Folding@Home User Crams 23 GeForce GTX 295 Videocards into a Single Server

Maximumpc:

Before someone asks, the answer is 'yes,' we don't doubt the Atlas Folder can handle Crysis. But despite outfitting his server with 23 -- TWENTY EFFING THREE! -- gual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 videocards, Jason Farqué, who goes by the username Atlas Folding, has a more important goal in mind:

"The reason that my father in enrolled in [a clinical trial] is the same as the reason I run my folding farm. To fight back, to do something," Farqué wrote on his blog. "To help science overcoming Huntington's Disease so that people as yet unborn wont' have as hard a time as he and others do. Because my father wants the human race to succeed, to get better, to overcome our bodies' inherent frailties by using our minds."

[XLiveGamer]

23 GeForce GTX 295 ?! d@_@b -* (hiccup!)

[Proxy]

But can it handle Killzone 2? The N4G consensus is it cannot... ;)

[Mikerra17]

I dont think I can understand how to make them do 23 different actions

[RememberThe357]

Good for him.

[xXUnforgottenXx]

lol, wouldn't it be more efficient if used all that money, and just buy a bunch of Playstation 3s instead?

[moses]

If you look at folding @ home stats, GPUs are WELL above PS3's in folding power. The industry underestimates GP-GPU power. The average pc gamer gpu by it's self is much more powerful than a PS3.

[xXUnforgottenXx]

hmm, true GPUs are way above the ps3 in folding power. But take consideration that you need stuff like motherboards, cpus, powersupply all that costs money, while a regular ps3 costs only $400

[moses]

That's true for the common pc user, but when you can create GPU farms like this, it makes more sense then buying 23 PS3's.

Just a little stat to those disagrees

ProcessorTFLOPS/CPU
GPU~~~~~~~~~~~~0.0594
Cell (PS3)~~~~~~~~0.0159
CPU (Windows)~~~~0.00095

You can still make a decent setup that's more powerful then current Gen consoles for around 500$.

[evrfighter]

people will disagree with you because people won't let go of the fact that ps3's are no longer (for awhile now) the end all be all for folding power. Technology advances FAST people. The sooner you understand that the less butt hurt some people will be.

[y0haN]

bu bu but teh ps3 is teh best.

[ZuperAmazingCooKie]

The Cell processor alone is 5x faster than a 8800 GTX at raytracing. That article came out about a year ago here on N4G.

http://www.n4g.com/tech/New...

PS3 = Cell + RSX + XDR RAM

Do you guys at least have links to back up your claims?

[y0haN]

(1) GTX 295 >>>> 8800 GTX

(23) GTX 295..

[ZuperAmazingCooKie]

"(1) GTX 295 >>>> 8800 GTX "

By exactly how much? Nvidia hasn't done many upgrades to its GPUs. The difference between the 9800 and the 8800 was very little in terms of horse power, it basically added physics functionality and little else. The GTX 295 is just a beefed up 9800, i.e. for computationally heavy tasks that aren't rasterising related like raytracing, it still pales in comparison against the cell processor.

Also, the Cell was out 3 years before and is a lot cheaper.

[free2game365]

To give you an idea, a GTX 285 outperforms the 8800GTX by two fold in gaming. The 295 has 480 processing cores compared to 128 the 8800 GTX had, along with 4x the memory. I believe it produces speeds nearly that of 2 teraflops with single dual GPU card. Now by comparison the PS3 is about 1 teraflop @ $400, while the 295 is nearly 2 @ about $600. It's much more price effective at that range.

[Charmers]

@ ZuperAmazingCooKie since when has ray tracing had anything to do with folding ? Just because the PS3 beats a GPU at ray tracing doesn't mean it beats it at EVERYTHING. If you want proof check this link out :-

http://www.nordichardware.c...

The GTX280 is roughly FIVE times faster at folding than the PS3 so it isn't hard to imagine the newer GTX295 is even faster than that.

[ZuperAmazingCooKie]

The reason I mentioned raytracing is because it's a computationally heavy task that costs a lot more processing time on a GPU than on a cell processor. That's why I thought it would be analogous to Folding. But now that you've provided a link to prove that GPUs are more than capable for Folding, I admit defeat.

So why doesn't Folding @ Home use the RSX in combination with the PS3?

[ElementX]

I'd rather look for extra-terrestrial life with SETI@Home

I don't understand this Folding@home. It sounds good, but what do they do with the data? I've searched their site and can't find any in-depth information. How is protein folding related to disease? It doesn't tell me, it's mostly theoretical, from what I gather.

[akhiluppal]

this guy is a hero, doing his part for humanity!!

Thumbs up from me! :)

[Yosking]

I sat down and turned on folding@home on my ps3 after I read this.

[xg-ei8ht]

So you think disease would be a thing of the past.

Goverments don't want it to be a thing of the past, disease, makes companies build machines,tablets, all sorts of things, and they make alot of money from them.

Most diseases could be cured if the right resources were thrown at them.

Radiation therapy isn't the cure for cancer, It's a stop gap.

That's where folding comes in, proteins fold a certain way. When they don't, you get disease. F@h is trying to figure out, why they don't fold correctly and how best to correct it.

I do folding a fair bit on the PS3.

Everyone should be doing it.

[Boty]

I CAN'T HANDLE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My life goal is to get 23 295 GTXs! He JUST MET IT.