Cheap PC's?

cambrosecambrose
edited June 2007 in Hardware
Okay folks, I'm looking to buy or most likely build a couple of cheap pc's to fold with. I haven't been doing it for a while and I wanna get back involved, any suggestions for some cheap builds that have decent bang for the buck? These most likely will just be linux boxes that I just fold with.

Comments

  • macdude425macdude425 Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
    edited June 2007
    How cheap is cheap? And do you have anything to start with that would reduce the price?
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited June 2007
    Yep, got to give us a starting point. The 4 MB L2 cache Conroe procs are king in dual core SMP folding and much faster than AMD, but are quite a bit more expensive too. The 2 MB L2 cache E4300 is much more affordable, but doesn't do as well on some of the SMP wu's. As for the AM2 procs, I'm not sure since I don't own one. But I think they are also affected by the smaller L2 Cache on some of the SMP wu's. All in all, the Intel C2D procs rule though in SMP folding. And with the July 22 price cut, they should be even more affordable. But you can get a lot of value for your buck with a Brisbane 3600 right now too. As for ram, you really need to start getting it now while it's cheap. I can't see DDR2 getting much cheaper than it is presently. For a dedicated dual core folding rig I would think that 2 X 512 MB sticks of DDR2-800 should be good and for a quad you need to double the ram.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited June 2007
    Not quite sure on a price point yet. I considered building it around the opteron dual (2.2ghz can't remember the model number) 939 cpu, but if I can go into conroe for not much more, I might just grab one of those for my current pc and use this one as a folder after I build a new one. As for what I have for it, I'm just going to grab a barebone from newegg (beige box) and an old hdd. If I could do it for the right price, I'd even consider building 2 pentium D's or X2 AMD pc's and just overclock them like crazy.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited June 2007
    I've been looking on Ebay and it appears I can get a 2.8ghz optiplex for about 120, which seems like a decent deal. Just have to throw on Ubuntu and I'd be set to fold with them.
  • macdude425macdude425 Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
    edited June 2007
    ALWAYS be careful when you buy computers on eBay.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited June 2007
    cambrose wrote:
    I've been looking on Ebay and it appears I can get a 2.8ghz optiplex for about 120, which seems like a decent deal. Just have to throw on Ubuntu and I'd be set to fold with them.

    Yeah, but those Octopusses will turn in a low point return/wu finish rate per watt of power consumed. You would be much better going with an AMD or non-netburst Intel dual core proc machine and running the Linux or Windows SMP client. You can still go the Linux route and if you have some older agp graphics cards or ddr ram you want to recycle into the build, there are several cheap mobo's for both platforms to base a dedicated folding build on.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited June 2007
    If you want to get some boxes folding on the cheep.

    This is great for its price but it doesn't produce too well.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited June 2007
    I need something that produces as well as possible for its price.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Check dell.com for weekly deals on Pentium D or Core 2 Duo workstations. Something is bound to turn up there on the cheap.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Right now on Newegg;
    memory, 2x1GB (2GB) DDR2 cas4; there are four options under $90
    mobo, MSI, ASUS, and Intel offer G965 options less than $100
    CPU, E4300 is $116, the E6320 (4GB cache) is $165
    HDD, $40
    case and PSU, how ugly can you stand? $45

    This puppy would fold.
  • cambrosecambrose
    edited June 2007
    With hotness like that, I might just upgrade my old comp up to that.
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