Does the video card really matter?

DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
edited February 2004 in Hardware
2 questions:

Does F@H take advantage of a fast video card, or is it all CPU/RAM?

Which budget card is (in your Inestimable opinion,) the best;
MSI GForce4 MX440-T8X w/ 64M DDR or the ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128M DDR AGP8X w/TVO+DVI?

Comments

  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    As far as I know... Its all Ram and CPU. Bandwidth also helps but since I was sent a PCI 4MB Video card for SM19, I figure that is the concensus...
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Video card has absolutely nothing at all to do with F@H
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    Video card has absolutely nothing at all to do with F@H

    Perfect. Only effect it could have is how pretty the molecules displayed in graphical client display show up, and that display is not needed to run graphical client WU processing. In fact, graphical client can run sans an icon in the taskbar active process and clock area, if you are willing to open the FAHlog.txt file in the Folding@Home folder every once in a while to see progress. (What can I say, I had a graphical client running like that accidentally-- a few times. Folded just fine.)

    For pure folding, no card needed if you have an O\S that can be accessed without a local video card while running hardware that will post sans video card. For example, Linux or BSD box, vnc to get mgmt display on another box with video card, then need NIC and remote login capability and privs instead of video card.

    Folding uses vector calcs for Gromacs, but that is the kind of thing the CPU can do without handing off to video card. AA and AF need not be used for this, nor anything that only a video card can do.

    John D.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Budget card, 16MB S3 (PCI or AGP) or a Radeon 7000
    I have two folders running old 4MB S3 PCI cards, just run the console and forget about the pictures.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited February 2004
    Heck get cheaper than that, 2mb will do. I got some cheapos in all my extras.
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited February 2004
    mmonnin wrote:
    Heck get cheaper than that, 2mb will do. I got some cheapos in all my extras.

    Those are the cheapest they got. hehehehe. It's a pre-built system and I'm getting 2 of them. Here are the specs:

    System #10- Intel P4 2.4 GHz-800 FSB
    Biostar P4VTB ( PT800, FSB800,8XAGP, 6-CH Audio, LAN, DDR400, USB 2.0)
    256 Meg DDR PC3200
    WD 40 GB JB Hard drive 7200 RPM
    MSI GForce4 MX440-T8X w/ 64M DDR
    LG 52x CD-Rom
    P4-ATX case w/front USB / 350W p.s
    AOopen PS2 Keyboard
    PS2 Scroll Mouse
    TS-128 w/ 280W Hi-Fi Speaker

    $569.99 CDN or $428.93 US
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited February 2004
    See if you can bu off ebay for a Trading forum. Local store or computer show. save yourselve some money.
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