Ultimate folding box

Tushon

Let me preface this by saying that this is only theoretical and by the time I actually have money to throw towards such a machine, these parts will be obsolete. That being said, I welcome any input or ideas related to this. Think of it as a theorycrafting thread, for folding and the glory of science! Kind of "did I do this right?" for my future use. Also, I gave no real consideration to cost while creating this, so don't worry about PPD/$.

Wish Lists:
Newegg <-- that is a link to my wish list, but it will only work if you are logged in to Newegg (I think -- please confirm)

Computer:
DD Double Wide case, this will be a mammoth machine
EVGA SR-2
Antec TPQ-1200 x2 (enormous power requirements after OCing)
EVGA GTX 580 x4 (FTW are not yet available, but MSRP 700 vs 550 for these)
Xeon X5680 x2
OCZ Platinum DDR3 2000 6x2GB
As an afterthought;
Crucial C300 SSD x2 (RAID 1, because why not at this level)
CyberPower UPS (all that stuff without at least a proper shutdown would be dangerous)

Computer sub-cost: ~7800

Cooling:
DD / Lainq DDC Pump x2 (two loops)
CPU Block x2
DD-RAD reservoir x2
Black Ice SR1 360 rad x2
Coolant and Tubing to fit all that.

Cooling sub-cost ~1100

Total cost: ~8900


Thoughts?

Jingalls

Are those striped SSDs going to affect your folding performance somehow? Or are they there just because at this price range you might as well?
Also, the wishlist you linked to appears empty after I log in.
Would make for an amazing rig though.

Tushon

Oh I definitely meant 1, just hit the 0 by accident and didn't check myself. More of a just because I can. Folding performance (at the bigadv level) is affected the most by amount of cores, CPU speed, and RAM speed (intense amounts of data transfer, but I think that is still <2GB, so even that isn't alot by today's standards). Edited.

primesuspect

I was always curious about those co-processing boards like the Cell CPU boards and all that; I figured if I ever had to build an ultimate folding machine, I'd get one of those and have like 8 clients running at once. Possible? Theoretical nonsense?

_k

Why not the L5640 and save some money, 500$? You are already looking at water cooling the CPUs.

Or you can go with x5650, this personal review says a lot "Best Choice for SR-2". When you are getting close I would suggest jumping on the Hard folding forums and hitting them up since their community is never short of money for simply bat shit crazy stuff.

_k

primesuspect wrote:

I was always curious about those co-processing boards like the Cell CPU boards and all that; I figured if I ever had to build an ultimate folding machine, I'd get one of those and have like 8 clients running at once. Possible? Theoretical nonsense?

Prime I had a friend that was running quad quads, AMD, for video processing. Set-ups like that you are counting on CPU folding with as much GPU support as the board can support; of course no CPU OC'ing with those. Though loading one with RAM and 4 6-cores would produce some massive CPU -bigadv scores and it would make a farm future proof for a while.

ErrorNullTurnip

Unfortunately, the Newegg wish list doesn't work even if I'm signed into my newegg acct.
I approve of using raid on the SSD's! I've been wanting to try that. I'm curious how well that will work.

Tushon

well, if this website's statement that the PCI-E board gives you 180 GFlops of power, they would certainly be worth considering. I don't know how the computer would handle them though (as additional processors, so you'd run SMP2 clients) or if they would have to appear as PS3s due to architecture. A very interesting question. Though the lack of bigadv units will hold you back, so until you have a steady supply of those, graphics cards are better, as a 480 will get you roughly 165GFlops for <$500 compared to minimum of $8000 for one of those boards.

Tushon

_k_ wrote:

Why not the L5640 and save some money, 500$? You are already looking at water cooling the CPUs.

Or you can go with x5650, this personal review says a lot "Best Choice for SR-2". When you are getting close I would suggest jumping on the Hard folding forums and hitting them up since their community is never short of money for simply bat shit crazy stuff.

This build wasn't about saving money, as it will, in all likelihood, remain theoretical. Also, going for maximum folding, so every GHz increase counts, especially at the hexa-core level. 3.33GHz + OC would be a big speed boost over 2.66 +OC.

Though if I was about saving money, it would be interesting to validate his comments about the overclocking ability of the x5680 vs 5650.

Random Newegg guy wrote:

For SR-2 buyers, you can expect to reach 4400Mhz easily on a decent Watercooling setup.
I don't advise on buying the X5660, X5670 or X5680 unless you're benchmarking with LN2.