Endonuclease PvuII (1PVI) DNA - GATTACAGATTACA
CAP - Catabolite gene Activating Protein (1BER)
DNA - GATTACAGATTACAGATTACA Endonuclease PvuII bound to palindromic DNA recognition site CAGCTG (1PVI) DNA - GATTACAGATTACAGATTACA TBP - TATA box  Binding Protein (1C9B)
CAP - Catabolite gene Activating Protein (1BER)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
GCN4 - leucine zipper transcription factor bound to palindromic DNA recognition site ATGAC(G)TCAT (1YSA)
TBP - TATA box  Binding Protein (1C9B)
 

The YASARA Benchmarks

Since the first YASARA website went online in 1999, we have been providing benchmarks to allow an objective comparison with other programs. Our goal is however not to start 'benchmark wars' with other groups, as we are all trying to solve the same problems. So instead of comparing other programs with YASARA directly, we offer symbolic rewards of 100$ for the first one who can beat YASARA in one of the following benchmarks. You do not have to use your own program, just any software you find.

DHFR BenchmarkAll benchmarks involve the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), which is commonly used for this purpose, a PDB file of the system with 23786 atoms can be downloaded here. The simulation is run with PME (grid spacing <1 A, 4th order B-splines), 8.0 A cutoff for Van der Waals and real-space Coulomb forces, correct atom masses, reproducible trajectory (running the simulation again gives the same results), Intel turbo boost disabled, and 8 AVX registers. More details about recommended CPUs and GPUs are available, the simulation algorithms are described in:

New ways to boost molecular dynamics simulations, Krieger E, Vriend G (2015) J.Comput.Chem. 36, with open access.

The following restrictions apply:

  • Benchmarks are shown for a certain CPU and graphics card. Your program must be faster on the same or slower hardware.
  • Your program must be available.
  • Only the first one who wins a benchmark gets the reward, then the benchmark will be removed.

Benchmark 1: 100$ or 1000$ for faster MD simulations on the CPU

On an Intel Core i7 5960X CPU running at 3.6 GHz (no turbo boost), without GPU, YASARA simulates DHFR with 160 ns/day, 100$ are yours if you can do it faster, or even 1000$ if you can do that with the same compiler options (GCC 4.8, -O3 -fno-strict-aliasing -march=core-avx2 -mavx2 -mfpmath=sse -ffast-math -m32).YASARA power users reported 199 ns/day with the 5960X CPU clocked at 4.4 GHz, 255 ns/day with a Core i7-6950X at 4.3 GHz. For comparison, a Core i7 6700K at 4.0 GHz yields 125 ns/day, a Core i7 6950X at 3.0 GHz yields 228 ns/day.

Benchmark 2: 100$ for faster MD simulations on AMD Radeon GPUs

On an Intel Core i7 4770 CPU running at 3.4 GHz (no turbo boost), with an AMD Radeon R9-290X GPU, YASARA simulates DHFR with 150 ns/day, 100$ are yours if you can do it faster.

Benchmark 3: 100$ for faster MD simulations on nVIDIA GPUs with correct atom masses

On an Intel Core i7 5960X CPU running at 3.6 GHz (no turbo boost), with a Geforce GTX 980 GPU, YASARA simulates DHFR with 253 ns/day. YASARA uses the OpenCL industry standard to program the GPU, which is currently less powerful than nVIDIA's own CUDA toolkit, which gives CUDA-based programs an advantage, making it a very tight race. So to avoid a 100$ payment, we had to add the restriction that the simulation must be run with correct atom masses (i.e. without heavy hydrogens). YASARA power users reported 290 ns/day with the 5960X CPU clocked at 4.4 GHz and 322 ns/day with a 4.6 GHz CPU clock. A BIOS update increased performance by 10%. 321 ns/day were reported for a Core i7 8700K with GTX 1070. 384 ns/day were reported for a Core i7 6950X@4.4 GHz with GTX 1080, 414 ns/day with a Core i7 6950X @ 4.3 GHz (again GTX 1080), 480 ns/day with a Core i9 7980XE@4.3 GHz and GTX 1080Ti, and 543 ns/day with an AMD Threadripper PRO 5975WX and nVIDIA RTX A6000.

Benchmark 4: 100$ for faster interactive MD simulations

Our video on interactive MD in a virtual reality shows a simulation of the Simian Tobacco Mosaic Virus with 1.067 million atoms on an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU with nVIDIA Geforce RTX 4080 GPU (at timestamp 9:38). The scene is rendered for the Vive Pro with 2016×2240 pixels per eye at 90 fps, the MD runs somewhat slower as shown in the video. 100$ are yours if you can do this faster with the simulation parameters listed at the top and with comparable or better graphical quality.