Folding with i7 860

[maestr0]

My rig sits idle for most of the day, so I thought I'd put it to work with a little distributed computing. I've been doing it for over a month, but no matter how much I overclock, I can't get more than 2000 points per day from my CPU. Is this normal? I read somewhere that 860s are capable of up to 15 000 PPD when overclocked to 3.8GHz (mine's there too). For comparison, my GTX 580 pulls 20 000PPD at stock.

My i7 860 is at 174MHzx22 with 1.3125V core and 1.3515V IMC.

And as a side note, I'm getting temps into the 80 celsius range with my watercooling at full load - that can't be right! Any ideas? Koolance PMP-450 with Koolance CPU-370 and I forget the brand of radiator, but it's dual-120mm with two 2000RPM fans. The loop goes Res-Pump-CPU-GPU-Rad-Res.

[bschmidt71]

for folding@home - make sure you have the right client. check your CPU usage while it's running - if your CPU usage is not 100% on all 12(?) cores then you are not using the correct client. and if you are using the correct client - yes, you will run hot. imaging running prime95 24/7. F@H is probably 80-90% as intensive as Prime95, and if you are running the GPU client as well, i can almost guarantee that a single 120x2 radiator will hit its limits with an OC'd 860 and your GPU both running full tilt. i run F@H on the rig in my PC - i have all 8 cores running at 100% and BOTH GPU's running 24/7 (except for when i am using the PC of course - which would be impossible to do while all three instances are running) - my loop can get pretty warm depending on ambient temps, but my loop is a bit different from your standard water loop because i use TEC's to "assist."

 

until you mentioned "points per day" i had never heard of it. i just let it run without concern for how many points i'm getting, so unfortunately i can not give you any indication about how many points you should or should not be getting.

[maestr0]

Yeah, my usage is 100% on all 8 cores. And I guess I expected more from my loop, but I can understand how it's hard to keep up.

And I'd never heard of TEC's before - those are awesome! I think I might be doing a little 'upgrade' in the near future... Can you link me to one - I can't seem to find any. Found some. New question: How do you hook it up for power?

Edited August 3, 2011 by maestr0

[bschmidt71]

take the leads and wire them into a standard 4-pin molex. (assuming you are looking at the standard TEC which gives a voltage range up to 15.4V). that will give you 12V so your range would be slightly less (about 80%)