Wannbe farmers-cheap folding blade formula

edited December 2005 in Folding@Home
I was reading a thread over at the HardOCP DC forum yesterday and they were talking about getting cheap rigs for dedicated folding machines and one member posted that you could build a dedicated folding blade for around $200 at Newegg, so I decided to see what I could work up. :) My solution for a dedicated folding blade came up to over $200, but not too much higher and was using all new components. You could very well be well under $200 if you can find some used hard drives big enough for a dedicated folding rig or decide to go diskless. Anyways, here's what I worked up for a cheap folding blade, no case or cd or floppy included.

Processor: Retail XP2000+, Tbred core, should overclock to 2075 MHz on a 166 fsb with little or no vcore increase - $58
Motherboard: PCChips M863G v.1.5 with integrated video & lan (SiS 741GX chipset) - $43
Memory: V-Data PC2700 256 MB - $38
PSU: Fortron Hi-Q brand 350 watt - $25
Hard drive: Western Digital 20 gig 7,200 rpm drive - $53

Shipping: $6.99

Total for blade: $223.99

Now if you have an old hard drive thats 2 gig or larger, you can build this blade for $170.99. This would make a fine points producing blade folder, in case anyone wants to build a farm on the cheap. :thumbsup:

Comments

  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited July 2004
    Thanks Muddocktor,

    This is similar to a setup I was pricing out the other day. Just window-shopping until I get back to work. :) Just out of curiosity, how do the Durons compare to the XPs for folding?

    Boy am I glad folding is not addictive or anything! ;D

    Good Find. :thumbsup:
  • edited July 2004
    The Applebred Durons are a little slower than an XP at the same clock speed, AKAIK, but not too much slower. I looked at them but the ones at Newegg were oem procs and you would have to put out extra money for a hsf for them, bringing their cost up as high or higher than an Tbred XP2000.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited July 2004
    What people need that want to build blades are buddies close to Fry's. Like recently they had a deal on a motherboard and 2500+ for $70. Thats almost $30 after tax.

    Find yourself a cheap video card (if needed) and a small HDD for like $5.

    I also like to get this stick of RAM. Buffalo PC3200 with CH5 sticks. $10 more for PC3200 and much more.
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-150-614&depa=1

    Retail HSs are nice and quiet too. I had one on my slowest machine with a 1700+ TbredA and you couldnt even tell it was on it was so quiet. My roommate about knocked it over once and still didnt know.

    KingFish has bought whole nodes off of newegg. I think his are pretty cheap.I think he uses the BIOSTAR motherboard.

    Another way to save some money in parts and electricity (small amount) would be to network boot. You could fit quite a few 2000 installs on the 20GB HDD above.
  • BuiesCreek847BuiesCreek847 In a van, down by the river, NC Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    128MB of RAM is a plenty. My mess runs XP/Folding with that little just fine. :cool:

    BioStar mobos are good for this app.
  • edited July 2004
    128MB of RAM is a plenty. My mess runs XP/Folding with that little just fine. :cool:

    BioStar mobos are good for this app.

    Yeah, the Biostar boards also work well if you canc get them for the same price or less than that PCChips board. The Biostar nf2 boards aren't bad for cheapie boards. I went with 256 MB in my setup because it's not that much more in cost and I've noticed a trend with Gromacs work where it looks like the newer wu's are having a larger memory footprint and since the board also uses system memory for it's graphics, it kind of future proofs the blade for work in the future requiring a larger memory footprint. 128 MB should do fine for present work though.

    I've noticed Gro work in the last month or 2 that was using 40-60 MB memory while processing and I have a feeling as they refine the client and the process, the memory footprint will continue to grow.
  • BuiesCreek847BuiesCreek847 In a van, down by the river, NC Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    muddocktor wrote:
    I've noticed Gro work in the last month or 2 that was using 40-60 MB memory while processing and I have a feeling as they refine the client and the process, the memory footprint will continue to grow.

    Good point. :Rocker:
  • edited July 2004
    Yes, my mobos are Biostars. I wanted the cheapest way to get the folding cogs for the dollar. My nodes have been about $200 or so, give or take. I'm using the thoroughbred and thornton 2400's for my cpu though. I've also been going with 256mb of ram. Instead of buying new hard drives I've been getting them for real cheap off ebay. I've had a heck of a time with the 1-2 gig hard drives I've purchased but it has been smooth sailing with those that are around 6 gigs or higher. I guess the Biostars just don't like the older IDE drives. I've also been using the allied 300w psu's. Cheap and effective.
    Here's the rough breakdown:
    Biostar M7VQK Pro (integrated video) $45
    Ram 256mb generic or crucial, can't remember $45
    Allied 300w PSU $20
    HSF Coolermaster, can't remember model number $10
    CPU-AMD 2400 $70 (I'm sure price has changed since I've purchased mine)

    As you can see it's about the same prices. I've already done that research with help from some other members here in these forums so this really isn't anything new. Glad HardOCP can catch up with us on this issue :)

    If anyone is interested in this setup I can help them work out the bugs specific to these mobo's so buy with confidence.

    KingFish
  • Skip-Da-ShuSkip-Da-Shu Republic of Texas, Central
    edited October 2005
    muddocktor wrote:
    I was reading a thread over at the HardOCP DC forum yesterday and they were talking about getting cheap rigs for dedicated folding machines and one member posted that you could build a dedicated folding blade for around $200 at Newegg, so I decided to see what I could work up. :) My solution for a dedicated folding blade came up to over $200, but not too much higher and was using all new components. You could very well be well under $200 if you can find some used hard drives big enough for a dedicated folding rig or decide to go diskless. Anyways, here's what I worked up for a cheap folding blade, no case or cd or floppy included.

    Processor: Retail XP2000+, Tbred core, should overclock to 2075 MHz on a 166 fsb with little or no vcore increase - $58
    Motherboard: PCChips M863G v.1.5 with integrated video & lan (SiS 741GX chipset) - $43
    Memory: V-Data PC2700 256 MB - $38
    PSU: Fortron Hi-Q brand 350 watt - $25
    Hard drive: Western Digital 20 gig 7,200 rpm drive - $53

    Shipping: $6.99

    Total for blade: $223.99

    Now if you have an old hard drive thats 2 gig or larger, you can build this blade for $170.99. This would make a fine points producing blade folder, in case anyone wants to build a farm on the cheap. :thumbsup:
    Too much PSU... I have 3 crunchers close to this but use old 150w to 180w PSUs from Goodwill for $9 each. They also don't spin the power company's meter quite as fast. These will power gigabyte KM400 mobos with OC'd T-bred, Thorton or Barton 2000 to 2600s just fine. Also, If anybody is currently stocking up for future crunchers... 3bTech has some 7200rpm 20G drives for under $29 (shipped) http://3btech.net/ideunder60.html
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited October 2005
    No the bigger the better. The better quality PSU the more efficient it will be. The close the load is to the max performance the lower the efficiency. Just because it says 300W and 200W doesnt mean that is what will be drawn from the wall. A few extra bucks on the PSU will save in heat and power down the line.

    How much heat is coming out of the back of those PSUs. I bet there is a nice amount considering in another thread you said each system took 110W which after effieciency is around 83W at 75% effieciency which is probably good for the kinda of PSU. I bet I could take a quality PSU of 300W or more and it would produce less heat because it would not be under very much load.

    Ebay is better for HDDs. Get a bunch of 2gb or even smaller drives for like $5 each or so. You can actually run 2k of a 1gb HDD, 2gb is plenty.
  • DoctorGeo2008DoctorGeo2008 Flint, MI
    edited October 2005
    This thread is over a year old... Similar parts apply? I'd like to build a few machines and get my folding farm started. :D
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    This thread is over a year old... Similar parts apply? I'd like to build a few machines and get my folding farm started. :D
    How about it, guys? Let's see the Fall 2005 models. :D

    Here's mine:
    Parts Total: $172.85
    Newegg Shipping: $15.80

    Grand Total: 188.65 (Plus HD shipping; varies by zip code)
  • Skip-Da-ShuSkip-Da-Shu Republic of Texas, Central
    edited October 2005
    mmonnin wrote:
    No the bigger the better. The better quality PSU the more efficient it will be. The close the load is to the max performance the lower the efficiency. Just because it says 300W and 200W doesnt mean that is what will be drawn from the wall. A few extra bucks on the PSU will save in heat and power down the line.

    How much heat is coming out of the back of those PSUs. I bet there is a nice amount considering in another thread you said each system took 110W which after effieciency is around 83W at 75% effieciency which is probably good for the kinda of PSU. I bet I could take a quality PSU of 300W or more and it would produce less heat because it would not be under very much load.

    Ebay is better for HDDs. Get a bunch of 2gb or even smaller drives for like $5 each or so. You can actually run 2k of a 1gb HDD, 2gb is plenty.
    I originally wrote a short disertation as a reply and decided to chuck it... we don't agree and as much as I'd like to debate it further now, I decided to try and find an inductive line amp meter and get some actuals before going on. Let you know what I find ;-)

    2gb... u must be running Linux lol
  • Skip-Da-ShuSkip-Da-Shu Republic of Texas, Central
    edited October 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    How about it, guys? Let's see the Fall 2005 models. :D

    Here's mine:

    Parts Total: $172.85
    Newegg Shipping: $15.80

    Grand Total: 188.65 (Plus HD shipping; varies by zip code)
    Yea, I'm trying to spec out the next cruncher now and am headed down this path also... except for the 400w PSU ;-) I'm looking towards the palermo core 2800 S64, $75. With the 20G 7200 EIDEs and my Goodwill PSUs the total is 204.99 shipped. Upon ya'll's advice I'm gonna go look at some smaller drives on eBay..

    I was having a 'forum' conversation with a guy on one of the BOINC project boards about his Sempron farm and he was happier with his XP based crunchers for OC's stability and amount of crunching getting done.... but he wasn't using the palermo cores. The reviews I've read suggest that these are pretty easy to bump a bit and not overheat with the stock HSF.... hope so.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    Yea, I'm...headed down this path also... except for the 400w PSU ;-)
    I picked that one based on price, plus reasonably robust amperage levels:
    Output 3.3V/28A, +5V/30A, +12V/25A, +5Vsb/2A, -5V/0.3A, -12V/0.8A
    You might even be able to run two rigs off of that, considering the fact that you're not loaded with peripheral components, such as a power-hungry video card, extra HD's and cdroms, etc.

    I'd have to agree with you about not needing a super-mongo PSU. For our Team 93 SMx Project I'm currently running F@H 24/7 on an NF7-S with a Barton 2500+ on an AcBel 145W mATX PSU. The batteries in my digital thermometer just croaked, but a low-tech temp reading (I stuck my hand in front of the output fan :vimp: ) indicates that it runs no hotter than the 400W PSU on the rig next to it.
    I'm looking towards the palermo core 2800 S64, $75....The reviews I've read suggest that these are pretty easy to bump a bit and not overheat with the stock HSF.... hope so.
    If that info holds up, it sounds like a great idea. I enjoy OC'ing as much as anyone, but in many cases the extra cooling necessary costs as much as just buying a faster CPU to begin with. It's still fun, just not a real money-saver. If you can do it with stock parts you'd have the best of both worlds. :thumbsup:
  • Skip-Da-ShuSkip-Da-Shu Republic of Texas, Central
    edited October 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    If that info holds up, it sounds like a great idea. I enjoy OC'ing as much as anyone, but in many cases the extra cooling necessary costs as much as just buying a faster CPU to begin with. It's still fun, just not a real money-saver. If you can do it with stock parts you'd have the best of both worlds. :thumbsup:
    Yes, A VERY good point (learned the hard way) that I often forget about and is rarely mentioned. I learned trying to OC a t-bred xp where I ended up going thru 3 or 4 HSFs and then was looking at water cooling before the light went on! duh, I could've bought the top athlon xp cpu of the day for what I had in HSFs!
    :rolleyes:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    ...I learned trying to OC a t-bird xp where I ended up going thru 3 or 4 HSFs...
    Yep. I have a box full of HSF's I tried on my old T-Bird 1200. I eventually got it up to 1400MHz (where the T-Bird line maxed out) - just about the time that the stock 1400's were selling for about half of what I paid for the 1200 when it first came out. ;D
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited October 2005
    I originally wrote a short disertation as a reply and decided to chuck it... we don't agree and as much as I'd like to debate it further now, I decided to try and find an inductive line amp meter and get some actuals before going on. Let you know what I find ;-)

    2gb... u must be running Linux lol

    Thats fine. I know we wont agree, this is a folding forum and I noticed you have a SETI desktop.

    Its a fact that the close the load is to the actual max performance of the PSU the more heat it is going to produce. I have a few Antec PSUs that produce hardly any heat at all because its just folding and there is hardly a load on the PSU.

    Win2k installs with like 800mb. The more memory you run the bigger the page file is set to. It can be dramatically reduced since, we just have crunching machines, Folding in my case and SETI (or maybe others by your sig) in yours, and there is hardly much of a use for a page file with even just 256mb of RAM.

    I have a 1.2GB HDD running Win2k with ~56mb left and there and I have about ~130mb of installed programs that are not needed. The page file is set to 256mb and Registry size set to max of 20mb with 10mb used. There is ample space for 2k on a 1gb HDD. Even XP will run on a 2gb HDD, it only needs 1.6GB. Both can be cut back even further.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    For the record, I've had some of the SMx rigs on my test bench run WinXP SP2 on a 2GB drive. I don't install any other updates (with no real Internet usage other than sending and receiving WU's, plus the firewall in my router, there is little risk of mischief), I ditch all non-essential Services and any optional Windows components I can get rid of, and I turn off System Restore (there's not much to go wrong on a dedicated box).

    I've only done this out of convenience (i.e. I already had a 2GB HD handy). Going the eBay route a 4GB drive costs about the same and makes the file-pruning unnecessary.

    On a few rigs I've followed primesuspect's F@H on Linux Guide and gotten great results on drives even smaller than 2GB. I'm a complete novice when it comes to Linux, but it really was simple to set up.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    How about it, guys? Let's see the Fall 2005 models. :D

    Here's mine:

    Parts Total: $172.85
    Newegg Shipping: $15.80

    Grand Total: 188.65 (Plus HD shipping; varies by zip code)

    Strangely enough, the price of the RAM and processor in your post has gone UP. Not a good thing.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    Enverex wrote:
    Strangely enough, the price of the RAM and processor in your post has gone UP. Not a good thing.
    The CPU will now cost you a whole dollar more. The RAM has actually dropped by $2.85.

    The MB has increased, by about $6, meaning that the whole works would now set you back a whopping $192.79 instead of the previously quoted price of $188.65.

    Hardly a deal-breaker for a guy looking to spend $750 for two rigs... He could buy four of them for a mere $20 more by following that advice. :cool:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2005
    I wasn't poking holes at you Prof, more the point that computer component prices are supposed to go DOWN, not UP. heh.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    Enverex wrote:
    ...computer component prices are supposed to go DOWN, not UP. heh.
    My guess it that they're counting on the Christmas season to allow them a chance for a little holiday price inflation, or (if we're lucky) they're just leaving room to announce a bunch of Big Sales!!!!111 over the next few weeks. :)
  • Skip-Da-ShuSkip-Da-Shu Republic of Texas, Central
    edited December 2005
    Saw some activity in this thread, was reading thru and realized I never reported back the results of my Sempron 64 cruncher build / OC attempts so here's the story.

    I ended up purchasing a Sempron 3100+ for about $104 (now at $99 on newegg). It's the processor in a box #SDA3100BXBOX. The "BX" may be significant as this is the later version of these based on the 90nm cores that support SSE2, SSE3 and 64bit arch. I've read someplace that the 90nm cores run cooler than the 130nm cores and this may be backed up a bit by AMD's specs of max case temp which is 1 degree celcius lower on the 90nm.

    Anyway, I bought this along with a Gigabyte mobo #GA-K8VM800M ($54, uses the VIA K8M800 / VIA VT8237 chipset). I paired this up with one of the pile of eBay drives I'd bought as a result of recomendations in this thread ($6 to $20, depending age/size/volume) and a $9.95 PSU from Goodwill and a 512MB stick of Cosair XMS PC3200 I bought from a guy ($88 for a pair, @$44). So let's see that would total up to around $220.

    This turned out not to be the chipset to get any real OC out of this CPU as it appears the AGP/PCI buss frequencies climb with the FSB settings and I couldn't get it to run 24/7 stable at more than 1845Mhz (205x9) on this mobo.

    I subsequently swapped the K8M800 board out for a ECS NFORCE3-A mobo ($55) but would've used the EPoX EP-8KDA3I ($50) or the EPoX EP-8KDA3J ($70) if I could've put my hands on one at the time. I suspect any of the nForce 3 chipset based mobos would work fine. The key seems to be the ability to lock the PCI/AGP frequency and apply memory dividers to limit the freq my PC3200 memory is running at.

    Well to make a long story not quite so long the Sempron/ECS combo has been crunching BOINC projects for about a week now, 24/7 with CPU @ 100% (windows xp) where the mobo FSB setting topped out at 250. Here are the details:

    Crunch8
    AMD Sempron 64 3100+
    Palermo - OPN SDA3300AIO2BX, 256KB L2
    2.25GHz (2249.62MHz) - 9 x 250, HT 1000.23MHz
    ECS NFORCE3-A w/ nforce3 250 chipset
    1x512MB Corsair CMX PC3200, 2.5-3-2-8 / 1T, DDR 204MHz
    WinXP Pro SP1

    CPU voltage is at 1.47 (up 0.055v) and the DDRAM voltage has been bumped up by 0.1v. It's running the stock HSF in "SMART" mode (rpm is temp controlled from the mobo). Idle temp is ~95F. In a cold room (~64F, it's winter here) the full load CPU temp averages 109~111F. In a warm room (~80F), full load, it averages 118~120F. I did replace the stock thermal pad with artic silver 5. However this is with all the components zip tied into a stackable basket and put up on my existing stack so there's no case involved.

    Overall I'm very happy with a $220 cruncher that's easily crunching faster than a stock speed Athlon 64 3200+ and maybe faster than a stock speed 3400+ based on SETI's reference benchmark work unit run times. To put it into Intel terms, based on those same timings, it appears to be just a bit slower than "Pentium 4 2.4GHz (Northwood) @ 3GHz, 512KB L2, 512MB DDR400 dual channel" and i bit faster than a "Xeon 3.06 (Prestoria) 512KB L2 cache"... whatever that is.

    Sandra 32bit gives it a "PR rating" of 3375. I haven't tried the 64bit version.
    With MBM and VNC running it's Sandra Lite (SR3 32x86) scores are:

    Math - Dry 10114, Whet 4624
    Mem Bndwdth - 3164/3165MBs
    Cache & Mem - 4710
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