As some readers may know by now, I have been supporting Stanford’s Folding@home project for the past few months after some time away from the project. It turns out that Folding@home is a great stress test for hardware as it can fully utilize a CPU. One thing I noticed with the project is that a common question by users is, “how many points per day can one expect with a given CPU?” The answer is not readily available. After a few weeks of effort, the Folding@Home benchmark is ready for beta testing beyond the group of five people involved with the project thus far.
Getting the Benchmark
To get the benchmark and contribute your results see the links below:
Download FAHBench v1.09 (Windows Benchmark current rev 1.09)
Linux benchmark is still in beta form, but should be ready soon.
Installation Instructions
Setup instructions are in the Zip file, we will be adding a web version shortly.
Viewing Results
Currently to view results, one needs to query the MySQL database directly. Using Microsoft Excel, this is very simple using the MySQL ODBC connector.
Please see Folding@home Benchmark (FAHBench) MySQL ODBC-> Microsoft Excel setup instructions for a step-by-step guide.
The MySQL database information is:
Hostname: mysql.folding.servethehome.com
Database name: sth_folding_db
Username: sthfoldingpub
Password: X7wYyz11aQEpz
We are working on a web front-end for the MySQL database, but wanted to give people a resource earlier rather than later. If you happen to have experience in this area, please contact me. We do need help.
Questions/ Comments?
A Folding@home forum has been set up primarily for the benchmark application. Feel free to post comments or ask questions there. The benchmark is still not perfect so this is a good place to provide feedback.
Stay Tuned!
Disclaimer: Use the benchmark and MySQL database at your own risk. We cannot ensure that everything will be bug free, issue free, 100% accurate and so forth so please take due care when running everything.