Folding type rig - What do I need?

[monkeypants]

I'm considering building a dual proccessor rig for folding or something like that, trouble is I don't really know what I'll need other than two CPUs and a motherboard to match.

OK, questions as follows:

CPUs: Xeons? What speed? Cache? FSB? HT?
RAM: ECC? What speed?
HDD: What size?
Motherboard: Everything...

Any reccommendations for these things?

finally internet connection: is it needed at all times?

Also I want to keep this as cheap as possible, will be looking for used/free components.. What is it likely to cost? Don't want to spend more than £150-200 preferably under £100 if possible.

Thanks!

 

[Amp34]

Dear god Billy what have you started!

I built my rig for just under £250 but if you have a few second hand components, ie HD, RAM and a decent single rail PSU it should be cheaper. Having said that your very unlikelly to be able to build one for less than £100.

There are a couple of threads floating around, they should help you a lot.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17550588&highlight=xeon

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17548595&highlight=xeon

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17543273&highlight=xeon

The main things you will need if you want to make a dual zeon rig (other than standard stuff) are 2 cpu's, really they should be bought as a pair or you may have problems with stability, and a mobo. If you do decide on xeons the best boards to get are the Asus PC-DL and the PCH-DL, they are the best overclocking boards around at the moment. The board will cost about £100 and the chips (if you want to overclock, which as your budget is low) will be about £50 (on a well known auction site). This will be for a pair of used 1.6GHz lv d1 step processors which can easily be overclocked to over 3GHZ pretty easily.

The two boards specced above will also take standard non EEC RAM so anything you have spare from DDR233 to 400+ will be fine. Although if you want to go for really high clocks you will want some decent RAM.

Hope that helps!


Ps. the seti team need as much help as possible, maybe give them a try.

 

[monkeypants]

Those 1.6Ghz Xeons, are they 400FSB with 512KB cache?

How big a HDD will I need?

How much RAM will be enough/ideal?

I'm going to try and scrag as much as I can from my college network manager to keep the cost down.

I've not decided what it'll be for yet and seti sounds cool... I thought it had ended though?

 

[dun]

Those 1.6Ghz Xeons, are they 400FSB with 512KB cache?

How big a HDD will I need?

How much RAM will be enough/ideal?

I'm going to try and scrag as much as I can from my college network manager to keep the cost down.

I've not decided what it'll be for yet and seti sounds cool... I thought it had ended though?

Sorry mate but if you don't know what you want to run nevermind the hardware side maybe your abit over your head. You got £100 burning a hole in your back pocket or something?
Maybe have abit of a read on the ocuk folding etc forum for a while pick up a few ideas.

 

[Amp34]

Those 1.6Ghz Xeons, are they 400FSB with 512KB cache?

How big a HDD will I need?

How much RAM will be enough/ideal?

I'm going to try and scrag as much as I can from my college network manager to keep the cost down.

I've not decided what it'll be for yet and seti sounds cool... I thought it had ended though?

With the xeons you want to make sure you go for a set of low voltage 1.3v D1 stepped ones as they are by far the best overclockers. If you jusy want to do Dc applictions go for a small harddrive, i have a 30gb drive in mine but thats only because i had it hanging around before, any harddrive over 5GB will do, doesnt matter if its an ide or SATA drive either.

On the ram front I have 1GB in my machine which is perfectly fine for 4 processes of any boinc project but Billytheimpaler has 2GB as he is doing folding. You could probably get away with only 512mb if you really wanted but then you would be pushing it.

Seti classic ended a while ago but it was merged with BOINC which i just a program for running DC projects, on BOINC there are about 7 or 8 main projects you can do, many at the same time where it splits the processing time between projects.

Have a look at the links i gave you and they should answer all your questions. If they don't come back here and we'll be hapy to help.

And to dun, I didnt really know what to use to start with either but i had some spare money knocking around and decided i wanted to know more about computers and overclocking etc. I had lots of questions and browsed a few guides etc and i now I have a greater knowledge and experience about OC'ing and computers. You have to learn somewhere and the main way to learn is to ask questions.

 

[monkeypants]

I've got my eye on a pair or 1.6 LVs, but I need heatsinks. There's not much choice and I need them to be quiet, will passive one's with quiet fans be ok? Something like a Supermicro 1U Passive CEK?

 

[dun]

And to dun, I didnt really know what to use to start with either but i had some spare money knocking around and decided i wanted to know more about computers and overclocking etc. I had lots of questions and browsed a few guides etc and i now I have a greater knowledge and experience about OC'ing and computers. You have to learn somewhere and the main way to learn is to ask questions.

Yep we all have to start somewhere but investing in a multi cpu "folding type rig" seems like running before you can walk to me Also take into concideration things like power usage, possible fire hazard depending where its going to be kept, heat build up and the like. Theres a few conciderations that don't immediately spring to mind with a 24/7 rig that will be 100% cpu usage all its life.

 

[monkeypants]

Yep we all have to start somewhere but investing in a multi cpu "folding type rig" seems like running before you can walk to me

What do you suggest then? Anything will be useful.

 

[dun]

Well i don't know how much you know/ are into computers mate
Maybe start off running a project that you feel is worth while on your main rig. I don't see the point in just running any old project "just because". Then once you have settled on something eg FAH then you can build a rig more suited to that.

 

[monkeypants]

PCs are what I do in my spare time (which is a lot)

I'll set up BOINC on this PC and go from there. I was thinking of various combinations of things like putting this Pentium-M in my download box, running BOINC on this with the northwood and using the Xeon rig as a main PC. I still have a lot to work out.

 

[dun]

PCs are what I do in my spare time (which is a lot)

I'll set up BOINC on this PC and go from there. I was thinking of various combinations of things like putting this Pentium-M in my download box, running BOINC on this with the northwood and using the Xeon rig as a main PC. I still have a lot to work out.

Sounds good mate. I take it you would put boinc on the xeon even if it was your main rig?

 

[monkeypants]

I certainly would, you think that's a better idea then?

 

[Amp34]

Yep we all have to start somewhere but investing in a multi cpu "folding type rig" seems like running before you can walk to me Also take into concideration things like power usage, possible fire hazard depending where its going to be kept, heat build up and the like. Theres a few conciderations that don't immediately spring to mind with a 24/7 rig that will be 100% cpu usage all its life.

You do have a point there. I was assuming that he had a bit of knowledge about PC's beforehand, which from his latest posts is right. Although dual cpu rigs do seem complicated the one i have built is very easy and cheap. As long as you know that it will take a bit of electricity to keep running you should be fine. Saying that my Boinc rig probably uses less power than my main pc and is a little cooler (runs at 41 degrees full load, ie 4 processes) You have to remember that they are unlikely to contain a fast and power hungry GFX card and only 1 HD. Instead of a normal pc which may have 4 or 5 storage drives and various other things that suck energy. The xeons have a throttling capacity so if the fans stop working they will throttle back or turn of and as long as you have a good PSU there will be no real fire risk, no more than most peoples server and download boxes on here.

 

[Amp34]

I've got my eye on a pair or 1.6 LVs, but I need heatsinks. There's not much choice and I need them to be quiet, will passive one's with quiet fans be ok? Something like a Supermicro 1U Passive CEK?

I'm not really sure about heatsinks, i was reccomended a pair of thermaltakes, but they are pretty noisy. I think a lot of people are going for a passive coolmaster cooler, i cant remember what they are called though. Ill have a look for you.

 

[dun]

I certainly would, you think that's a better idea then?

Totally upto you mate, but i don't think i would personally. Where are you going to put it out of interest?

 

[monkeypants]

In my room, with the other two PCs

EDIT: You know I meant have the P4 run BOINC only, and have the Xeon run BOINC in addition to normal tasks?

 

[Amp34]

Ok i found the two passive coolers, the coolmaster E3W-NPTXS-04 and E3W-NPTXc-01. Im not sure what the difference is but a lot of people are using these coolers as well as the Thermaltake Sonic Tower 4-in-1 Noiseless Heatpipe (Socket 939/754/775/478) CPU Cooler (CL-P0071) (HS-009-TT)
which you can find on ocuk. I dont know if that exact model fits a xeon board though.

Hope that helps

 

[monkeypants]

Cool, thanks Amp.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Whoa, how did I miss this thread?

Amp, I don't think that cooler will work for skt603/604. To get one of tehse heat monsters to be cooled passively or at least by a large, slow moving fan will take a very huge heatpipe style cooler. Squeezing two of them together in such close proximity makes fitment for generic coolers nearly impossible. I've seen some that take 120mm fans but they are very expensive and somewhat hard to find. It might be easier to just go to watercooling if sounds is a major concern.

Oh yeah, definitely avoid the IWTs if you want to minimize sound. They sound like jets getting ready to take off.

Monkey, are you committed to BOINC or can I persuade you to step up to Folding?

 

[monkeypants]

I would do folding, but the SETI team needs all the help it can get.

Do you think my plan of having my P4 dedicated and the Xeon setup run whenever is a good idea? That would mean I could have the P4 running SETI and the Xeon running Folding in it's spare time.