Best PPD/£ Budget GPU

Frozennova · 15 Feb 2010 at 18:59

Building myself a budget rig that I plan on folding on and will consist of something along the lines of the Intel E1500 Overclocked and 4Gb DDR2 Ram

The question is which card will offer me the best PPD/£/Watt for around the
£100 mark

and can I use to GPUs to fold on with a board that isnt capable of SLi but has multiple PCI-E slots

miniyazz · 15 Feb 2010 at 19:09

8800GS/9600GSO x2, yes you can use multiple cards fine

didgemaster · 15 Feb 2010 at 20:35

Obviously nVidia cards. The 8800GS/9600GSO x2 are the best point/watt cards (make sure you get the 96 stream processor veriety) however with that kind of money you could pick up 8800GT/9800GT x2 or GTX260 although I notice you can't access MM yet so the best bet would be the bay

I am unsure of the GTS240 though - I'm sure some one will let you know

Frozennova · 15 Feb 2010 at 22:18

I'll keep lurking around the bay and posting here to get MM access as I want the best system for folding possible but for the smallest outlay/running cost

dekez · 15 Feb 2010 at 22:56

The bay is a good bet for 8800GS, I've got 3 of them from there, if you save a search and set it so it emails you when there are new additions to that search it saves checking all the time.

If you can wait until fermi I'm sure a lot of people will be upgrading and getting rid of there old cards.

Biffa · 16 Feb 2010 at 12:44

GTS240 does the same as a 9600GSO (96 shaders) but uses less power. Price is ok too.

Grimgoth · 16 Feb 2010 at 13:28

what about the 9800GT and 250 GTX green editions? thinking of picking one of these up, but undecided which.

loudbob · 16 Feb 2010 at 14:20

Grimgoth said:
what about the 9800GT and 250 GTX green editions? thinking of picking one of these up, but undecided which.

Your NOT allowed any more GPU's!!!

shadowscotland · 16 Feb 2010 at 14:23

if buying new the 9800gt is the same price as the gts250 but has more shaders.

The thing with the 8800gs is the shaders clocks SO well - had mine at over 1900

JonJ678 · 16 Feb 2010 at 18:19

How does the 8800gt fit into this these days? Mine's at 700 core, so 1750MHz shaders. Based on the above, it may be time to unlink core and shaders and try to push them a bit higher. Am I right in thinking ppd is proportional to shader clock for a given card?

verbal · 16 Feb 2010 at 19:10

To some extent ppd is proportional to the shader clock. Overclocking the shaders is certainly the most effective way to raise your ppd. If I was you I'd lower that core clock quite a bit, you can save electricity and it shouldn't affect your ppd much at all. I had my 8800GT at 600 core, 1850 shaders/stream processors.

Frozennova · 16 Feb 2010 at 19:56

Im looking at used cards as I want the cheapest system possible

Didnt get the E1500 but got an E1200 instead for the bargain price of £12.50, now for some ram, mobo and a gpu or 2