51-card NVIDIA folding rig can crank out 265,200 points / day

Sure, it's all well and good to play around with the Folding@Home client on toys like the PS3, but if you're really serious about out-nerding the rest of the pack, you need big-boy hardware, like this 51-card NVIDIA-based rig built by nitteo of the overclock.net forums. That's 51 8800-series GPUs on 13 MSI P6N Diamond mobos, enough for an estimated 265,200 folding points per day when they all go online -- and we're guessing that number will go up when that new CUDA-based folding client released yesterday is installed. Now let's just hope all those cards can stand the heat, hmm? More pics at the read link -- and remember, we're always down for more help on the Engadget Folding@Home team!

[Via x64bit.net]

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 13th 2008 11:37AM]

That is obscenely awesome.

i don't want to think about how much that must have cost.

[Rafael @ Aug 13th 2008 11:43AM]

those manys video cards make you excited ?
ahhh those geeks..

[theberries @ Aug 13th 2008 12:30PM]

from the forum, 80k.

[slondono @ Aug 13th 2008 12:43PM]

The cards by itself where ~7K

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 13th 2008 1:54PM]

"those manys"?

...

[Techie @ Aug 13th 2008 5:47PM]

Finally something that can run Cyrsis

[tawak @ Aug 13th 2008 11:37AM]

I thought all the folding was done through the cpu not the gpu? I run seti@home and my cpu is always running 100%

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 13th 2008 11:46AM]

they have a GPU specific client too thats a lot more powerful than the cpu client. best part ur cpu is mostly free to do your normal stuff while your graphics card keeps working out.

[1234321 @ Aug 13th 2008 11:51AM]

have they started work again on GPU clients?
the last version I remember was for ATi X1900s which are now like $100 but can double folding speeds of the PS3
but after they released they PS3 client they kinda ignored the more promising GPU scene
I'd like to see what the 3870X2 can put up compard to the X1900

[Jeremy K. @ Aug 13th 2008 12:06PM]

Haven't you guys been keeping up with the news?

[DjSnafu @ Aug 13th 2008 2:34PM]

They released the new Nvidia drivers with PhysX and with that you can grab a hold of the new Folding@home with GPU support for Nvidia Vid 8000 and up cards.. Been running it since yesterday and its going pretty fast. Can complete a work unit in 2 hours on my 8800GTX.

[digitallysick @ Aug 13th 2008 11:37AM]

Question is, did he overclock each computer and card? if he hasn't, then he should!

[Akio @ Aug 13th 2008 11:39AM]

that would probably generate enough heat to burn the sun

[hamster3000 @ Aug 13th 2008 12:30PM]

It's from overclock.net. The pursuit of performance, of course he would ; ).

[Dan Halen @ Aug 13th 2008 11:42AM]

So, I'm not big into this sort of extreme computing... but once you have all of these cards, what exactly is the procedure to get them all working as one cohesive unit? Is there a special OS you need to run? And how would they all connect together to run under that OS?

I NEED KNOWLEDGE!

[zargon @ Aug 13th 2008 12:05PM]

I don't think they are using them all as one system, I don't even think that is possible (maybe a cluster type setup that allows you to control the system with one head unit).

I think it is more like a folding farm with each card(s) in a system running its own OS.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 13th 2008 12:19PM]

Oh.

...

Not as cool as I hoped.

[Penguin @ Aug 13th 2008 12:37PM]

Yes it is possible. I've tried it but it wasn't easy. For this to work with a game, your network connection would have to be faster than gigabit ethernet.

[Bunson @ Aug 13th 2008 2:44PM]

I wish I knew what folding was....

[Dan Halen @ Aug 13th 2008 3:25PM]

Read up, bud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@Home

[Rafael @ Aug 13th 2008 11:42AM]

what an useless way to spend money...

[Blayed @ Aug 13th 2008 11:47AM]

You mean "what A useless way to spend money"

Only use "an" if it's followed by a vowel, or occasionally the letter "H"

[Anton @ Aug 13th 2008 11:49AM]

Yeah, because helping to better understand of the development of many diseases, including sickle-cell disease (drepanocytosis), Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, mad cow disease, cancer, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis, osteogenesis imperfecta, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, and other aggregation-related diseases....is a complete waste of money...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

[gordonius @ Aug 13th 2008 11:54AM]

u is a vowel.

[Philippe @ Aug 13th 2008 11:55AM]

Yes, helping finding cure to diseases is useless.

[Predator.Z6 @ Aug 13th 2008 12:02PM]

...and sometimes "Y".

[Catsceo @ Aug 13th 2008 12:16PM]

Its retards like you that keep us from advancing as a civilization.

[Kris @ Aug 13th 2008 12:22PM]

@gordonius, while the general rule is to use 'an' preceding a word that starts with a vowel, that is not _always_ the case. An is actually incorrect in this form.

Who cares anyway?

[slondono @ Aug 13th 2008 12:44PM]

Ignorance!!!! if you don't know what a project is all about, please atleast google it, before saying something like that

[jd @ Aug 13th 2008 12:42PM]

ENGLISH IS STUPID. why not use a for all words? i dont use the n word, it is keeping us from advancing as a civilization. oh nose.

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 13th 2008 1:58PM]

I'd hope you don't use the N word.

[Kurtis @ Aug 13th 2008 2:01PM]

@Kris

"An" is used before a "vowel sound". "Hour" starts with an "o" sound, so it is preceded by "an". "Useless" starts with a "y" sound, and even though "y" can be used as a vowel, the normal sound of a "y" is a consonant sound like "your" or "year". Therefore, "useless" is preceded by "a", just like "a year".

And no, there are no exceptions to this rule. A/An is not determined by letters, it is determined by sounds. It is easier to say "an octopus" than it is to say "a octopus", because when saying the latter, you are making two different back to back vowel sounds.

[teej @ Aug 13th 2008 2:04PM]

'an' and 'a' are used to propagate fluidity in a sentence structure. while most words that start with a vowel should have 'an' before it, some do not. you need to listen to the sound of the word.

for example, 'honorable' starts with an H but the H is silent (at least in america). thus, someone in the military would receive "an honorable dischage."


anyways, i'm not big about folding, but this is for a selfless cause. any other individual spending that amount of money on computer parts would probably be building the most elite gaming machine, as opposed to the most elite cancer-research assistant.

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 13th 2008 3:20PM]

It's not so much a vowel that indicates the use of "an" so much as a vowel *sound*.
therefore, words like "usable" or "euphemism" are preceded by the article "a" while words like "honorable" use "an".

[WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 13th 2008 11:44AM]

nice ! the gpu client is already ahead of the ps3 cell in terms of TFLOPS despite there being like four times more ps3s out there. the new nvidia client is decent too, started folding yesterday with it. it seems to crash on me sometimes though, incase i have it fold at 100% cpu usage, anyone else get that ? im keeping it at 80% and below till i figure this one out.

[neofolklore @ Aug 14th 2008 7:59AM]

KABOOM

[Jonathan @ Aug 13th 2008 11:55AM]

Yeah, but can it play Crysis on High Settings?

/beat dead horse

[Bud @ Aug 13th 2008 12:39PM]

Doubt it

[Jerk Face @ Aug 13th 2008 12:11PM]

I LOL'ed. Keep up the good work, pal.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 13th 2008 12:23PM]

If that icon is of you, aren't you too old for Crysis jokes? Because I don't know a lot of 9 year olds with beards. Except for this one kid in 4th grade who had a beard. He could have been 10 though. True story.

Either way, Jesus Christ, man. Awful.

[The Dude @ Aug 13th 2008 2:36PM]

If you were going for the ex-Zune fanatic look in your avatar, you got it.

[Idlemind @ Aug 13th 2008 11:58AM]

I showed this to a co-worker and he said, "How does it fold??"

[Jeremy K. @ Aug 13th 2008 12:07PM]

rofl

[Carl Vitullo @ Aug 13th 2008 1:59PM]

That sounds a lot like my mom...

[donaldj001 @ Aug 13th 2008 3:54PM]

I know what your mom sounds like.

[Decoy @ Aug 13th 2008 3:58PM]

The correct useage would be, uh: "But does it fold?"

[MooseMuffin @ Aug 13th 2008 12:02PM]

The cuda folding client has been available for like the last 2 months.

[uskali @ Aug 13th 2008 12:03PM]

Well at least he can sell his furnace now to help make up the cost of that

[rita hainsworth @ Aug 13th 2008 12:04PM]

I like the enclosure.

[Jon Acheson @ Aug 13th 2008 12:28PM]

And people make fun of George Lucas for not putting railings on his movie sets...