The amount of GFN-16 being done continues to be unprecedented. The first GFN-16 prime of TdP 2023 had a b of 186 million. We're currently above 241 million. That's an increase of 55 million in less than 23 days. By contrast, it took 10 years to do the first 55 million in the project. In fact, we were at b=55 million only 3 years ago

I guess that's thanks to cloud computing.

There is only three types of persons on PG
One is searching primes. dont care about badge and credits
Second try to get as more credits as can, dont care about primes ( they usually run PPS sieve) so they cannot find primes as all, but got alot of credits.
Third kind is happy with every prime discovered and every badge they get.

From my point of view: many years PG was unfair, because I have slower hardware then others so only fastest find primes ( there was some exceptions but extreme small percentage)
So I run my own search because at home I was always first.

Then I got few GPU , and PG enter new era: with no DC, everyone is first. I return to PG because now it is fair game: have fastest card or slowest one if I take workunit with prime , prime is mine.

I also use my own hardware, because I already calculate for next year that only mega primes will do in TdP 2024, and for that I will need near whole month on GFN17 or PPS Mega. with unknown price of electricity next year, that badge could be very expensive. ( if rules not changed in meantime)

But, if I had a lot of money, and I wish to win Jersey , then I will rent some computers to archive that goal. Dont blame people who has more money then you have, they can buy more computer power you can. At the end we all live on same globe: some have more money then others. So I am at Scott side. If he can afford something you cannot it is your problem not his.

"Third kind is happy with every prime discovered and every badge they get."

But I use my own hardware and pay my own Electric at home and not at an office or at a school.

That's how BOINC has changed over the years with cloud computing or renting pc's bcavnaugh.
People can effectively "buy" their way to a badge. The mountain stage is a classic example of that. (boss has made a good example of that this year) Sadly that's just the way it is mate.
I don't sweat it. I just accept it.
I'm thankful to have found 8 this year and I'm not even really looking for GFN-16, it's just that my old Radeon VII's aren't good for much else imo. My NVIDIA hardware has done bugger all so far this year. Ironic isn't it! :D
I'll take the win for AMD lol.

It seems this year I am spending more time uploading and reporting and downloading then really running tasks.

Get a small cache of day 0.1 day.

I have never gotten a Prime doing a cache of pending tasks.
Most of them end up be others error or aborted takes from days before.
We have to many members that download only to about them at a latter time.

My I9-9900k Coffeelake does the woo 33,000 9.1 hrs.
The 4.4 to 5 hour woos are on an I9-7900x 10 core with AVX512.
That makes a huge difference!

My I9-9900k Coffeelake does the woo 33,000 9.1 hrs.
The 4.4 to 5 hour woos are on an I9-7900x 10 core with AVX512.
That makes a huge difference!

Wow AVX512 performance is awesome!! Seems like the 13.752MB L3 cache size in i9-7900X doesn't affect the performance much. As a comparison my i7-6900K ETA for cullen task (8 core) is expected to finish in about 10 hours or so. It has 20MB of L3 with AVX2, more than i9-7900X (13.75MB). So really the AVX512 instruction set is the dominant factor here. I wonder what's the speed difference if both has the same AVX instruction set and how the L3 cache really affects the performance and perhaps the number of memory channels. Both supports quad memory channel. I have four sticks.