Latest drivers (NVidia and ATI)

[Biffa]

Get only the needed 2.3 dlls in beta downloads here, and get 190.38 driver from nVidia.  Some small speedup at high angle ranges is observed with V12, will be experimenting to see if new compiler makes a better build, or not, for a while.

Are these the same dll's that are in the \CUDA\bin folder after you install the CUDA 2.3 Toolkit?

[Jason G]

Are these the same dll's that are in the \CUDA\bin folder after you install the CUDA 2.3 Toolkit?

Yes.

[k6xt]

After installing the 106MB CUDA 2.3 files from Nvidia I installed cufft.dll and cudart.dll from here. Now I am done and ready to resume processing, is that correct?

No app_info.xml updates and no update to libfftw3f-3-1-1a_upx.dll?

Tnx - Art

[Jason G]

correct, the same old fftw library remains, and has nothing to do with cuda, but other parts of the application.  Since the files have the same name, there are no app_info changes.  Do make sure your driver is 190.38+ though.

[k6xt]

correct, the same old fftw library remains, and has nothing to do with cuda, but other parts of the application.  Since the files have the same name, there are no app_info changes.  Do make sure your driver is 190.38+ though.

After installing CUDA2.3 from nvidia my driver is listed as 6.14.11.9038. I took the last part xx.1.9038 to mean now I have V190.38.
Thanks!
Art

[Jason G]

Yup, looking good.

[popandbob]

I'm now seeing a few Validation inconclusive's. These have different numbers of reported signals

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=483603078
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=484145164
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=484082989
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=484082989

Lots more are reporting the same signals but are still V.I.'s
Right now there are no invalids however.


BTW has anyone noticed the length of the AR 0.267 tasks? I've only had 2 but the claimed credit was over 200! 197 given.

Bob

[Jason G]

hmmm, since faster processing may mean more heat, it might be worth running 'Scan for Artefacts' mode for a while in AtiTool (works on nvidia cards despite the name) to see if the card's getting a bit unstable when warm, or on some performance edge with memory or core clocks etc...  1 hour without a single artefact chime is what I aim for.

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

[mr.mac52]

For what it's worth, the first attemp to upgrade to 190.38 failed, no error message was noted but when I rebooted it was still the older version.  I down loaded another copy of the installation file from Nvidia and ran it again and the second time it worked fine.  My system seems to be faster with CUDA 2.3 and is running error free on an GTS8800.  I'm considering upgrading to get more compute power for my CUDA tasks.

[k6xt]

I'm getting a video card, one of the less expensive types. It will be a MSI card, so my MSI mobo monitor will cover the GPU as well. I have two in mind - which will provide best CUDA performance?

N275GTX @666MHz, 896MB GDDR3 ram@2322MHz, 240 stream processors for $200

N260GTX @655MHz, 1792MB DDR3 ram@2100MHz, 216 stream processors for $295

So the questions are, are stream processors important to CUDA? Is less but faster memory better than more but slower memory? Is there something important to CUDA in the 275 vs 260?

Hope its OK on this thread.

Thanks
Art

[Jason G]

N275GTX @666MHz, 896MB GDDR3 ram@2322MHz, 240 stream processors for $200
N260GTX @655MHz, 1792MB DDR3 ram@2100MHz, 216 stream processors for $295
So the questions are, are stream processors important to CUDA? Is less but faster memory better than more but slower memory? Is there something important to CUDA in the 275 vs 260?

  I'd have to say the 275 looks like the better deal to me, since there's extra processing (~10% more processors & some extra clock speed) grunt all around.  I'm not exactly sure what would need that much RAM as is on the 260, but the apps in their current (& likely foreseeable future) form wouldn't use it.  So, ignoring processing, the choice will come down to power requirements and perhaps cooling etc..., but the 275 looks better to me.

[Tye]

I'm getting a video card, one of the less expensive types. It will be a MSI card, so my MSI mobo monitor will cover the GPU as well. I have two in mind - which will provide best CUDA performance?

N275GTX @666MHz, 896MB GDDR3 ram@2322MHz, 240 stream processors for $200

N260GTX @655MHz, 1792MB DDR3 ram@2100MHz, 216 stream processors for $295

So the questions are, are stream processors important to CUDA? Is less but faster memory better than more but slower memory? Is there something important to CUDA in the 275 vs 260?

I'd definitely go with the 275.  See this page for relative performance (GFLOPS column) of each at their default speeds:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_Series .  These GFLOPS numbers are not the same you see in BOINC, but they do scale well IME (8800GT, G94 9600 GSO, and G92 9600 GSO).  I'm now running dual-GPU in linux with some of these and all works great!

Scaling the two choices you give with their GPU speed gives ~915 GFLOPS for the 260-216, and 1064 GFLOPS for the 275, approximately.  This also just about matches the ratio of performance you get by (666*240)/(655/216).  Math works pretty well here, since all we're doing is crunching - effectively a synthetic benchmark itself.

[k6xt]

N275GTX @666MHz, 896MB GDDR3 ram@2322MHz, 240 stream processors for $200

N260GTX @655MHz, 1792MB DDR3 ram@2100MHz, 216 stream processors for $295

So the questions are, are stream processors important to CUDA? Is less but faster memory better than more but slower memory? Is there something important to CUDA in the 275 vs 260?

I'd definitely go with the 275.  See this page for relative performance (GFLOPS column) of each at their default speeds:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_Series .  These GFLOPS numbers are not the same you see in BOINC, but they do scale well IME (8800GT, G94 9600 GSO, and G92 9600 GSO).  I'm now running dual-GPU in linux with some of these and all works great!

...Which thanks to you and Jason G. is exactly what I chose. It helped a lot that the 275 card is $100 less at newegg. All the card will do is process CUDA WU and run my monitor, no video, gaming etc., so whatever the other $100 would have brought me, I probably don't care.
Art

[Lord Asmodeus]

The 275 is newer and better, the 260 will soon disappear. 1792MB is useless on this card, it would only be necessary on a very GPU demanding videogame (GTA IV), on a 30" screen, and then, the card has not enough guts. Maybe in SLI or tri-SLI it would make sense, but if you have so much money, you don't take a "middle segment" 260, you go directly to the GTX285 with 2GB of RAM.

I'm using the new drivers/new DLL for an hour now and it seems OK.

I'm still with the V11 VLARKill because the V12 doesn't work for me.

[k6xt]

Well the 275GTX is in and running as of an hour ago. Immediately I noticed it runs hot. GPUZ says its at 90 deg C with room temp about 75 C. The fans are at full speed, bit on the noisy side. Would you folks think this is about right?

Link to current CUDA WU:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=487945757

and to host:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=4296770

Thanks Art