What are folding cores? The cores are the actual program that the
foldling client downloads from Stanford servers to do the simulation of
work units (WU). There are many different types of cores as the project
evolves. Here is a list of current cores. You will see these as
executables in your folding directory/folder.
- FahCore_65.exe - Tinker
- FahCore_78.exe - Gromac (SSE optimization used if available)
- FahCore_7a.exe - A variant of the Gromacs core, FahCore_78.exe
- FahCore_79.exe - Double Gromac (SSE2 optimization used if available)
- FahCore_82.exe - AMBER
- FahCore_98.exe - QMD
The main difference is that the Tinker core does not use additional
instructions, whereas Gromacs does (3Dnow, SSE, SSE2). F@H started with
only the Tinker core and the progressively added the Gromacs. As such,
the Gromacs core is able to process faster and thus produce results
faster. However, the Tinker core is still in use because certain
scientific evaluations still require it.
Points are benchmarked using an Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz (with SSE2 extensions disabled). Therefore, the points will be comparable in terms of points for time spent
processing any certain WUs. There are however bonus at times for
example with beta WUs and memory intensive WUs.
AMDs have a faster FPU (Floating Point Unit) as compared to Intel
processors. So without any usage of extensions, AMDS would outperform
Intels per clock cycle (i.e. do more at a time as compared to Intel).
As such, Tinkers are the gems for AMD users. However, for Intels, Double
Gromacs would give a similar boost as it uses SSE2, which is available
in Pentium 4s and above. Double Gromacs are unfortunately, obscure
compared to Tinkers. The benchmarking system does take into account
users of both camps.
You can get more information on cores at:
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