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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Different GPU on same Mobo?

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Blizzie
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Message 8279 - Posted: 7 Apr 2009 | 17:50:12 UTC

Does GPUGrid lose performance if video cards are mixed and matched?

For example, for Folding@Home you have to use the same cards. If for example I have a 260 GTX and a 9800GT in the same mobo. The 9800GT will take a 40-60% performance loss.

What is the case here?

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Message 8280 - Posted: 7 Apr 2009 | 19:15:52 UTC - in response to Message 8279.

Does GPUGrid lose performance if video cards are mixed and matched?

For example, for Folding@Home you have to use the same cards. If for example I have a 260 GTX and a 9800GT in the same mobo. The 9800GT will take a 40-60% performance loss.


I run 2 880GT's and 1 9500GT together. The 8800GT's don't take a performance hit just because they are there with the 9500GT. They crunch at their own speed, and the 9500 crunches at its own speed. The 8800GT is for me about 3x faster than the 9500GT, so I get a result every 12-13 hours on the 8800GT and about every 40 hours on the 9500GT. I think that is consistent with other users, from what I have seen.

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Message 8283 - Posted: 7 Apr 2009 | 19:30:45 UTC

At GPU-Grid every GPU crunches its own WU, without much external communication. Therefore you won't have a performance hit, what ever mixture you bring to the table.

I'm curious, does folding@home use several GPUs for a single WU now? Like the SMP client for CPUs?

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Message 8286 - Posted: 7 Apr 2009 | 20:56:16 UTC - in response to Message 8283.

At GPU-Grid every GPU crunches its own WU, without much external communication. Therefore you won't have a performance hit, what ever mixture you bring to the table.

I'm curious, does folding@home use several GPUs for a single WU now? Like the SMP client for CPUs?

MrS


I believe each GPU has its own work unit. I hear that the issue with using different cards (different shaders) is with the driver. For some reason, one card will take a huge performance hit if the shaders are different. This is only the case with Nvidia GPUs and not ATI so it must be driver related.


Good to know this doesn't affect GPUGrid.

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Message 8304 - Posted: 8 Apr 2009 | 16:33:35 UTC - in response to Message 8286.

i was going to ask the same thing. been looking for this topic type on google for awhile

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Message 8443 - Posted: 15 Apr 2009 | 0:46:12 UTC - in response to Message 8304.

Up up.

Anyone have an assuring answer?

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Message 8471 - Posted: 15 Apr 2009 | 20:35:10 UTC

Been rethinking my answer: I think it's safe to say that we don't have anywhere near a 40 - 60% performance loss, as many people (e.g. Paul) have been running GPU mixes (also G92 and G200) and normally performance was fine. If there are a few % hit I don't know, neither if such a hit would be of the same magnitude if the cards were matched.

And there's this recent observation about tasks getting "stuck" with BOINC 6.6.20 and multiple GPUs. Could this be related?

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Message 8475 - Posted: 15 Apr 2009 | 22:10:06 UTC - in response to Message 8471.

And there's this recent observation about tasks getting "stuck" with BOINC 6.6.20 and multiple GPUs. Could this be related?

I am not sure. What I do know is that 6.6.23 is the latest drop and that is what I am trying on the i7 and since the project restart it seems to be running Ok...

Of course it also has some GPU "Tweaks" in the code and I am not sure if they may have addressed the issue that was the source of the problem.

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Message 8574 - Posted: 18 Apr 2009 | 20:18:49 UTC

Another thing to add is in the stat's where I have GTX260 and 8800GT, it say's I have 2x8800GT's

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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Different GPU on same Mobo?

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