Posted on 09/16/2007 6:43:18 AM PDT by texas booster
Folding@home will announce this week that it has offically joined the ranks of PetaFLOP computing! While teasing with the mark before, this appears to be the real deal.
A formal announcement should come this week from Stanford University as the numbers are crosschecking for publication.
Why does this matter? Because every computer and PS3 that has joined the fight to research Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease puts us that much closer to a CURE for these brain wasting diseases.
Imagine if Ronald Reagan was strong for another 10 years in retirement and had been fully able to participate after his Presidency.
Imagine if YOUR loved one could think and remember and participate in the fullness of their life even into their 80s and 90s.
Imagine if YOU could have full use of a lifetime of learning to be fully cognizant of life, no matter how old.
Our Folding@home team is dedicated to this goal of research, and volunteers our computers and PS3s to collectively join over 240,000 other systems to make a difference!
tech ping!
Remember to check your latest points here:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&t=36120
or here:
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=36120
Got a new computer? Please check to that you are running F@H under team 36120 and your FReepname.
Have a PS3? The new LEaP topology model is pushing the PS3 “often as many as 35GF in some calculations running in the lab.”
Mac? You should JUMP on the Mac SMP Folding@home kernal. It blows away any other F@H kernal for points per day and is generalized to impact research the most.
Ping me for on or off the list!
Remember to check your latest points here:
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&t=36120
or here:
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=36120
Got a new computer? Please check to that you are running F@H under team 36120 and your FReepname.
Have a PS3? The new LEaP topology model is pushing the PS3 “often as many as 35GF in some calculations running in the lab.”
Mac? You should JUMP on the Mac SMP Folding@home kernal. It blows away any other F@H kernal for points per day and is generalized to impact research the most.
Ping me for on or off the list!
BTTT
In terms of sheer gigaFLOPs, the GPU units (certain ATI X1600 - X1950XTX boards) have greater computational power per board. However, GPU units are crunching specialized water solvent models that general CPU units simply couldn’t touch.
The ATI X1950XTX has 48 vertex shaders that operate as a parallel computer to achieve unreal results. However, it appears that software development will only modestly broaden the work units that are suitable for the GPU.
The GPU is very important, but narrowly focused. The CPU is still required to do the generalized crunching of 80,000 atom proteins.
The PS3 is narrowly focused, but not as narrow as the GPU. It simulates the interaction of proteins with water molecules, and you can see Brownian motion of atoms on the protein.
This is really, really neat! If you like science, medical research or like making a difference in the lives of others, then Folding@home is a perfect outlet for your computers laying around the house.
I finally broke into the top 100 of our team. YeeeeeeeeHawwwwww.
A note to FReepers that may be near Yale University from Dr. Pande:
“I’ll be giving a lecture at Yale this Monday (9/17) in the Molecular Biology and Biophysics Department. If there are folders in Yale curious about what we’ve been doing recently, the lecture would be open.”
“New PS3 version results looking very nice scientifically”
“It’s still early, but the newest PS3 version (1.3) is looking very nice scientifically. While the key science upgrades in 1.3 are very much behind the scenes, they are going to play a big role in our work. In particular, the main code to describe how the protein interacts with water was majorly upgraded (to Generalized Born or GB) and we’re getting very nice results with it, but still at a great speed up over a PC.
“One interesting side effect of this new GB code is that since the code is more sophisticated scientifically, it uses the Cell processor’s ability to do lots of FLOPS much better. One major challenge for PS3 and GPU programming is just getting the data to the CPU. Once that’s done, in many cases (for us), the flops are almost free (or at least very, very efficient).
“So, the upshot is that the new PS3 client in GB does a lot more flops per client, often as many as 35GF in some calculations running in the lab. As we roll out these new GB calcs more and more to FAH/PS3, the performance will go up, and the science we’re getting back will be much more useful, so it will be exciting for us in lots of ways.”
With the speed that FR adds new folders we may need a bake sale just to get you a PS3 to run 24/7 to keep you in the Top 100!
Time to get a PS3.
GOPBiker and Texas Booster produce about the same number of points per day, just over 2,000 on average.
I have around 50 Windows systems, some fairly old, that crunch proteins for the team. The last report is that 44 have finished a work unit in the last 7 weeks.
GOPBiker has three systems. THREE. I think that one is a PS3, but it may be a computer running SMP folding.
Thats the power of the PS3 and its new architecture - it is an incredible computational success.
(Of course, my kids want one when they introduce new games ...)
Funny, my son said the same thing ...
How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.
Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won't compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren't using so it doesn't slow down other programs.
How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired user-name.
2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won't be folding for team FreeRepublic!
3.) The third question asks, "Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?" - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.
How can my computer help? Even if they were given exclusive access to all of the world's supercomputers, Stanford still wouldn't have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people's desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.
There's no reason to not get involved! It's free, easy, and you can know you're helping every minute without lifting a finger.
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Please, I'm eating breakfast. lol
I'll just hang around the top 100. :)
If we did it correctly, I should see my wu's climb a bit. Four processors ain't bad. I won't have his for too long but I'll take advantage of them while I can. Every little bit helps. :)
proud to be foldin’ bump
bttt
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