Planned changes to "Big Advanced"

[clifford_cooley]

Planned changes to "Big Advanced" (BA) projects, effective January 16, 2012

Big Advanced (BA) is an experimental type of Folding@home WUs intended for the most powerful machines in FAH. However, as time goes on, technology advances, and the characteristics associated with the most powerful machines changes. Due to these advances in hardware capabilities, we will need to periodically change the BA minimum requirements. Thus, we are shortening the deadlines of the BA projects. As a result, assignments will have a 16 core minimum. To give donors some advance warning, we are announcing this now, but the change will take place in 2 months: no earlier than on Monday January 16, 2012.

We understand that any changes to how FAH works is a disruption for donors, and we have been trying to minimize such changes. For that reason, we are not changing the points system at this time.

However, we want to emphasize that the BA program is experimental and that donors should expect changes in the future, potentially without a lot of notice (although we will try our best to give as much notice as we can). In particular, as hardware evolves, it is expected that we will need to change the nature of the BA WUs again in the future.

This news is disheartening to the reasons I purchased my i7-2600k. I am currently focusing on a few goals I had previously set for myself. After that I can't say if I will continue or not. This decision was a motivational heart break for me. This is the second time the point system has dropped, since I made plans to purchase the 2600k.

You can say folding is for the cause all you want. When I hear news of this magnitude, I question motivation behind PG with this folding project. Keeping folders seems to be a game with them.

 

[yodap]

Planned changes to "Big Advanced" (BA) projects, effective January 16, 2012


This news is disheartening to the reasons I purchased my i7-2600k. I am currently focusing on a few goals I had previously set for myself. After that I can't say if I will continue or not. This decision was a motivational heart break for me. This is the second time the point system has dropped, since I made plans to purchase the 2600k.

You can say folding is for the cause all you want. When I hear news of this magnitude, I question motivation behind PG with this folding project. Keeping folders seems to be a game with them.

I'm with you brother. I'll continue to fold for now but who know's what the future will bring.
Can we label our c2q rigs "legacy" hardware yet?

Edit: Oh and by the way I just picked up a 10128 wu for a whopping 15k ppd. Less than half of what a 6900 brings. I feel like I've been whored out!

 

[tanner2]

I'm still out on this.
It was a blow physchologically to me.
I was planing before this to get a quad g34 system made, but now I don't feel that I want too anymore.
I also just made a 2600k for folding bigadv 45 days ago, feel jyped.
Sorry just venting I guess.
I hear ya brothers.

 

[Kougar]

Ouch, that's a pretty steep increase....

Pande Group has long been unhappy that quad-core systems were folding BigAdv as they were intended for systems with a minimum of 8 physical cores when it started.

I sort of expected an increase at some point given much of the community was trying to fold BigAdv, but still this pretty much knocks out the entire community as not even hex-core 12 thread systems qualify now. A dual socket LGA2011 board would work, but that's some serious investment...

I'm still out on this.
It was a blow physchologically to me.
I was planing before this to get a quad g34 system made, but now I don't feel that I want too anymore.
I also just made a 2600k for folding bigadv 45 days ago, feel jyped.
Sorry just venting I guess.
I hear ya brothers.

Ya know a G34 system would meet the 16 thread requirement, right?

As I recall when they lowered bigadv bonus points, the bigadv project was supposed to be giving a 20% bonus over advanced method work units, so it's not the end of the world either. Does kind of kill the reason to bother upgrading, though.

 

[Thrax]

EVERYONE'S production is being kicked down across the board which means, relatively speaking, everyone's rankings will stay approximately the same.

In other words, 100 is the new 1000 or whatever. It's just a matter of degrees.

 

[Kougar]

Bigadv folders will still take a 20% hit though compared to advmethod units, as that was the bonus bigadv users got for folding such lengthy, demanding work units.

I have since heard there apparently were quite a few reasons that factored into this. Most folders had migrated to bigadv units, making them scarce and leaving a large backlog of regular units sitting around.

I'm sure they'll work out a balance in the points system eventually, so I'm not concerned about this. But it certainly takes the reason out of needing to upgrade, only dual socket boards are capable now.

 

[yodap]

I'm not thrilled that I'll lose the ability to fold bigadv any more but it's not the end of the world. They absolutely should adjust points on those mid level smp's (10xxx) that everyone hates. There's no reason ppd should drop 33% with those and there seems to be more and more of them.

Still folding for multiple causes.