Best Folding CPU

[MajorPart]

What would be better a A64 X2 4400 1mb p/c or a Pentium4 840 1mb p/c? and why?

A mate is wanting a system for Folding and playing the occational game.

Best air cooling solution for recomended system, sound is not a huge issue as it will be kept in a study.

Feel free to move this to CPU's if you think it better placed there, i feel it's not.

 

[Mattus]

Right now, the X2. It's worth more ppd on the majority of WUs. It also runs cooler and will be faster in games.

However when the QMDs come back, the P4 will probably be the faster Folding CPU.

 

[rich99million]

anyone want to guess how good a Pentium D 805 would be?
they are only about £100 all in which is amazing for a dual-core, however they run on a 533MHz bus rather than 800MHz and are only clocked at 2.66GHz (although I think they've been seen to overclock to about 3.5GHz plus quite easily)

I was tempted by the thought of one as any upgrade will most likely result in having to replace everything anyway so a change to the dark side could be on the cards

 

[Stan_Lite]

Depends on the WUs available really.

My X2 4400+ (@ 2.65GHz) gets close to 500 PPD per core on 364 pointers - that's nearly 1000 PPD
It's hard to imagine a P4 getting anywhere near that - even on QMDs.

However, there are very few of them around at the moment and the PPD is much more modest on small WUs (between 150 and 200 on the 56 and 116 pointers on the go just now ). I would suggest that on small WUs, there would be little difference but on big WUs (especially 364 pointers) the A64 would edge it.

As for air cooling. I need to upgrade the cooling on mine as I had to lift the volts a fair bit (1.5v) to get it to 2.65GHz and it is running a bit hot with the stock cooling.

I am using an Si120 with a 120mm Delta on my new Opty 170 rig (@ 2.6GHz - 1.45v) (I finally got it built ). It may sound a bit drastic but it isn't as loud as I thought it would be (especially since I also have 7X120mm case fans as well ) and it keeps the temps to 27 degrees idle (only long enough to check - honest) and 38 degrees with both cores folding.

Alternatively, a less drastic solution would be the Arctic Freezer 64. I have one on my 4000+ San Diego (@ 2.7GHz - 1.5v) which runs at 43 degrees full load. You can only hear this when you put your ear next to it. I think i'll get one of these for the 4400+ as it sits in the living room.

Sorry I can't help a bit more regarding the 805, but I've never heard much about them to be honest.

Stan

 

[rich99million]

Sorry I can't help a bit more regarding the 805, but I've never heard much about them to be honest.

No worries - I was tempted purely due to the price however being an older technology Intel it's no doubt very hot running and quite thirsty on the old leccy

In the long run I'm sure an X2 or dual-core Opty would be the best solution - it's just a lot more painful on the pocket in the short term