Budget card for folding

[northun_munky]

I currently fold on my gaming rig with a q6600 and 8800gt but my media rig stays on 24/7 and i was thinking of getting a graphics card for it to improve it's pedestrian PPD.

Iwas thinking of maybe a 3850 but ideally want to keep the expenditure below £50 if i can. Could anyone point me in the direction of a good sub £50 card for it? I know It'll never be a folding beast but if I could put in another 1000PPD it all helps with the project.

Its current specs are
P4 3ghz
1gig ram
Acer Mobo (all I know is it supports PCIexpress x16)
450w PSU

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Biffa]

Umm you know you can fold with the 8800GT and you can pick them up for £75 in the MembersMarket (you might need a few more posts to access it.)

Alternatively the 8800GS is on pre-order at the moment for a few quid over £50

Take a look at this:

 

[WJA96]

For £50 you could probably get a Dual-core Celeron or a second-hand E4300 and a new motherboard that'll do 1000ppd.

 

[northun_munky]

Thanks Biffa for the graph. I do use my 8800gt for folding. With the SMP client as well on the q6600 FAHmon says I'm getting about 5700 PPDish but my gaming rig is in my bedroom and the wife isn't happy with the noise at night when were trying to kip so it only runs for 10 hours or so. My other rig (the one im trying to spec the card for) is down stairs and runs 24/7. The PPD for the 8600's look good. Do you know how they compare to similar ATI cards?

 

[Biffa]

Problem with the ATi client at the moment is that it just isn't as optimised as the Nvidia client. So you get less ppd and much higher CPU useage, I'm not even sure a P4 would be enough to feed the Ati client as it maxes out a single core on a C2D system already. A 3870 does about 1900 PPD apparently, according to Toms Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/gallery/folding-at-home,0101-111005-0-14-15-1-jpg-.html