8th Annual Holiday Season Folding@Home Race! The Race is on!!

[petrusbroder]

OK, here we go again ... ()

It is the time of the year 2013 when we should start organizing ourselves for the

8th Annual Folding@Home Holiday Season Race!

Just the bare facts:

1. Start: December 1, 2011, 19:00 UTC
2. End: January 1, 12:00 UTC
3. Short intermission: December 18, 17:11 UTC - December 21, 17:11 UTC (The Winter Solarstice PrimeGrid Challenge)

Here are the rules:

1. Have fun.
2. Let others have fun.
3. Crunch as much as you can, as often as you can and as efficiently as you can.
4. Assimilating computers, adding members to the teams, switching teams and borghing is allowed.
5: (Sid's rule) Whistle while you work; DON'T whistle while you sip.
6: (Sid's rule) No pouting.

Please post here if you intend to take part. Our Folding@Home tream number is 198.

I'll put the teams together one day before the race but the discussion about who will race against whom is open.
Please remember: joining and recruiting is allowed. Once the race is started, I decide into which team the new members go.

The primary goal: TeAm AnandTech should climb in the ranks!
The secondary goal: The TeAm shall have a lot of fun!
The tertiary goal: (there isnt one; if there are too many goals, none will be fullfilled).

Here are those who have already decided to take part (as of November 18, 2013):

Anandtech name ____ F@H name
biodoc ____________ biodoc
brownstone ________ wingding
Fullmetal Chocobo _ Chocobo_Navy
geecee ____________ geecee
GLeeM _____________ GLeeM
Icecold ___________ Icecold
Ken_g6 ____________ Ken_g6
Markfw900 _________ Mark_F_Williams
MaskedAvenger _____ mike90
PCTC2 _____________ paulNT4
petrusbroder ______ TAS-Petrusbroder
Philippart ________ Tom_Philippart
Plimogz ___________ Plimogz
Pokey _____________ Pokey_TA
Rattledagger ______ Baldurs_gate
salvorhardin ______ salvorhardin
theAnimal _________ theAnimal
Thump553 __________ Thump553
ZipSpeed __________ Zipspeed

Those who want to participate, please post your names (the AnandTech name as well as the Folding@Home name) in this thread. I'll add those names to this post.

The day before the race (November 30, sometime in the evening UTC) I will compose the two teams as well as I can. The deciding factor is - mostly - past ppd, past history in Folding@Home and my feeling on how things may develop ...
December 1 part 1 of the race starts - and please remember, in the firts part is the time to assimilate, recruit, borgh ...
Until the Prime Grid race I will see how every one is doing.
During the Prime Grid race I'll even out the teams one last time.
After the Prime Grid race part 2 of the F@H race starts and the members of each team will stay in their team.
However, borghing and assimilating and recruiting is allowed during the whole race.
Usually the race is quite even ...

Now the final question arises: What should the names of the tea´ms be? Please propose names and after a few days I'll post a poll.

There is one small complication: I will be away from home from December 19 to January 10, 2014. Therefore we need a Stats-Wizard or Stats-Master to compile the stats now and then ... If you feel up to the challenge, please post in this thread or send me a PM.

OK: lets get this ball rolling! Only 2 more races and then we have a decade of Annual Holiday Season Folding@Home races!

Here are the teams!

The Scientists
geecee
GLeeM
Icecold
Ken_g6
MaskedAvenger (Mike90)
PCTC2 (Paulnt04)
petrusbroder (TAS-Petrusbroder)
Pokey_TA (Pokey)
theAnimal

The Thinkers
biodoc
Brownstone (Wingding)
FullMetalChocobo (Chocobo Navy)
Markfw900 (Mark_F_Williams)
Philippart (Tom_Philippart)
Plimogz
Rattledagger (Baldurs_gate)
salvorhardin
Thump553
ZipSpeed

Edit November 17: spelling errors, formatting.
Edit November 18: added folders to race.
Edit November 24: added folders to race.
Edit November 26: added folders to race.
Edit November 27: added folder to race.
Edit November 28: added folder to race.
Edit November 30: added folder to race and fixed the teams!

 

[brownstone]

I dropped in this morning just to see if anything was up yet for the holiday race. Count me in!
brownstone = wingding

 

[biodoc]

I'm in!

 

[GLeeM]

I'm in

Which would do better - a GTX560 Ti 448 core or a 7950?
And what settings are needed?

 

[Markfw]

I'm in

 

[Ken g6]

I'll be in, at least a little. Probably less than previous years. I actually have gotten more computers recently, but they all run Android and F@H doesn't seem to. :\

 

[Icecold]

I'm in.

 

[salvorhardin]

Count me in.

I'm in

Which would do better - a GTX560 Ti 448 core or a 7950?
And what settings are needed?

my 7950 @1GHz gets me about 90k ppd and my 5850 around 15k ppd. The new core 17 wus are now the default wus, you don't need to adjust the client type.

 

[geecee]

I'm in. I need a recommendation for a ~$100 power efficient GPU for folding though. I'm guessing my old gts450 is not going to cut it anymore.

 

[theAnimal]

Count me in.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I'm in. Mwa ha ha.

Fullmetal Chocobo == Chocobo_Navy

 

[Pokey]

Count Pokey in. :thumbsup: Folding name: Pokey_TA

 

[petrusbroder]

Added folders to the race.

 

[theAnimal]

Probably just a typo but my folding name has no space in it.

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks - corrected!

 

[Markfw]

13 people ? Thats it ?????

Come on guys, sign up !!!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Liz will be crunching too, but she will also be crunching under Chocobo_Navy.

On a side note, is there a way to make F@H crunch on the video card when the computer is in use? I'm not using the video card for anything other than displaying the desktop, but it always just says "waiting for idle".

 

[brownstone]

Liz will be crunching too, but she will also be crunching under Chocobo_Navy.

On a side note, is there a way to make F@H crunch on the video card when the computer is in use? I'm not using the video card for anything other than displaying the desktop, but it always just says "waiting for idle".

Not sure if you are using the newer desktop client, but moving the slider bar to full seems to keep mine folding while doing other tasks.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Not sure if you are using the newer desktop client, but moving the slider bar to full seems to keep mine folding while doing other tasks.

I somehow completely missed that thing up there. Thanks.

 

[biodoc]

I checked the final stats from the race last year where I averaged ~134,000 ppd.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2285963&highlight=folding+home+race&page=12

A lot has changed since then at stanford with the introduction of GPU openCL support and core 17/Zeta. It looks like I can match or exceed 134,000 ppd with a single high end GPU!

 

[Philippart]

I'm in

 

[Thump553]

I'm in-for my marginal contribution.

 

[MaskedAvenger]

Folding name mike9o

Guess it's time to dust off the old rigs and see what cards are in them.

 

[biodoc]

Peter, I can help out with the stats. I see you are going to be away for part of the month.

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks, biodoc, help is appreciated.
Added folders to the race. Now there are 15 participands.

Please PM your mates and ask them to join!