titan?
 2014-04-09, 17:32 #2 kracker     "Mr. Meeseeks" Jan 2012 California, USA 1000011110012 Posts
 2014-04-09, 17:50 #3 LaurV Romulan Interpreter     Jun 2011 Thailand 944710 Posts yes, and this too: http://www.mersenne.ca/cudalucas.php and to answer to your question, no, it doesn't worth. Teslas are Titans, same chips, sorted for reliability, consumption, underclocked a bit and having ECC RAM, for exact calculus, more stability, longer life (well, not really, but you got the picture). If you are not in nuclear reactors business, go for Titans. They are few percents faster and 4 times cheaper. You will get DC/LL mismatches sometimes. Live with it :D [edit: if you want to hit the jackpot at TF, then go for HD cards. They are also good for mining, but they are worse at LL] Last fiddled with by LaurV on 2014-04-09 at 18:00
 2014-04-09, 18:15 #4 TheMawn     May 2013 East. Always East. 11×157 Posts The need for double precision is just in LL. TF only uses single precision so there is no advantage to having DP for your TF tests. For this reason, a GPU will always be better at TF than LL because double precision takes a massive performance hit. The Titans have 1/8 DP performance compared to the usual 1/24 for the other cards. So really while a Titan is three times better in LL than any other card, right off the bat, it's really three times less bad. So for LL, you'll very likely be leaning the way of a Titan but even that one will perform better in TF.
2014-04-09, 18:32   #5
kracker

"Mr. Meeseeks"
Jan 2012
California, USA

41718 Posts

Quote:
 Originally Posted by TheMawn For this reason, a GPU will always be better at TF than LL because double precision takes a massive performance hit. The Titans have 1/8 DP performance...
*1/3 DP.

@LaurV: Frankly though, I think titans are not worth it and are a waste of money compared to Haswells. Assuming a 2K FFT...

The GTX Titan costs 1000$, 250W TDP, 1.8 ms/iter. A i5 4670k costs ~$240, 84W TDP, 11.5 ms/iter x4

2014-04-09, 19:41   #6
TheMawn

May 2013
East. Always East.

172710 Posts

Quote:
 Originally Posted by kracker @LaurV: Frankly though, I think titans are not worth it and are a waste of money compared to Haswells. Assuming a 2K FFT... The GTX Titan costs 1000$, 250W TDP, 1.8 ms/iter. A i5 4670k costs ~$240, 84W TDP, 11.5 ms/iter x4
Plus motherboard (x4) plus RAM (x4) plus PSU (x4) plus heatsink (x4) plus USB stick (or something to boot, x4)...

Whereas you can supplement your existing Haswell system with multiple Titans. All that takes is a 100% bigger expense for a PSU and maybe a step up in RAM capacity, and a better motherboard depending on what you have.

I did the math at some point, and I think it was worth $100 more for the Motherboard,$100 more for the PSU, and $1000 worth of GTX 670 even.  2014-04-09, 19:53 #7 tapion64 Apr 2014 5516 Posts So I guess the major downside to the HD cards is LL is out. Best of both worlds you'd just buy an R9 295 X2 and a Titan Black and call it a day? I am curious to see how much better the Maxwell cards are going to be though, especially with CUDA 6. 2014-04-09, 20:43 #8 Prime95 P90 years forever! Aug 2002 Yeehaw, FL 22·1,873 Posts Quote:  Originally Posted by tapion64 From what I've gathered, CUDALucas relies on double precision calculations, so is it simply the card with the greatest number of cores and highest TFLOPS for double? CUDALucas also has memory bandwidth (on the GPU) limitations, mfaktc does not. This means you can't simple count cores and DP throughput to pick the best card. 2014-04-09, 20:44 #9 kracker "Mr. Meeseeks" Jan 2012 California, USA 32×241 Posts Quote:  Originally Posted by TheMawn Plus motherboard (x4) plus RAM (x4) plus PSU (x4) plus heatsink (x4) plus USB stick (or something to boot, x4)... Whereas you can supplement your existing Haswell system with multiple Titans. All that takes is a 100% bigger expense for a PSU and maybe a step up in RAM capacity, and a better motherboard depending on what you have. I did the math at some point, and I think it was worth$100 $80 more for the Motherboard,$100 $50 more for the PSU, and$1000 worth of GTX 670 even. ??
No, it really doesn't have to. I'm just talking about pure LL output. I'll calculate more later.

Also, buying a 6xx series is seriously a bad choice for computing.

 2014-04-09, 21:19 #10 TheMawn     May 2013 East. Always East. 11×157 Posts My point was that according to the expected throughput, it was more cost effective to buy one system with a motherboard capable of housing three GTX 670's (I did say GTX 670 even because I know it's a bad choice) than to buy multiple systems without GPUs.
2014-04-09, 22:21   #11
kracker

"Mr. Meeseeks"
Jan 2012
California, USA

216910 Posts

Quote:
 Originally Posted by TheMawn My point was that according to the expected throughput, it was more cost effective to buy one system with a motherboard capable of housing three GTX 670's (I did say GTX 670 even because I know it's a bad choice) than to buy multiple systems without GPUs.
Hmm, perhaps. But I'm not going to think about the electric bill
But still, it is possible to build a Haswell system around \$550.

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