NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 can fold too

While some ATI graphics cards are already doing double duty crunching data for the Folding@home project, they could soon have some competition for the gigaflop crown, with Custom PC reporting that the mighty G80 GPU at the core of NVIDIA"s new top-end GeForce 8800 graphics card is also capable of folding. In fact, according to Folding@home's Vijay Pande, the project's GPU code was originally developed for NVIDIA GPUs, but the they shifted their focus to ATI when its cards proved more powerful than NVIDIA's. While there doesn't appear to be any major changes required to get the code running on NVIDIA hardware, Pande says it will need to be tweaked in order to get the best performance possible -- meaning you'll have to put all those gigaflops to other, less productive uses for the time being. It's also not clear exactly how much of a performance gain the NVIDIA GPU will net, although if its gaming performance is any indication, it looks like it could potentially rack up points like nobody's bizness. While the NVIDIA-ready client may not be available yet, that shouldn't stop you from getting a head start (on the Engadget team, if you chose), even if it's a bit of a slow one.

[Dave @ Nov 18th 2006 8:52AM]

Start folding people :)

[akijikan @ Nov 18th 2006 9:02AM]

isn't there a G80 in the PS3 used to visualise the process? I'd sacrafice the visualization if I could use it to fold.

[Me @ Nov 18th 2006 9:11AM]

Lol no RSX is based on a G70 gpu which is roughly midrange 7xxx series.

[akijikan @ Nov 18th 2006 9:16AM]

oh my bad....poor memory.

[Harrold @ Nov 18th 2006 9:39AM]

I am a disgusting spammer: [e-mail]

[anon @ Nov 18th 2006 10:30AM]

The GPU in the xbox 360 is pretty powerful.

For anyone that missed it:

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=8

[arch @ Nov 18th 2006 12:17PM]

i dont understand by what they mean as folding. can someone please clear me?

[... @ Nov 18th 2006 1:48PM]

Folding is a distributed computing program, if you don't know what it is google it. Just make sure to use team 44851 when you install the client.

It isn't exactly 'new' that you could use a 8800, the beta has worked fine on it for a while now...


Also, the 360 would be great for folding, but M$ won't let us. They went all out to prevent us running our own code, and refuse to release a disk that runs f@h. This is probably because they do not want people to buy the consoles and just let them sit folding and not playing games (it is actually very efficient points/$). Greedy bastards.

If I had the money to buy a station I would get the ps3 no question, for the very reason that it isn't a crippled machine like the 360, and isn't 5 years behind in processing power like the wii.

[Brennan @ Nov 18th 2006 7:03PM]

"Folding is a distributed computing program, if you don't know what it is google it. Just make sure to use team 44851 when you install the client.

It isn't exactly 'new' that you could use a 8800, the beta has worked fine on it for a while now...


Also, the 360 would be great for folding, but M$ won't let us. They went all out to prevent us running our own code, and refuse to release a disk that runs f@h. This is probably because they do not want people to buy the consoles and just let them sit folding and not playing games (it is actually very efficient points/$). Greedy bastards.

If I had the money to buy a station I would get the ps3 no question, for the very reason that it isn't a crippled machine like the 360, and isn't 5 years behind in processing power like the wii."

err....k......i still dont get the folding thing, can u tell me more what it does?

ATI is going to do better, AMD n ATI r working on 'Fusion' technology, trying to put a CPU n GPU in one chip n expected to release late 2008, early 2009.

[Circuitsoft.alex @ Nov 21st 2006 2:42AM]

It calculates protein foldings/interactions for theoretical drug research.

[fliptw @ Nov 19th 2006 12:19AM]

folding@home is a program that attempts to fully analyze how various molecules fold. its for searching for a cure for cancer and the like

[Hellbinder @ Nov 19th 2006 10:39AM]

Sorry Fellas, But The 88000 is still almost 2x SLOWER than a 1950xt in Folding. It seems that the 8800 is absolutely molases slow in dynamic branching and other key areas.

Just because they think they can "make it work" now is not saying that he thinks its superior.

The Truth is exactly the obvious. Why dont you ask him some pointed questions regarding this and post the answer. Instead of this pr misleading nonsense.

[Hellbinder @ Nov 19th 2006 10:43AM]

my above post had some horrible misprints sorry..

exactly the "opposite" . It must be way to early or something.