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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Cheapist graphics card to run this project Any one selling one

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Matt
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Message 2858 - Posted: 7 Oct 2008 | 20:58:55 UTC

Hi can any one please tell me the cheapest card to run this project. Or does any one have a card for sale for £30 or less that will run this project.

Cheers.

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Message 2861 - Posted: 7 Oct 2008 | 21:28:44 UTC

The slowest card which is able to return WUs within the deadline seems to be the 9600GT. Around the same price point I see 4 options for you, I'll quote them with current prices from mindfactory.de:

9600GT: 312 GFlops @ 86€
9600GSO: 396 GFlops @ 81€
9800GT 256 MB: 508 GFlops @ 89€
9800GT 512 MB: 508 GFlops @ 105€

Buying anything smaller doesn't make sense, e.g. the 9500GT already only has 32 shaders compared to 64 on the 9600GT and performane drops to 134 GFlops. Performance in GPU-Grid is approximately proportional to GFlops.

Therefore the smallest card which makes sense is the 9600GSO, but for 8€ more I'd surely choose the 9800GT, which is considerably faster. And you may get better deals if you look around a bit more.

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Message 2867 - Posted: 7 Oct 2008 | 22:45:35 UTC - in response to Message 2861.

While we're on the subject, what is the consensus on the dependence of the project on the amount of video memory?

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Message 2869 - Posted: 7 Oct 2008 | 22:59:57 UTC - in response to Message 2867.

Have you read this link from the start page?

Check compatible Nvidia graphics cards
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Message 2872 - Posted: 8 Oct 2008 | 6:31:00 UTC - in response to Message 2867.

While we're on the subject, what is the consensus on the dependence of the project on the amount of video memory?


I think currently 256 MB is fine, but no one can guarantee that it will stay this way in the future.

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Message 2885 - Posted: 8 Oct 2008 | 18:35:40 UTC - in response to Message 2872.

256 is fine, but 512 is strongly suggested for future applications.

gdf

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Message 2888 - Posted: 8 Oct 2008 | 19:38:04 UTC - in response to Message 2885.
Last modified: 8 Oct 2008 | 19:43:02 UTC

Why does the amount of video ram influence the speed of calculation?
I though was the number of stream processor that are important.. not the ram..

Sorry for my bad english .__.

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Message 2889 - Posted: 8 Oct 2008 | 19:56:57 UTC - in response to Message 2888.

The amount of RAM does not influence the speed as long as you have enough of it. But if you run out of RAM the GPU needs to use system memory, which drops the bandwidth from 50-100 GB/s to a few GB/s.

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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Cheapist graphics card to run this project Any one selling one

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