Folding Rigs

[PermaBanned]

Well i was bored so i decided to spec a few dedicated folding rigs for ya:

Budget - £400 (GPU) - Estimated 8000ppd

Mid Range [1] - £600 (GPU) - Estimated 14,000ppd

Mid Range [2] - £650 (CPU) - Estimated 12,000-20,000ppd (depending on client)

High End - £1000 (GPU+CPU) - Estimated 25,000ppd (with single core clients running on three of the cores)

What do you think? Now i just have to save up enough to buy one of them...

 

[picnic]

Are these ppds folding ones? How does a folding ppd relate to a SETI one?

Not sure I'd enjoy Street Fighter so 5 copies seems a little oTT

 

[PermaBanned]

Are these ppds folding ones? How does a folding ppd relate to a SETI one?

Not sure I'd enjoy Street Fighter so 5 copies seems a little oTT

That's correct, not sure about SETI ppd but the builds could be a bit different considering ATI cards are actually an option.

 

[Biffa]

Currently for folding and SETI there is no point speccing AMD kit for gpus they just don't produce the output.

I'd also go i7 for CPUs for either 16K PPD on A3 WUs or 25k on bigadv

No point running multiple single clients anymore as output is tiny compared to running the smp client.

Also a single 470 will give you around 15k ppd and you can't run 5 cards in a single mobo, 4 is the max.

 

[Stan_Lite]

You can pick up a second hand GTX295 for £250-£275 which will give you about 16-17k at stock or 19-20k with a bit of overclocking. Chuck that in a rig with an overclocked i7 930 and you'll have a rig that spits out around 35-36k ppd and costs about a grand.

 

[miniyazz]

Also a single 470 will give you around 15k ppd and you can't run 5 cards in a single mobo, 4 is the max.

Sure you can - the mobo itself has 6 PCI-e physical x16 slots, so the only issue to overcome is BIOS limitations, which has been done before and will I'm sure be done again

You can pick up a second hand GTX295 for £250-£275 which will give you about 16-17k at stock or 19-20k with a bit of overclocking. Chuck that in a rig with an overclocked i7 930 and you'll have a rig that spits out around 35-36k ppd and costs about a grand.

Yep - but if you're including second-hand items, all the rigs would need to be respecced or budget reduced
This is just comparing apples to apples.

 

[Biffa]

Sure you can - the mobo itself has 6 PCI-e physical x16 slots, so the only issue to overcome is BIOS limitations, which has been done before and will I'm sure be done again

Yep - but if you're including second-hand items, all the rigs would need to be respecced or budget reduced
This is just comparing apples to apples.

I think 1 person total has managed to try and get it working with a modified bios and it was flakey as hell... I think using second hand items isn't such a reach as advising people to buy 5 gfx cards which are 99.9999% guaranteed not to work. See here

Anyway if you want to go new a GTX470 would give you almost the same if not better PPD as 4 GT240 for the same or less money, and would use a lot less resources or electricity.

 

[Stan_Lite]

Yep - but if you're including second-hand items, all the rigs would need to be respecced or budget reduced
This is just comparing apples to apples.

Fair enough. You can pick up an unused one from the bay for £375 which only adds £100. Speccing up a machine using an i7 930 and an unused GTX295, I could get close to 35k ppd for around £1100 for all brand new components.

 

[PermaBanned]

Fair enough. You can pick up an unused one from the bay for £375 which only adds £100. Speccing up a machine using an i7 930 and an unused GTX295, I could get close to 35k ppd for around £1100 for all brand new components.

So why don't you post it? We may as well make the thread into a repository of builds.

 

[Biffa]

PPD:
30,000 - 32,000 PPD (SMP + GPU)
36,000 - 40,000 PPD (bigadv + GPU)


1 x Intel Core i7 920 D0 2.66GHz Socket 1366 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £176.48 £176.48
1 x NZXT Gamma Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU £30.00 £30.00
1 x OCZ 6GB (3X2GB) DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10666 Gold XTC Triple Channel Memory Kit For i7 Motherboards £104.05 £104.05
1 x Coolermaster Silent Pro 850W Modular PSU £106.66 £106.66
1 x PALIT GTX 470 Tein Cooler 1280MB GDDR5 Dual DVI Mini HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card £242.26 £242.26
1 x ASUS P6T SE iX58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £123.54 £123.54
1 x Maxtor STM3250318AS 250GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache - OEM £25.71 £25.71
1 x LiteOn iHDS118 18x DVD-ROM SATA - OEM Black £8.07 £8.07
1 x ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa Socket LGA1366, LGA1156, 478, LGA775, AM3, AM2+, AM2, 754, 939, 940 Compatible Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler £30.63 £30.63

Shipping £0.00
Subtotal £847.40
VAT £148.33
Order Total £995.73

 

[miniyazz]

OK, here's my attempt at producing a rather decent PPD without going over the top on budget. This would be a high-end build but not top-end - for that you'd need to introduce watercooling so GTX 480s (or GTX 295s) can be single-slot, not to mention sort out the heat issues - either that, or change the motherboard and case for more expensive versions.
If this were to be used as a PC as well, a few of the components would be a bit more rounded. Currently it assumes you have a spare keyboard/mouse/monitor lying around to set it up, and assumes you'll use dummy plugs once it's set up.

Based on ~4kPPD from each GT 240, ~16k from GTX 470, and ~14k from i7 @ 3.8-4.2GHz, I estimate 42kPPD from this build.

 

[Biffa]

I'd be concerned about fitting those gfx cards in that mobo, might be ok tho!

 

[miniyazz]

I picked them because as far as I can tell, they're single-slot, so it should be OK. In a normal-size case the mobo will support one dual-slot and three single-slot cards; in a larger case with 8 expansion slots it'll support two dual-slot and two single-slot.

Naturally you'll get more PPD by sticking it on bigadv, but you'll need to spend a bit more on RAM.

The 920 is a good choice over the 930 but Overclockers don't stock it. I reckon if you're going to get the most PPD for your money you have to fill all available PCI-e slots though.

 

[Biffa]

Yeah I think you might have to invest in some more fans tho I put a 240 in my fathers machine and it can get noisy. I also think that you would be fine with the GDDR3 versions as memory shouldn't play a huge part in PPD, but its only a few quid more.

Ram wise the GPU core only seems to use about 50MB of memory per gpu core. Yes if running bigadv you would need to double the memory probably to 12GB but you could probably squeeze by with 6GB if it was a dedicated box.

920 was about the same price at OcUk when it was available before, or a bit cheaper, you can get it at other suppliers for the same as the old OcUk special price but other parts are more expensive there

I'd probably mix and match from various suppliers if they have free delivery.

 

[miniyazz]

Mixing and matching is deffo the way forward. You may notice I actualy specced the machine with 3GB RAM though
I suspected that noise wouldn't be an issue for a dedicated rig as it can be put somewhere out of the way (*cough* shed *cough*) but I don't really know how well-ventilated that case is.

 

[Biffa]

Thats why I chose the case I did, never seen it before but its got nice ventilation and room for a big radiator in the top if necessary

You might want to double check that PSU, somewhere else has it listed with the following caveat:

NOTE: This PSU only fits into the Antec P183, Antec P193 & Antec 1200 Gaming Cases.

 

[miniyazz]

Error
There's an FSP Everest 800W one that's just over £90 that should be decent enough. The whole setup should draw roughly 650W under load so a bit of headroom there too.


Edit: scratch that, more like 700W. The PSU you're using would be better.