I'm BAACCK

citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
edited April 2006 in Folding@Home
:fold: hello everyone,
i decided to get back into the folding Game. Currently i have a few rigs folding for me, i know alot has changed since is stopped.


Q: are older AMD's and PIII's even worth folding with? (1ghz tbirds and 1ghz PIII)



also, i have a small budget (around 400$) to blow on a folding fARM, (im messing ParallelKnoppix and LTSP), which would be a better solutions?
1- blow it on a Opteron/mobo combo?
2- buy 2 x semprons and 2 x mobos?
3- buy a bunch of PIII 1GHZ sff rigs

thanks friends.

Comments

  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited April 2006
    Welcome back, citrix. :) If you can shop around a bit and look for good prices (and you aren't worried about the electricity costs too), an Intel rig with a dual core processor such as an 805 is a fast folding, relatively inexpensive way to get a good points maker. Just ask Leo about his DC Intels. They are flame belching power hogs though and need very good cooling to keep up and folding 24/7/365.
  • citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    oh wow! so ditch the sempron 754/mobo idea and get those dualcores?

    how about picking up some old amdxp/mb, i guess those wont even touch the dual cores huh?
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited April 2006
    Yeah, they do real well with folding and are a pretty efficient points producer, especially when you overclock them a bit. They do real well with Dgro wu's and do decently with regular Gromacs and still will outpoint a single core AMD even with Tinker work. The 805's are getting so dirt cheap it almost isn't even funny. And Intel is supposed to have a further price drop happening in the next week or so too, but I don't know if the 805 prices will go down further.

    As far as an old AXP board and proc, I wouldn't bother unless they are really dirt cheap, like $50 or so for proc and mobo. AXP doesn't have SSE2 instructions, so they are kind of slow with DGro units. They still do fine on Tinker core work though and generally perform within 5-10% of what an A64 will do with a Tinker wu. If you do go the AXP route, be sure to set it up to work on the timeless wu's as they are all Tinker wu's.
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    Well... right now, Intel CPU's are taking a hit in F@H. Stanford dropped some of the nice and fat wotk units that Intels loved. They had high point values and AMD's couldn't touch the efficiency of the Intels. Well, they pulled those proteins... So, right now, the most efficient CPUs are the AMD's.

    As for what is the best use of $400... I'll leave that for others to consult on...
  • citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    what to do what to do! :)

    no matter what combo i went with, it was all approx the same price.
    but for 20-30$ more, i can get the intel DC, wheres its really 2 folding sessions per box.

    im gonna continue looking around, im open for suggestions.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    citrixmeta wrote:
    ...for 20-30$ more, i can get the intel DC, wheres its really 2 folding sessions per box...
    That (or a dual-core AMD rig) would be my choice.

    Going back to one of your other questions, PIII and 1GHz AMD computers can still put out some points, but you'd be better off stashing away the money you would spend on electricity to run them and put it toward something with a little more oomph.

    For the sake of comparison, these are a few of the rigs I have running here right now:


    PIII 1000MHz = 52 points/day
    Duron 1300 = 105 points/day
    XP 1700+ = 120 points/day
    Celeron 2.5GHz = 127 points/day
    Barton 3000+ = 185 points/day
    P4 3.2GHz w/ HT = 343 points/day (Both HT clients combined)

    The P4 is OC'd to 3.6GHz; the rest are at stock speed.
  • citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    cluster has been up and folding for 1 day now.
    i havent made any purchases yet, just used whatever i had around and people have donated.

    a few amdxp/mobo combos, some PIII aswell.

    i still havent decided which path to take, im mainly browsing the forums for cheap hardware, amdxp, a64, p4, celly, etc. anything i can find
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    that's 2 fugitive folders finally finding folding.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited April 2006
    w00t!! Now go pump some iron. :)
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