[XPM] [ANN] Primecoin High Performance | HP14 released!

[hasle2]

I'm curious as to whether mikaelh has considered or is working on a gpu miner.

[laughingbear]

I'm curious as to whether mikaelh has considered or is working on a gpu miner.

Reading is hard

[mikaelh]

I found hyper threading adds no perf increase on my end...so I run 4 threads on a sandy bridge i7 and it's faster.

Are you running Windows? If so, which version? Hyper threading performance depends on the CPU scheduler and lots of other things. The CPU scheduler in Windows isn't that great in my experience but I haven't witnessed it actually being detrimental.

I see something similar to this on my end right now but not that bad - On my 3930k I can set genproclimit to 6 and I get 2517 pps and 1.2 cpd and with genproclimit set to 12 I get 2900 pps and 1.4 cpd. Something seems wrong with this right now. I also set genproclimit to 1 and I'm getting about 450 pps/ 0.23 cpd. If the performance scaled linearly I would be getting ~5kpps/2.7 or 2.8 cpd. Yes, I know that I should never expect anything like this but it seems like the performance scales linearly up until hyperthreading is involved and then it steeply drops off.

Edit: I just tried a few values between 6 and 12 and I'm getting at most a 100 pps increase in performance from one to another, and in some cases no significant increase whatsoever (going from 9 to 10 increased from 2784 to 2832).

That seems pretty much normal to me. The idea behind hyper threading is that the CPU core switches threads when one thread is blocked waiting for memory. My code is nearly always hitting the L1 or L2 caches which keeps the CPU core busy at all times even with one thread. So in theory you only need enough threads to keep all the physical cores busy.

[paulthetafy]

I found hyper threading adds no perf increase on my end...so I run 4 threads on a sandy bridge i7 and it's faster.

Are you running Windows? If so, which version? Hyper threading performance depends on the CPU scheduler and lots of other things. The CPU scheduler in Windows isn't that great in my experience but I haven't witnessed it actually being detrimental.

I see something similar to this on my end right now but not that bad - On my 3930k I can set genproclimit to 6 and I get 2517 pps and 1.2 cpd and with genproclimit set to 12 I get 2900 pps and 1.4 cpd. Something seems wrong with this right now. I also set genproclimit to 1 and I'm getting about 450 pps/ 0.23 cpd. If the performance scaled linearly I would be getting ~5kpps/2.7 or 2.8 cpd. Yes, I know that I should never expect anything like this but it seems like the performance scales linearly up until hyperthreading is involved and then it steeply drops off.

Edit: I just tried a few values between 6 and 12 and I'm getting at most a 100 pps increase in performance from one to another, and in some cases no significant increase whatsoever (going from 9 to 10 increased from 2784 to 2832).

That seems pretty much normal to me. The idea behind hyper threading is that the CPU core switches threads when one thread is blocked waiting for memory. My code is nearly always hitting the L1 or L2 caches which keeps the CPU core busy at all times even with one thread. So in theory you only need enough threads to keep all the physical cores busy.

Thanks for the clarification mikael.  To summarise then, you will see very little benefit of hyperthreaded / virtual CPU's as most time will be spent utilizing the physical cores only.  VPS miners TAKE NOTE!

[Trillium]

Also, in case anyone is curious

24-core Opteron 6164HE 1.7GHz:
"chainspermin" : 29,
    "chainsperday" : 1.67533939,
    "primespersec" : 8389,

32-core Opteron 6274 2.2GHz:
"chainspermin" : 12,
    "chainsperday" : .71721642,
    "primespersec" : 7039,

From PassMark and the opteron wiki page:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Opteron_microprocessors


Dual CPU, 12-core opteron 6164HE's   PassMark CPU result: 5351/ea, 5351*2 = 10702 ||| Cache arrangement; L2:  12x 512 KB    L3:  2x 6 MB
[Dual CPU] AMD Opteron 6274   PassMark CPU result: 10809 (inclusive of both) ||| Cache arrangement; L2:  8x 2MB L3:  2x 8 MB

If I had to guess, the dual cpu, 16 core setup (6274's) is slower because it shares one unit of L2 cache between two cores. The HE's have dedicated L2 for every core.

Despite the disappointing(?) performance, those are still all nice systems and I would mine on them any day.

[wibtc]

AMD CPU is better for mining Primecoin?

Also, in case anyone is curious

24-core Opteron 6164HE 1.7GHz:
"chainspermin" : 29,
    "chainsperday" : 1.67533939,
    "primespersec" : 8389,

32-core Opteron 6274 2.2GHz:
"chainspermin" : 12,
    "chainsperday" : .71721642,
    "primespersec" : 7039,

4-core i7-2600k 3.4GHz:
"chainspermin" : 8,
    "chainsperday" : 0.57826364,
    "primespersec" : 3170,

8-core L5520 2.26GHz:
"chainspermin" : 8,
    "chainsperday" : 0.73978522,
    "primespersec" : 3628,

8-core L5420 2.5GHz:
"chainspermin" : 14,
    "chainsperday" : 0.96020906,
    "primespersec" : 3490,

8-core X5355 2.66GHz:
"chainspermin" : 15,
    "chainsperday" : 1.00721642,
    "primespersec" : 3670,

4-core Xeon 5160 3.0GHz:
"chainspermin" : 7,
    "chainsperday" : 0.50713449,
    "primespersec" : 1859,

4-core Xeon 5130 2.0GHz
"chainspermin" : 6,
    "chainsperday" : 0.34404084,
    "primespersec" : 1267,

Core 2 Duo 6300 1.86GHz:
"chainspermin" : 3,
    "chainsperday" : 0.15991434,
    "primespersec" : 587,



All systems running 64-bit HP9

[Trillium]

AMD CPU is better for mining Primecoin?

Also, in case anyone is curious

///
All systems running 64-bit HP9

No. Thats not what he is saying/asking. 1l1l11ll1l has several relatively nice servers mining, and was wondering why the 24-core server seem to outperform those with a total of 32-cores. Refer to my response above for one possibility why.

[roy7]

No. Thats not what he is saying/asking. 1l1l11ll1l has several relatively nice servers mining, and was wondering why the 24-core server seem to outperform those with a total of 32-cores. Refer to my response above for one possibility why.

I think the faster cpu also has larger L1 cache. Don't know if primecoin mining sits in L1 cache much though vs L2.

Edit: By faster I meant in chainsperday, not clock speed. It surprised me less cores and lower clock would do more work. The only thing jumping out at me was L1 size differences.

[wibtc]

AMD CPU is better for mining Primecoin?

Also, in case anyone is curious

///
All systems running 64-bit HP9

No. Thats not what he is saying/asking. 1l1l11ll1l has several relatively nice servers mining, and was wondering why the 24-core server seem to outperform those with a total of 32-cores. Refer to my response above for one possibility why.

AMD CPU is faster if you compare one Opteron 6274 or Opteron 6164HE with one Intel CPU such as i7-2600k, Xeon  L5520...

[1l1l11ll1l]

Also, in case anyone is curious

24-core Opteron 6164HE 1.7GHz:
"chainspermin" : 29,
    "chainsperday" : 1.67533939,
    "primespersec" : 8389,

32-core Opteron 6274 2.2GHz:
"chainspermin" : 12,
    "chainsperday" : .71721642,
    "primespersec" : 7039,

From PassMark and the opteron wiki page:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Opteron_microprocessors


Dual CPU, 12-core opteron 6164HE's   PassMark CPU result: 5351/ea, 5351*2 = 10702 ||| Cache arrangement; L2:  12x 512 KB    L3:  2x 6 MB
[Dual CPU] AMD Opteron 6274   PassMark CPU result: 10809 (inclusive of both) ||| Cache arrangement; L2:  8x 2MB L3:  2x 8 MB

If I had to guess, the dual cpu, 16 core setup (6274's) is slower because it shares one unit of L2 cache between two cores. The HE's have dedicated L2 for every core.

Despite the disappointing(?) performance, those are still all nice systems and I would mine on them any day.

Looking at the specs on AMD's site, it shows the L2 cache of the 6274 at 1MBx16

http://products.amd.com/en-us/OpteronCPUDetail.aspx?id=760&f1=AMD+Opteron%E2%84%A2+6200+Series+Processor&f2=&f3=Yes&f4=&f5=&f6=G34&f7=B2&f8=32nm&f9=&f10=6400&f11=&
http://products.amd.com/en-us/OpteronCPUDetail.aspx?id=649

If that were the case then the only thing left would be the L1?

[Tamis]

Getting a LOT of orphans today :/

[Tuck Fheman]

w00t! went back to solo mining w/HP9 and hit a block within 12 hours.

{
"blocks" : 101723,
"chainspermin" : 5,
"chainsperday" : 0.65202060,
"currentblocksize" : 2807,
"currentblocktx" : 8,
"difficulty" : 9.47157931,
"errors" : "",
"generate" : true,
"genproclimit" : 7,
"roundsievepercentage" : 70,
"primespersec" : 1212,
"pooledtx" : 8,
"sievepercentage" : 18,
"sievesize" : 600000,
"testnet" : false
}

i7 860 @3.22 Win7/64/8GB

Donation sent, thanks mikaelh!

[paulthetafy]

Getting a LOT of orphans today :/

You might want to check you're not on a fork or something.  I've not had a single orphan since day 1 (many hundreds of blocks)

[superresistant]

Sorry, I don't understand what "chainspermin", "chainsperday", "primespersec" mean and why it isn't proportional ?
What is important among the 3 ?

[masterOfDisaster]

Sorry, I don't understand what "chainspermin", "chainsperday", "primespersec" mean and why it isn't proportional ?
What is important among the 3 ?

If I got the essential ones of the last several hundred posts right, the "chainsperday" seems to be the best indicator for the speed of the miner, whereas the other two seem to be not as useful for indicating the mining speed.

[bcp19]

Getting a LOT of orphans today :/

Oh crap... hope ZAX don't read this...  He thinks he's the orphan king...

[reb0rn21]

Getting a LOT of orphans today :/

Oh crap... hope ZAX don't read this...  He thinks he's the orphan king...

I think he changed the nickname to:  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268941.msg2879280#msg2879280

[ghostlander]

Also, in case anyone is curious

24-core Opteron 6164HE 1.7GHz:
"chainspermin" : 29,
    "chainsperday" : 1.67533939,
    "primespersec" : 8389,

32-core Opteron 6274 2.2GHz:
"chainspermin" : 12,
    "chainsperday" : .71721642,
    "primespersec" : 7039,

Because 6164HE is K10 and 6274 is Bulldozer. The 1st consists of two downvolted/downclocked Phenom II X6 dies, therefore 12 FPUs per each CPU. The 2nd consists of two downvolted/downclocked FX dies, therefore 8 FPUs per each CPU. In addition, K10 delivers better performance per GHz, though Bulldozer supports AVX with FMA.

[jpmi1]

w00t! went back to solo mining w/HP9 and hit a block within 12 hours.

{
"blocks" : 101723,
"chainspermin" : 5,
"chainsperday" : 0.65202060,
"currentblocksize" : 2807,
"currentblocktx" : 8,
"difficulty" : 9.47157931,
"errors" : "",
"generate" : true,
"genproclimit" : 7,
"roundsievepercentage" : 70,
"primespersec" : 1212,
"pooledtx" : 8,
"sievepercentage" : 18,
"sievesize" : 600000,
"testnet" : false
}

i7 860 @3.22 Win7/64/8GB

Donation sent, thanks mikaelh!

What processor do you have?

[neo101one]

Getting a LOT of orphans today :/

Oh crap... hope ZAX don't read this...  He thinks he's the orphan king...

We might have to open up an XPM Orphanage.