Please Recommend Me a Video Card

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited December 2006 in Hardware
Please indulge reading my requirements first. I don't want you to waste your time recommending what I would not want.

* Objective - GPU Folding@Home. I imagine I would need X1900, X1650 series
* $150 max, not including shipping
* I don't give a rat's petoot about gaming - irrelevant
* Don't need HDTV or anything fancy at all
* Only concern is ability to process F@H GPU work units
* PCI-E format only

What's my best bang for the buck? I wouldn't mind overclocking, that is, if the card has a good track record for that. Sorry, but I just haven't kept up the newer (last 18 months) X series cards. There are SO MANY variations in both GPU speed and RAM quantity/speed.

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    I think the minimum to do effective folding is going to be an X1900. The letters afterwards aren't going to matter too much. I could be very wrong about that, but I believe the "series" letter is related only to clock speed and memory type.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    I've noticed that many 1650s have higher GPU clock speeds than 1900s, but slower RAM. I don't know what influence RAM speed and type have on GPU folding. The 1900s usually have much faster RAM. Also, I'm not sure how the cards bit rates affect folding. Right, I need to do my homework. But maybe someone already knows. This is a new field - protein modeling using GPUs and the knowledge base is not yet well developed.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    It's important to note that the 19xx have more pipelines than the 16xx. Therefore, the 16xx cards may have people doing 75mph, but it's on two lanes only, and doing 65mph on 8 lanes might move more traffic. Know what I mean?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    True. How does that impact protein modeling, or does it?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    Not a question I can conceive the answer to, really. If it's anything like CPUs, wide is often better than ultra-fast, but I don't know!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    Yeah, I certainly don't know either. I just need to be less lazy and do so more fact finding.
  • markklebmarkkleb
    edited December 2006
    I dont know if you have seen this but this is one of my favorite links

    http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

    I just bought one of these and it works well..
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102022
  • SPIKE09SPIKE09 Scatland
    edited December 2006
    thread here Leo 1650 xt getting 400 ppd.
    http://forum.folding-community.org/ftopic17183.html
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2006
    Right, thanks. I had forgotten about that thread.
Sign In or Register to comment.