Folding@Home

Creator: Stanford University

Folding@home is possibly the most successful GPGPU application at the moment, with ATI pioneering GPU-based folding years ago with its Radeon X1000 range of GPUs. Since then, folding has spread to the point where Nvidia has supported folding on all GPUs since its GeForce 8-series.

Folding is a client-based distributed computing application that simulates protein folding to aid our understanding of complex diseases such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow Disease (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes. To add some interest to the furthering of scientific and medical research doesn't hold any interest for you, Stanford also has team- and user-based leaderboards, so folding is also a competition.

To fold on your GPU, visit the High Performance Client page and download the latest version. The client downloads work units (aka 'projects') from Stanford, and each work unit is worth a certain amount of points.

You can monitor your folding progress via the FahMon tool, which will calculate how quickly your card can get through the current work unit and extrapolates a points per day (ppd) figure. You can join the bit-tech and Custom PC folding team (currently ranked fifth in the world) by using the team number 35947. Your contribution is valued.


The key issue with Folding@home testing is the fact that different jobs result in drastically different PPD due to the differing load placed on the GPU. With this in mind, the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic performs roughly as well as a stock HD 4890 despite its improved core clock speed, but even then is far off the Folding performance of Nvidia's cards.

Folding@home power consumption

We tested the power consumption with a Watts Up? Pro power meter, using the device to record the total system power consumption at the wall socket, while we set the card folding. Using the data recorded by the meter we could determine the peak output.

As both ATI and Nvidia test benches are now identical Core i7 systems, we can accurately determine the apples to apples difference of what power both PCs take to run.


Similarly, power consumption when folding hasn't increased too much either, with a jump of just six watts between a stock 4890 and the Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 1GB Atomic, despite the latter's much higher clock speeds.