Bigadv points changes

[Dead Things]

Originally Posted by 10e

I think it will also make a lot of donor folders pretty unhappy

Well, that's a pretty good point. I've spent a lot of money on folding hardware over the past couple of years - but mostly a little bit here, a little bit there kinda thing. I've never, nor would I ever (I don't think) be the kinda guy who drops several grand at once on a folding box. So, to someone like me - even though like 90% of my production comes from bigadv - I feel like this adjustment is a good thing. And I don't begrudge PG for doing it too late or anything like that. After all, we went through something similar with Nvidia folding. Everybody remembers those 511's right?

But I know there are a few guys on this team who dropped big bucks on bigadv. Open up to us, tell us how you feel. Do you feel upset? Frustrated? Betrayed? Just curious because, well, while there are precedents for PG changing point values in the past, I'm not sure there's much precedent for the kind of money people were spending on bigadv rigs. It's one thing for a $100 8800GT to drop 20% of its PPD. It's a bit different for a $5,000 rig to drop 20% in PPD, though.

[4DoorGTZ]

Not happy, but eh. What would have made more sense would be to limit bigbeta or very large bigadv wu's to 24+ core machines. There's plenty of SR2's and a handful of G34's. Keep the single SB/I7's doing "small"bigadv units. I built my G34 box to make my points more efficient. Moving away from gpu folding, too much heat for what is now relativly small returns. 550w for the quad 6176, 1100w for 4x9800gx2. 400kppd vs 33kppd. Even if things were changed regarding gpu folding thos gx2's have been folding for 3 years, not much life left in them, if I'm gonna invest in new gpu's they'll be for another project. The G34 box should be fine to run for double that.

[lowfat]

What kind of PPD are you getting w/ your 48-core machine now w/ the standard bigadv's?

[3.0charlie]

I wrote this to our Captain earlier this week.

There are consequences to this decision (as mentionned in today's thread) that many folders simply cannot accept - yes, Stanford controls the Program; yes, the points system is not related to the WUs themselves, yes the points have no impact on the Science produced; BUT there are folders out there (me) that prefer the ppd/W efficiency of bigadv (vs. GPU) and have bought / built major rigs to that effect. Unlike GPU folding, the funds required to fold bigbeta efficiently cannot be compared, and the bonus impact to the ppd/W is rather substantial for such rigs.

We are Stanford's clients. Talk to us. Discuss. Benchmark. Then take action. But don't change the point attributed to WUs after the fact..

Unfortunately it may happen again, and very shortly too. If indeed BD becomes the reality that is everyone's Dream, those same rigs that are responsible for this points change will (probably, hopefully) crush the record tpfs we've been seeing lately.

1M ppd rig? It ain't too far.

[stoanee]

Originally Posted by Dead Things

But I know there are a few guys on this team who dropped big bucks on bigadv. Open up to us, tell us how you feel. Do you feel upset? Frustrated? Betrayed? Just curious because, well, while there are precedents for PG changing point values in the past, I'm not sure there's much precedent for the kind of money people were spending on bigadv rigs. It's one thing for a $100 8800GT to drop 20% of its PPD. It's a bit different for a $5,000 rig to drop 20% in PPD, though.

Does not bother me one bit. The gpu rigs I had were noisy, hot and took up a lot of real estate. I still plan on going with a G34 box eventually, gotta make the time to clean up my old parts & get them on the BST page first. I actually like the challenge of building rigs and using an OS I am not familiar with.

[chrisk]

Stanford is always changing things up which is why I try to be careful when buying parts. A new WU, new client, etc often comes along and shakes things up.

But as DT said, this time it is a bit different as we are not talking about $100-$200 cards, but folks who have dropped $2000-$3000 on relatively efficient folding rigs.

I think Stanford put themselves in a hard spot. They still need the science done by GPU and other clients, and folks were migrating quickly to Bigadv and Bigbeta rigs. But if Stanford wants that science done, I think it would be wise to now give more points to GPU folding than in the past. Lots of heat, noise, and mostly, electricity. Electricity costs are skyrocketing, so there will be additional anger from folks who have Bigadv setups and like them for the lower power and heat.

Like I mentioned before, I think that instead of killing PPD for the 'Big' clients, they should just have setup the bonus system for GPU clients too. That way, folks spending big money on 1 million PPD rigs would still reach that goal, while the GPU clients would get some additional attention.

[ilya]

What Stanford is doing right now reminds me of what Trudeau did to the Canadian economy. Pointless attempts at wage/price control to stop inflation. (caused by himself nonetheless) Sure, it's all in good will, but hyper inflation is better off than deterring the epeen and energy conscious folders. (which probably amount for a petaflop or two of the F@H project)

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by chrisk

Like I mentioned before, I think that instead of killing PPD for the 'Big' clients, they should just have setup the bonus system for GPU clients too. That way, folks spending big money on 1 million PPD rigs would still reach that goal, while the GPU clients would get some additional attention.

I agree with this. Or If the drop in points for the bigadv was to get more people folding the regular SMP units, then I think it would have just been better to increase the bonus points you get for them.

I had no problem spending a few thousand dollars on folding@home rigs if they were efficient like the SR-2's. But spending that much to get a 80,000 PPD (in Windows) isn't worth it now. I will not run more than 1 GPU client either due to the heat they throw out.

It kind of puts me in a bind and kind of throws me off on folding.

[Xeven]

I don't really care much about the drop in points. "Big" folding boxes are still way more efficient than GPU systems and until a "bigadv" system gets implemented with GPUs then I will always be CPU folding. Granted, if I still had 5 SR-2 boxes then I might be feeling just a little bit miffed by the whole thing.

[3.0charlie]

Originally Posted by chrisk

Stanford is always changing things up which is why I try to be careful when buying parts. A new WU, new client, etc often comes along and shakes things up.

But as DT said, this time it is a bit different as we are not talking about $100-$200 cards, but folks who have dropped $2000-$3000 on relatively efficient folding rigs.

I think Stanford put themselves in a hard spot. They still need the science done by GPU and other clients, and folks were migrating quickly to Bigadv and Bigbeta rigs. But if Stanford wants that science done, I think it would be wise to now give more points to GPU folding than in the past. Lots of heat, noise, and mostly, electricity. Electricity costs are skyrocketing, so there will be additional anger from folks who have Bigadv setups and like them for the lower power and heat.

Like I mentioned before, I think that instead of killing PPD for the 'Big' clients, they should just have setup the bonus system for GPU clients too. That way, folks spending big money on 1 million PPD rigs would still reach that goal, while the GPU clients would get some additional attention.

re. the bolded section. In order to support this statement, I wonder on a weekly basis how many WUs are completed, per Client. Then we would find out if that ratio of completed WUs per Client is really an issue for Stanford.