SPCR

Can they be quiet?
Obviously they can't answer, but anyone interested may read something about how they perform at the first: nVidia GeForce GTX Titan Black 4-way SLI Review.

I have just one more question: do they fold well?

quest_for_silence wrote:Can they be quiet?

Not unless you're in a completely different room. It's not helped by them each having their own fan. If you are going to group large heat sources together like that, you would be better off using a single large fan positioned at the front, blowing air through all 4 cards. This would of course need a different design of heatsink and a small amount of ducting work so that a tunnel is created along the entire length of the cards for this fan to blow down, exhausting out of the back.

quest_for_silence wrote:I have just one more question: do they fold well?

Compared to a supercomputer their performance per watt won't be that good. Plus folding has not yet come up with any scientific discoveries. It's a waste of time but that's another argument entirely.

edh wrote: Plus folding has not yet come up with any scientific discoveries. It's a waste of time but that's another argument entirely.

how long did it take to discover the polio vaccine? maybe we should have just given up after 15 years...

xan_user wrote:how long did it take to discover the polio vaccine? maybe we should have just given up after 15 years...

That's incomporable. Scientific discovery like the polio vaccine comes from intelligence and genuine hard work, it doesn't come from Billy Nofriends and Norman Nomates bragging about how many folds they've done using their parents electricity.

Distributed computing efforts do lead to some good but it is more energy efficient for them to be run on supercomputers. Allowing 'enthusiasts' to waste their own electricity all for the benefit of being able to brag to their imaginary friends on the Internet about how many protein folds they've done is a way of reducing central cost but for humankind in general is detrimental. The energy used could be put to better use and these people could do with finding a better hobby. I know this might upset some people but folding and bitcoin mining are really lame excuses for hobbies. Bitcoin mining in particular as it isn't even a currency but a commodity and you're never going to impress girls by saying that you're a millionaire... from mining bitoins.