I have joined the dark side...

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited July 2004 in Hardware
I bought a P4 today. A Dell P4 no less! Why have I done this, you ask?

Well, I was browsing around Fatwallet and this thread caught my eye:
HOTTER! Dimension 4600 with 17" E172FP Flat Panel = $596.15 + TAX

My girlfriend's 19" CRT is dying and she wants an LCD.

The deal, as presented on FW, involves stripping down a Dimension 4600 (P4 2.8GHz HT, Prescott unfortunately) and adding the E172FP LCD monitor, then applying a 15% off coupon. The monitor itself is selling in the package deal for only $200.

My parents will be getting the PC. Here's the system specs:
P4 2.8 GHz HT, 800MHz FSB
Windows XP Home
256MB Dual channel PC3200
17" LCD
Intel Extreme Graphics 2
80GB ATA/100 7200 RPM HDD
Integrated 5.1 CH Audio
Pro 10/100 Ethernet
48X CD-ROM

The total price on the package is $745, with a $100 mail-in-rebate.

To this, I'm going to be adding a 48X CDRW I already have, as well as replacing the RAM with 1 GB of PC2700 DDR in dual channel.

I'm a little bit anxious to install 2 instances of folding on this thing and see what HT can do for me.

So my girlfriend is getting the monitor and my parents are getting the PC. I'm going to be selling off the parts of my parents' current PC (XP2700+, KM400 mobo, 40GB HDD, etc), as well as the RAM from the Dell, soon.

I really hope I didn't make a mistake for my folding effort by switching an XP2700+ over to a P4 2.8HT...

Comments

  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    GHoosdum wrote:
    I really hope I didn't make a mistake for my folding effort by switching an XP2700+ over to a P4 2.8HT...
    If it weren't for peefore's I wouldn't be where I am today! :fold:
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    That is VERY reassuring! csimon=:leet:
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    :rant:
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited July 2004
    csimon wrote:
    If it weren't for peefore's I wouldn't be where I am today! :fold:

    Ditto for Sally.

    P4's HT for folding....................AMD for gaming. (and folding too ofcourse).

    Don't listen to Thrax atm. :rant: ............see, he is a bit emotional today. :wink: Ask him tomorrow in the new light of day. :)
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited July 2004
    come deeper and deeper into the evil

    Muuhahahahahahahaha!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    I really hope I didn't make a mistake for my folding effort by switching an XP2700+ over to a P4 2.8HT...
    If the HT works, you've just acquired an excellent Folding rig that will significantly outproduce the XP2700. BTW, HT is turned off in BIOS on my Dell P4 machines at the office; and it can't be enabled. Hope your Dell's motherboard isn't as primitive as the boards in my Optiplexes.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    I have two P4's folding. One Northwood, one Prescott. The Northwood is a pre-HT. It is Oc'd to 3.2 GHz. IT did more prod than the Barton 2500+ I had running at 2800+ rates. The Prescott is in actual folding time (I am discounting down time for one of the two clients, I had to do some things with XP and timings to keep box stable as things warmed up down here) per points production, doing 1.46 times the Northwood on a weekly points compare basis-- even WITH the downtime not factored out, Prescott has 1.33 times the prod actual versus the Northwood since I got back home from motown and turned both boxes back on-- look up Team 32853 if you want a glimpse at a stats project in progress, its partly beta and partly an ongoing detailed stats look at P4s, so Northwood is one ID (created before Prescott IDs, accum points 541 when boxes were turned back on VERY LATE on June 11th(so close to midnight it is not funny), so I discount that), and each console in Prescott is a seperate ID (console 2 had 212 points and console 1 had 206 points, so since I am tracking accums sicne known date more thna once daily, I discount that from total also.

    The Prescott is a 2.8 GHz nominal, OC'd stably to 3.158 GHz (yes, clocking is 3158 MHz). Both on same motherboard, same BIOS level, same amount of RAM, and the RAM in the Northwood is running a tib slower than the Prescott box's RAM right now (DDR400 rates, RAM in Prescott is at DDR450 rates now and was at DDR400 rates). Expect noticable overall improvement, but not purely double the 2700+ if you had it Oc'd significantly. Day to day, it might flux MORE than the Athlon, Prescott calls Tinkers STINKERS typically. I'm getting a mix of both Tinkers and Gromacs across both boxes. I am using standard clients, non-standard cores, and helping provide stats as to how new cores work with existing WUs and existing clients publicly available. So, details cannot talk about, for the beta parts-- but overall about what I hoped for as mid-range of possibilities for Prescott with 1 MB cache.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    I'll give Dell this: They're fast. I ordered it last night at about 8PM, and it's already shipped this morning.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited July 2004
    I'll be curious to see how Dell's cooling setup copes with the heat coming off that Presshot when it's folding, GH. It should give you a substantial boost in points production though, as long as it's getting Gro or DGro work. Tinkers kind of poke along on a Pee4 though due to no SSE or SSE2 being used by the core. I keep my Pee4's using the -advmethods flag to minimize Tinker work on them.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    I'll be sure to keep the -advmethods flag on the P4.

    I'm kind of anxious to see what kind of cooling system is in there as well...
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited July 2004
    my roommates dell 2.8c p4 folded admirably and without fail for 6 months. i dont know about now, but it was running strong when he moved out
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    OK; the Dell is up and running. It was folding 2 instances up until 4:00 this morning, when the power went out due to a storm and I had to shut it down, because I didn't install the APC client on it for the UPS to power the PC down automatically. The shutdown was inevitable anyway, since the power still was not on yet when I left for work at 6:45 AM.

    Unfortunately, my production will be halved until I can power up the PC and my sister's PC when I get home from work today. :(

    I installed both instances as services, Client1 with CPU ID 1 and Client2 with CPU ID 2. Both have -service -local and -advmethods flags set. One instance is folding a Tinker, though. :mean:
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