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Questions and Answers :
Windows :
Optimise PC build for CPDN
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Send message Joined: 22 Mar 06 Posts: 144 Credit: 24,695,428 RAC: 0 |
Other discussions have led me to think about my PC configuration. I'm starting to have bottlenecks on my PC (ID 960478), so was thinking of doing some updates and may even consider going to new motherboard etc. The beast has plugged quite a bit of CPDN data through it over the last 4 years and never misses a beat. Could last another 4, could fail tomorrow, but the problem is the work bottlenecks with CPDN running. I�d like to optimise the system so that I get good work performance (everything from spreadsheets to 4GB Photoshop files, to thermal simulation), but at the same time giving CPDN/BOINC the room to run at least as fast as it currently is and get more throughput. Current system: Intel i7-920, Asus 6PT motherboard, SATA2 throughout, Win7/64. CPDN runs on 3 of the 4 hyperthreading cores (6 tasks on CPDN), averaging 1,660 in Recent Average Credits. I don�t overclock. � HD1 (500GB): OS, programs, program data including CPDN � HD2 & 3 (1TB): Work data. Option 1. Use SATA3 HDs on SATA2 components with view to upgrading motherboard etc later. � SSD1 (256GB) : OS, programs (including CPDN) � HD1 (<500GB), or SSD2 (128GB) CPDN data & few other bits. (Could actually recycle a SATA2 HD drive here as an option) � HD2 etc. Work as before. Option 2 � Option 1 plus new motherboard and processor. Any thoughts on the hard drive arrangement? Does it make any difference to the CPDN throughput if hard drive is SATA 2 or 3 or SSD? I notice my CPDN models are writing at upto about 8MB/s, nowhere near HD max transfer rates and the Disk Queue Length is low. SSDs are getting to the stage they are cheap enough for this, but whether or not they would last the CPDN read/write throughput is another question. The arrangement would cut down on the huge read/write operations to the OS SSD, but Page File is still likely to be hitting well over 1MB/s on the SSD. I could of course move that to the CPDN or other hard drive. Any thoughts on processor upgrade? I normally buy a bit below top grade at the time, and the i7-920 has done me well for the last 4 years. I note there is the new Intel Haswell processor coming out in the next few months, and waiting for that would give me two choices � the latest wiz bang, or price reductions on today�s Ivy Bridge. |
 MikeMarsUK Send message Joined: 13 Jan 06 Posts: 1498 Credit: 15,613,038 RAC: 0 |
...but whether or not they would last the CPDN read/write throughput is another question. The arrangement would cut down on the huge read/write operations to the OS SSD, but Page File is still likely to be hitting well over 1MB/s on the SSD. I could of course move that to the CPDN or other hard drive. Yeah, in my opinion don't put the CPDN data drive onto a SSD disk (unless it is SLC / enterprise quality). How much memory do you have? It's pretty cheap at the moment. If you make sure your upgraded PC has loads, then it shouldn't hit the page file. I don't think there will be any particular advantage in having the CPDN executables on SSD because they are only loaded once (although on my system, the Boinc executables area is indeed cached by SSD). I was pondering the setup of my own new PC recently in this thread, could that have been the one you were thinking of? http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=7598 Having struggled with setting up a 3TB HD recently, I would advise sticking to one or two 2TBs instead!! :-) I did get it going eventually but it was unnecessarily difficult. Depending on your budget you might want to consider a Socket 2011 setup, that allows loads of memory and cores. But it is expensive. The bottleneck on mine seems to be after 6 models, for 7 and 8 the throughput levels out. With a hetrogenous project mix it scales better. I'm a volunteer and my views are my own. News and Announcements and FAQ |
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Send message Joined: 5 May 07 Posts: 27 Credit: 6,369,307 RAC: 0 |
If u can wait some months you can build up a socket-2011-System with Ivy-Bridge based Xeon-EX Series up to 15 cores per CPU. The Socket 1567 of the Xeon-E7 (Westmere-EX) reachd EOL and will be replaces by existing S2011!!! With these platform you can use: Sandy-Bridge-EP (Xeon E5-2600) up to 8 cores Ivy-Bridge-EP (E5-2600v2) up to 12 cores comming Q3/4 2013?! Ivy-Bridge-EX Q3/4 2013 up to 15 cores All with quad-channel RAM-interface and ECC support. S1155 based I7 with dual channel RAM is much slower in CPDN. A good way to find out the forecast-performance is the SPEC2006 benchmark (http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/). Ther is a Sub-benchmark in CFP2006 called 481.wrf - a weather forecast model based on fortran models similar to our models that needs much FPU-power. E5-2620 (350�): 204 points at 481.wrf 2xE5-2620 (700�): 406 points I7-3770k (270�): 129 points at 481.wrf PS: Haswell I7 (s1150) only increases 8 percent FPU-performance in comp. with Ivy-Bridge! :-( But s2011 based systems need much of energy. My I7-920 uses 260 watt electrical power when runs on full-load (160watt in idle). E5-2600 based systems will not take less energy i think :-/ Best power/perfomance have the mobile CPUs by Intel. But this CPUs u only find in notebooks and ITX-sytsems. SSD: 2 years i run CPDN on Intel Postville G2 80GB, and 2 more years with Crucial C300 128GB an i had no issues with them. Actually CPDN runs on Cheetah 15k.7/600gb because the installed SSD is to small. In summer i change to Samsung SSD 840 (TLC) with 512 GB. I think it is not necessary to use SLC. Good quality consumer-ssd (Samsung, Crucial, Intel, Toshiba, ...) should be adequate for CPDN. The cheapest SLC is WINKOM Powerdrive 60GB on SATAII cost 170�! For this money u get 256GB! |
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MikeMarsUK Send message Joined: 13 Jan 06 Posts: 1498 Credit: 15,613,038 RAC: 0 |
... Yeah, the Socket 2011 boxes look awesome. But cost more than my budget, hence why I went for an i7 instead. ... I think it is not necessary to use SLC. Good quality consumer-ssd (Samsung, Crucial, Intel, Toshiba, ...) should be adequate for CPDN. ... Errm... I am unsure about that. My PC writes 670GB / day when running CPDN (= 20TB/month). The SSD installed in my PC is an Intel 525 64MB. When I looked at the specs, I found this: http://www.intel.co.uk/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/ssd-525-specification.pdf
20gb / day for 5 years = 37 TB. Therefore if both Intel's figures and my calculations are correct, on my workload it would burn out in less than 2 months. Of course if you are running less models, or slower models, then it would last proportionately longer. PS your PC seems to be struggling with downloading or running the coupled-model (HadCM3). Are the .zip file transfers being blocked by a firewall, antivirus, or something like that? Sometimes antivirus programmes block large .zip files. http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=15736358 <core_client_version>7.0.25</core_client_version> I'm a volunteer and my views are my own. News and Announcements and FAQ |
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Send message Joined: 5 Sep 04 Posts: 7629 Credit: 24,240,330 RAC: 0 |
I'm not sure if it applies here, but BOINC 7.0.25 was still a test version. 7.0.28 is stable. Might be worth an upgrade. But I don't like the look of the latest release. Lots of problems being talked about. Backups: Here |
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MikeMarsUK Send message Joined: 13 Jan 06 Posts: 1498 Credit: 15,613,038 RAC: 0 |
I'm not sure if it applies here, but BOINC 7.0.25 was still a test version. 7.0.28 is stable. I'm using 7.0.64 now, it came out about a month ago. Haven't had any issues myself, but experience shows that new Boinc versions are often problematic... http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php The only example of that 'End-of-central-directory signature not found' error that I could find was back in 2005, I don't think it was solved then from the look of it. I'm a volunteer and my views are my own. News and Announcements and FAQ |
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Greg van Paassen Send message Joined: 17 Nov 07 Posts: 142 Credit: 4,271,370 RAC: 0 |
I'd be interested in the results, Martin, especially if you go Haswell - I believe they're being released in September? An 8% improvement in FP performance (over Ivy Bridge) means finishing a HadCM3N a day sooner. The improved memory controller in Haswell should further speed up climate models, which do a lot of memory writes. You get better performance per watt -- always a consideration with NZ's electricity prices. And you may be able to put a Broadwell processor in the same board later, if they turn out any good. (Not that I'm trying to sell you on anything...) :) Disks: as you say, CPDN isn't particularly demanding in terms of disk performance (if you have enough memory for OS disk buffers), but durability is a different story. I measured some HadCM3Ns at 700MB of disk writes over 10 minutes, each. I'd been considering buying a consumer grade SSD before that. Not any more. (According to Anandtech, consumer SSDs are designed for ten years of life assuming a mere 10 GB of writes per day.) But, definitely put the Photoshop program files and light table (working) storage on SSD(s). Others have used phrases like "night and day" after making that change. |
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Send message Joined: 5 Sep 04 Posts: 7629 Credit: 24,240,330 RAC: 0 |
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Send message Joined: 5 May 07 Posts: 27 Credit: 6,369,307 RAC: 0 |
http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=15736358 <core_client_version>7.0.25</core_client_version> <![CDATA[ <message> Das Laufwerk kann einen bestimmten Bereich oder eine bestimmte Spur nicht finden. (0x19) - exit code 25 (0x19) </message> <stderr_txt> [hadcm3n_data_6.07_windows_intelx86.zip] End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on the last disk(s) of this archive. unzip: cannot find zipfile directory in hadcm3n_data_6.07_windows_intelx86.zip, and cannot find hadcm3n_data_6.07_windows_intelx86.zip.zip, period. Called boinc_finish </stderr_txt> ]]> My RAID dropped on this day. One if the 15k.7 had caused many struggle and the system crashed. But now it works correct. I think there were lost some files who was in SAS-Controller-RAM. But actually i dont get new work :-( |
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Send message Joined: 22 Mar 06 Posts: 144 Credit: 24,695,428 RAC: 0 |
My, what a lot of replies. I thought that might bring out the inner geek in us all ;-) 1. Ram and Page File I�m maxed out at 12GB of ram, so was surprised to see the Page File so active, but I guess that�s life. Most of the time only half of the memory is being physically used, most of the rest used for caching. Guess Page File just wants a bit more on the hard drives. 2. Quite a lot is happening on the processor front in the next few months, so it may well be worth waiting for that 15 core Xeon (joke!). So I think that what I�ll do is:
b. Get a SSD for my OS. c. Wait a bit for processor & motherboard upgrades (despite the fact that with PCs there is always something new around the corner). d. Have a reasonable upgrade in processor. Not sure using a 15 core Xeon fits in with the ethos of distributed computing though, but then again, discussion in other threads suggest that the current CPDN models are having a few issues being suspended. Only problem is that to have a 15 core, it will mean giving up Friday night at the pub, halving coffee purchases and taking out a mortgage on the house ;-) Can�t see any of that happening! e. As Greg says some of the new processors only have an 8% improvement, and I can�t see that anyone should be upgrading for that reason alone. We�d be better off recruiting another couple of people to the project.
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Send message Joined: 5 Sep 04 Posts: 7629 Credit: 24,240,330 RAC: 0 |
My, what a lot of replies.Life keeps getting in the way of my new machine, or I'd add a bit. :( 2a) I'd set NNT, and run down all work. There's an "interesting" little BOINC "feature" whereby, if you transfer a model to a much faster computer, they fail due to "something-which-is-mentioned-on-the-old-PHP-board-but-I've-forgotten-what". (They run out of "something" time.) As for BOINC version, the problems with the latest may just be people who like to complicate things by running lots of GPU apps on a variety of cards and computers and wonder why it won't work. I've used 7.0.28 OK, but only on POGS SkyNet. 4) When an SSD fails, that's it for ALL of the data. At least with an HD there's a chance that some can be recovered. So it depends on what goes on to it. Cache would be good. The OS perhaps, if it's not too customised, and time consuming to redo after a failure. The old PHP forum. I don't know how "political" that is, but unofficially, don't expect to see it ever again. Security risk for Oxford Uni. Backups: Here |
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MikeMarsUK Send message Joined: 13 Jan 06 Posts: 1498 Credit: 15,613,038 RAC: 0 |
MartinNZ wrote: ... Are you limited to 4GB memory sticks? I've got 2x8GB in mine, I suspect you may be able to go up to 3x8, but obviously that would involve discarding your current memory. In theory, pagefile used for caching shouldn't need to be written to/from disk, because that would be defeating the point of caching the disk. Photoshop itself uses a lot of memory, so that is when I think you would see the main benefit, i.e., they will work better together. CPDN alone will only use up a few gig, but more space for drive caching is always useful.
Letting the tasks complete is the simplest method, and also a good idea if the system will be running a lot faster, as Les notes. But if you are just moving between disks on a single machine, you can do it either way.
The best time to upgrade is when the main use for your PC (i.e., photoshop etc) would benefit the most, or if you find that the cost of electricity used is too high given the amount of Boinc work produced. If your PC still works fine with photoshop then I would suggest leaving a major upgrade for later.
Like Les says, the other forum is sadly dead and is very unlikely to come back. Most of our knowledge was there... I'm a volunteer and my views are my own. News and Announcements and FAQ |
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Send message Joined: 22 Mar 06 Posts: 144 Credit: 24,695,428 RAC: 0 |
Lots of really nice feedback � thanks. Done a bit of digging over the last few days. Memory. I mentioned my PC maxed out at 12GB, because that�s what the motherboard manual stated as being the maximum memory. However! It appears the manual was written in the days when even with all 6 slots populated 12GB was all you could put in, but I now read it will happily handle 24GB, and possibly 48GB. I just replaced my memory 6 months ago to give 12GB (3x4GB), so yesterday added the old memory (3x2GB) as well (total 18GB) and found it worked fine with CPDN suspended. As there is a slight mismatch in the memory I removed the old ones and am running CPDN again on 12GB. A bit reluctant to buy additional memory, as it seems newer systems are double or quad channel, not triple. This leads to a further query. My new memory is DDR3-1600 9-9-9-27, the old DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24. The i7-920 system limits the bus speed to 1066 MHz, but with the P6T it is easy enough to put a multiplier in Bios to up this. So, a) is CPDN likely to strike problems with this mix of memory at default 1066Mhz speed, and b) would CPDN be happy with this mix at the slightly higher 1333MHz bus speed?. As I�m currently running the tasks down on NNT, I could always run a soak test before reinstalling BOINC. (No rush as it will take 20 days to finish the current tasks.) Updating hardware. I agree Mike, the best time to update is when systems are struggling, & if I wasn�t running CPDN, there would probably be no need, but I can see me processing CPDN tasks continuing for a while yet. What a nightmare this always is. I�ve spent a few hours looking at the options and it appears that the days of upgradeable processors may be heading for the bin (if it was ever possible on my 5 yearly cycle!) Evidently Intel are heading over the next few years to a soldered only design for most motherboards and processors, with only high-end workstations retaining a socketable processor. I couldn�t seem to find any reference as to what will survive in the long run, but guess it will be LGA2011 or its successor. So depending on feedback from here on memory, and whether or not my tests with it succeed I may stay with memory and hard drive updates. But, even with the accountant screaming in the background, I don�t discount a processor change, and despite what I said earlier, it could include a LGA-2011 & Xeon system. I�d just consider it a donation to the cause. Does anyone have actual measured energy use of a LGA-2011 Xeon PC � see the next paragraph? Price of electricity has been mentioned a few times in this thread. Having shoved my 120A 3 phase energy meter on the PC only (a few loops of the live wire through the CT helps here, and the CT is auto-ranging), I use around 110 Watts when CPDN is not running, 180 Watts with CPDN (quite a bit less than ojum-le). As I work from home the PC would be on 12 hours a day anyway if not running CPDN, so simplified, this would give an additional 1007kWh/year over the 481kWh/year I would use for standard work like activities. Given that I only use 5600kWh/year (and no gas), it�s a fair chunk of the budget at 28c/kWh, but again a contribution to the cause. > The old PHP forum�. but unofficially, don't expect to see it ever again. Although missing knowledge I always thought it was odd having two places to ask very similar questions. I do miss looking up the News every now and then, so is this listed anywhere else? If not, can a thread be developed here? Les stated
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Send message Joined: 5 Sep 04 Posts: 7629 Credit: 24,240,330 RAC: 0 |
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Send message Joined: 11 Aug 11 Posts: 1 Credit: 595,449 RAC: 0 |
Regarding the question, which is the right CPU for a CPDN-computer - read this one. I'm still searching for some people having an AMD Phenom II (with L3-Cache), Bobcat, Jaguar and Bulldozer, this are the ones missing: http://foveon.de/sonstiges/cpdn/ |
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Send message Joined: 22 Mar 06 Posts: 144 Credit: 24,695,428 RAC: 0 |
Thanks for the replies everyone, I've decided to build a new PC! I will probably go Xeon LGA 2011, but a question on memory first. To ECC or not ECC, that is the question? Speaking to my supplier, ECC will drop the memory speed by around 2 cycles, or around 10-15%. ECC is not needed for my work, but I assume would be beneficial for CPDN. What are your opinions on this? Currently looking at a rebuild using Asus P9X79 WS motherboard, or HP Z420 or Dell T7600. Will either have the Xeon E5-1650 or E5-2667 and allow CPDN to run on half the cores. |
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Greg van Paassen Send message Joined: 17 Nov 07 Posts: 142 Credit: 4,271,370 RAC: 0 |
Tough call. The delay arises from buffering rather than ECC itself. For sequential accesses (as I'd expect with both CPDN models and visual image processing), buffering only delays the first bytes in the read or write request. After that throughput is the same for the rest of that memory access. If your (proposed) motherboard can take non-ECC memory, it may require unbuffered memory. Unbuffered ECC memory does exist but I'm not sure how easy it is to buy. My gut feel, from reading Wikipedia's ECC page and other pages about RAM, is that ECC would be worth a price premium of 20% or so to me. |
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Send message Joined: 31 Aug 04 Posts: 391 Credit: 219,896,461 RAC: 649 |
If/when I buy another CPDN box -- yes try the ECC - few are using it, good to have a comparison -- think I'll go with that. About speed - my ancient Core2 zinnia 2-core at 3GHz (on Linux) (see my machines) is still the fastest per/core. Not all that fast - the Linux optimizations were never that good, and the Darwin compiles on Rapid-rapit run really really fast. Any machine you build will be subject to the chosen optimizations that the site finally settles on -- like right now Darwin runs fastest (but maybe less accurately) Windows is slower, and Linux is slower still. If the CPDN site ever rebuilds software for models, this may change (not liklely soon) -- As far as I know, nobody is building new executables at CPDN -- all about plugging new data into the old stable exe. Also note that what the site reports as RAC is about half your actual contribution -- if your Recent Average Credit on Rapid-rabbit is 2000 per the site, you are actually contributing about 4111 credit/day - just an idiosyncrasy. Go for high GHz -- seems to be a constant productivity enhancer- forget the caches, (unless l1 and l2 get bigger -- ha ha) Forget disk speed altogether - the fastest SSSD won't help with CPDN. |
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Send message Joined: 22 Mar 06 Posts: 144 Credit: 24,695,428 RAC: 0 |
Thanks Greg, interesting, but your second reference was waaaaay to technical for me. My main thought was, ignoring the speed issue for a moment, could the use of ECC memory be of beneficial effect to the completion of the CPDN tasks, or is it insignificant compared to all the other things that could go wrong. There seem to be a lot of task failures in the last 12 months, with my existing PC (which has just finished all its takss) being no exception. Some are model failures, but from the posts I've read, a lot come up with failures that are either the fault of the PC somewhere, or undefined. Yes there is a price premium on ECC ram, here about $110/8GB cf $90/8GB, but that is a relatively small cost in a rebuild. Both non-ECC and ECC seem to be available in unbuffered (which is what the motheboard requires.) Just noticed Eirik' post came in so will edit this one. Figured the high GHz and disc aspects, so thanks for the confirmation. I will be putting BOINC/CPDN on it's own HDD as I've a few spare around. Any thoughts on whether that should be both the program and data, or is the program OK on the OS disc with just the data on a separate HDD? Interesting on the ECC. Hopefully some more contributions will come in as well. The processor E5-1650 runs at 3.1GHz which is 'reasonable' value of money, but I've never really been concerned with RACs (even though it is interesting to see where things are at!) |
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Send message Joined: 31 Aug 04 Posts: 391 Credit: 219,896,461 RAC: 649 |
I would, and will, next rebuild, go for the ECC. But a UPC first -- me already got - it helps. Also, as advised all over this board - no automatic updates. Exclude BOINC from antivirus. Don't let your OS reboot your box on it's own -- get a clean shutdown before every reboot if you possibly can. Pulling the dll's out from under will definitely wreck your CPDN models. |
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