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Am I really helping?

Am I really helping?

Message boards : Number crunching : Am I really helping?
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mart stacey

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Message 56329 - Posted: 5 Jun 2017, 19:48:27 UTC

What is the average computing power of Climate Prediction users?

As new tasks seem to be the limiting factor for this project is my "Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2328M CPU @ 2.20GHz [Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7](4 processors)" simply denying people with faster computers new tasks and slowing the turn around for this project? Am I just hindering the project and should I just use my computer for a BOINC project where new jobs are always available?

I am happy to receive a blunt response about my lack of processing power:(
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Profile Dave Jackson
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Message 56330 - Posted: 5 Jun 2017, 20:05:53 UTC - in response to Message 56329.  

Hi Mart, while as you are aware your computer is slower than many crunching for CPDN, you will find that it is far from the slowest. I have an ageing Intel Atom powered netbook crunching. I don't think even this is a problem as there are many crunching who have computers that are turned off a lot of the time. I see that there are tasks from the batches crunched on the Atom that come in long after mine do so as long as you are not turning the computer off for long periods of time it isn't a problem.
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Profile geophi
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Message 56332 - Posted: 5 Jun 2017, 21:40:32 UTC
Last modified: 5 Jun 2017, 21:46:08 UTC

As importantly, for the last year, your computer has been extremely reliable in returning successful results. I agree with Dave, as long as you enjoy the project and don't leave your computer off for long periods of time, I would continue crunching.

It might be interesting to see how much faster you would complete tasks if that PC were only running 2 at a time. Your i3 is a dual core with hyperthreading. If you only ran two at a time, the individual model completion times may not be cut in half, but certainly would be much faster. And if you use that PC for other things, it no doubt would be more responsive for those other programs.
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noderaser
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Message 56400 - Posted: 20 Jun 2017, 3:43:28 UTC

I think one of the great things about grid computing, is that everyone's contribution is a drop in the bucket... You may not show much in terms of statistics, but there are a lot of other "small guys" out there whom the projects couldn't continue without. One of the advantages of grid computing, is that it (in theory) the projects are doing it because they can't afford large computing clusters--and there's no reason or expectation that the users have such hardware either. In fact, one could make the argument that users with large, dedicated clusters actually decreases the efficiency of the effort because they are not truly making use of "spare" computing power.
Click Here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats
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Message boards : Number crunching : Am I really helping?

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