Update on the Threadripper

My last post about my Threadripper 1950X build was about a month ago. As I just broke the 100 Mag mark, I thought it might be the right time to write about my experience so far.

Initially, the plan was to run 8 projects with 4 threads each to test the different earning possibilities for each project. After having set up the PC, I just wanted to do a testing week to see if everything was running fine. That was mid December, right before Christmas. The first week went by fairly well and I managed to get ~50 Mag (25 LHC, 25 GPUGrid) and I went home to my parents place for the holidays. As everyone could have expected, that was when the problems started... The PC shut down (maybe electricity was interrupted) and did not run until after new years eve...

As soon as I came back, I set up the computer again, installed windows (from ubuntu (huge pain, but different story)) and started crunching again. From here on, everything went great until the huge shock. My computer sits on a wide windowsill with the window slightly opened to keep the room at a comfortable temperature. One day, as I came home, the PC was not there anymore and I think my heart stopped for a moment. I ran through my room and saw it laying on the floor. It was a very stormy day and the window was rammed open by the wind hard enough to push down my computer (about 1m free fall). Luckily, the pc was still running on the floor and only the case was badly damaged. It now runs while standing on only three feet and without the front panel. What saved my computer and the floor was probably my 1 month old iPad pro 12.9''. It was charging on the floor and the PC fell right on top of it, which broke it completely. Luckily, I had Applecare+ and got a new one for 60 bucks.

Another problem I faced was finding projects that worked well on my machine. Before upgrading the CPU, I ran Amicable Numbers on my two GPUs and reached over 100 Mag with those two alone. Now, the mag for the GPUs was cut in half, probably due to increased competition. If anyone knows a project that can exceed ~60Mag on a GTX 1080 + a GTX 1060 3GB, please leave a comment.
For the CPU projects, I was pretty happy with LHC@home. However, mid December I started getting only computation errors and was not able to complete any tasks for this project anymore. This did not change after reinstalling the entire computer with windows unfortunately. So I went back to my good old VGTU (highest RAC PC at the moment :)), which never let me down and reached over 40 Mag on it already. I really wanted to run more Drugdiscovery@home, but the project did not send any new WUs since beginning of January until this morning.

One last issue I was fighting with was going solo or remaining in the pool. I tried solo for the week before Christmas, but was not happy with it. As I only have 5.8k GRC, I only stake once every 10-15 days, which simply is no fun for me. I really enjoy the statistics and the constant payouts from grcpool.com and therefore decided to stay with it.

The worst part however about all of this is, that I had to turn off the RGB of my motherboard and the cooler... My girlfriend said "it was too bright to sleep at night". She just can't appreciate the 28°C and the artificial sun in our room...

To conclude the post, a summary of running a Threadripper 1950X, a GTX 1080 and a GTX 1060 3GB for 16 days continuously:

• VGTU Mag: 43.18
• Amicable Numbers Mag: 39.50
• Drugdiscovery@home Mag: 10.69
• some small amounts for different test projects

One last interesting remark: The cost of the CPU were approximately equal to a 1080 and two 1060 3GB. Looking at the numbers, we see that the CPU reaches more mag than the 2 GPUs (and an increase by ~30% more for the second 1060) combined. This means, that the CPU at the moment is more cost efficient than the GPUs and even consumes less energy!

I will continue to write about my Build - Mag - Projects - and hope you enjoy it. Have a nice day and feel free to ask any questions or leave suggestions on what to improve!