Most power efficient folding nvidia card

[Alwaysrun]

Originally Posted by Synth

That link is for the 48shader version, NOT the 96sp...

Ahh your right Syth, sorry about that. I've looked everywhere for those top 3 ppd/watt cards and man they're terribly hard to find these days retail. I think if I wanted to make a folding rig on the cheap with power consuption in mind I'd have to agree with Dashock about the 8800gt as they are really plentiful on the used market and keep the power consumption to a minimum. Lemonlime just picked up a pair of them on the B/S/T forums for $120 which was a fabulous deal on low wattage cards.

But getting back to the OPs question DeadThings is 100% correct, sorry Dashock but his comments are based in fact not opinion and the extra time that the slower cards complete WUs in is factored into the PPD/Watt equation and the 8800gt loses that fight.

[Dead Things]

Originally Posted by Alwaysrun

Lemonlime just picked up a pair of them on the B/S/T forums for $120 which was a fabulous deal on low wattage cards.

That was a crazy deal! Lemonlime really got lucky there. If 8800GT's could regularly be had for $60 apiece, I'd have a hundred of 'em!

[Dashock]

Originally Posted by Dead Things

Disagree all you want my friend - you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

I will say this though - PPD/W is a mathematical calculation, not a judgement call.

My point is all these charts that show this ppd/cost graphs all are pretty outdated now the link you put on this page is from November 2008. If we had an update on the graph with all these news wu's that have popped up since then, that graph will look a lot different. My 8800gt is struggling to finish Wu's in a timely manner on certain wu's i cant imagine the effect on cards with lesser shaders then i have.


We should get an update on these charts lol i know your right but i think things have changed..changed alot since those graphs have been put out.



According to those charts my card is 3rd best and lol i actually have the number 1 card on that list on my brothers computer maybe i should get that folding as well..

[Silvgearx]

most 8800gt 8800gs and 9800gtx+ are so close in ppd/watts. your best bet is to get a low ram gpu and volt mod it and overclock those shader for best ppd/watt

[kazyn]

so either gts 250, or 8800gt, or 9800gtx? I almost got my folding rig together, Just need a case, and 2 video cards.

[Soultribunal]

The GTS250 is the most power efficent of those 3 you just listed kazyn, little bit smaller pcb and only a single PCI-e connector as well.
I'd say, its your best bet.

Regards,
ST

[Synth]

Just so you guys know, I've installed 1 of my 9600GSOs in my HTPC yesterday, running an old install of Windows XP 32bit, thats most probably virus-laden...

Anyways, with the 181.20 cuda drivers, and having OC'ed the shaders to 1800mhz, I'm getting 3,000ppds on the 5777WUs (768 points)... which is definately not ground breaking but the card is pretty damn cool, going up to only 55C.

So at 69$ a piece, it almost matches a GTX260, but with less heat and consuming less eletricity.

FYI

[Alwaysrun]

Synth a OC'd 9600GSO getting ~3000ppd on a 768 point WU is a stretch from "almost matches" the 8400ppd my GTX 260 gets on the same WU. But I get your point about it being very cost effective and power conservative. Thats a great little card and if I had a ma and pop computer store close to me where I could load up on cheap used parts I'd definately consider throwing together another low wattage rig like yours together. I wish more people had cheap power meters like some of us got at canadian tire for just $20. We could compile a fantastic power analysis from the truly great field of varying cards our team uses.

[Dashock]

Originally Posted by Alwaysrun

Synth a OC'd 9600GSO getting ~3000ppd on a 768 point WU is a stretch from "almost matches" the 8400ppd my GTX 260 gets on the same WU. But I get your point about it being very cost effective and power conservative. Thats a great little card and if I had a ma and pop computer store close to me where I could load up on cheap used parts I'd definately consider throwing together another low wattage rig like yours together. I wish more people had cheap power meters like some of us got at canadian tire for just $20. We could compile a fantastic power analysis from the truly great field of varying cards our team uses.

I do have the power meter from UPS. And have already compiled some number but can do more testing as well. Im all in.

[Eldonko]

Yea GTS 250 is probably the way to go if you want folding power for price and electricity cost.