How much for a cheap-ish power punching folding pc?

Naffa

Naffa

Naffa

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as in title really, just wanted to slap a cheap-ish folding pc together for Folding@Home (obviously ;)) and other various tasks that require lots of computing power.

ive heard Xeon systems can be had rather cheap but im not sure how cheap. BillyTheImpaler maybe able to help ;)

cheers for any help,
naffa
 
You rang? :p

Amp34 just built a dual Xeon rig based on a discussion we had. I think he came in at just under 250 GBP.

Mine came in at a hair under $600 for dual 3.21 Xeons with a gig of RAM (I added another gig later). In full FAH power mode I run an ultra stripped-down Linux. It's easy as pie to manage; anybody could do it including the n00best of n00bs.

What would you like to do, sir? :D
 
BillytheImpaler said:
What would you like to do, sir? :D
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well.. :D :p as you asked so nicely, i was hoping to join in with the OcUK Folding @ Home team, general Encoding activities such as video and audio encoding. also if SETI@HOME is still going then maybe look into getting involved in that :) i would hopefully have it on 24/7 so maybe use it as a file server as well.

cheers for your help.

EDIT: after looking at Amp's rig i really wana do this :D i got an old case i can duck tape some fans too and i havnt got a project atm so this could be interessting.
 
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Then you should build a system just like mine and Amp's. D1 stepping 1.6 GHz low-voltage Xeons can be had used off of a certain auction site. Get an Asus PC-DL or PCH-DL motherboard and a gig or two of DDR400. Garnish with case and the drives of your choosing. It really is easy as pie to get these chips into the 200% overclock area.
 
im liking the sound of this :D two really overclockable CPU's.. with old stuff lying around such as case and fans.. :D and its all cheap as well!! :D

cheers for your help. i will have a look around.

thanks
 
Folding@home PAH.. You want boinc! Seti, Einstein and Climate experiments, much more interesting than proteins. ;)

As Billy said as long as you have an idea about computers its really simple. There are numerous overclocking guides on the net for xeons, the xtremesystems forum has a very in depth guide to overclocking 1.6lv's and there are a few good threads on the 2cpu forums as well.

Shame you didnt post this yesterday as i saw a nice pair of 1.6's on the auction site, almost bought them too! You should be able to get a pair for less than £50, don't spend any more. The two biggest expenses i had on my machine were the mobo, which is very difficult to find second hand, although there are a few websites that sell returned ones for slightly less, and the PSU which needs to be a single rail one with an 8 pin connector, adaptors are very difficult to find in this country. Other than that, just use what you have lying around, a cheep, cheep GFX card-if at all, any RAM, preferrably pc3200 to get the 200fsb. There are a lot of people using PC3200 value ram but some good ram may be worth it. And any old hard drive as long as it works and is reliable, unlike a certain other persons ;) .

You will also need a couple of HSF's, there are loads to choose from, Billy has the stock Intel Wind tunnels and I have a pair of thermaltake A1608 (can be picked up for £25 the pair. I had to remove the screws on one side of mine to get them to fit on the PCH-DL board though, hasn't caused any problems) There are also some passive versions that people are running.

Anyway hope thats helped a little.

PS:Can i put links to other forums?
 
The stock Intel Wind Tunnel heatsink/fan combos are around 25 USD for the pair. Amp, I do believe you can link other forums just so long as they are not selling anything computer related.
 
thanks for all this guys :D

think i will be investing when i get ahold of some cash.. but it just seems too cheap to be true :confused:

but again, thanks very much for your help.
 
How about an 805 and clock the 'ell out of it? could have 8ghz+ of computing power for about £300.

BG-173-AS **B Grade** OcUK Value Aspire X-Qpack Cube Case - Silver (BG-173-AS) 1
£48.50 £48.50
CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.6GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£79.50 £79.50
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£64.95 £64.95
HD-023-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 80GB 800JD SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-WD)
£29.95 £29.95
MB-084-AB Abit LG-81 Intel 945G Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-084-AB)
£64.95 £64.95
Subtotal £287.85
VAT £50.38
Total £338.23

Heres my spec for one, but you neednt get a new HD or a SFF case which would save a fair bit and they seem to be clocking excellently.
 
naffa said:
8Ghz? :eek: as in 4Ghz per core? :eek: :eek:
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Yep, up to 800mhz FSB on that chip is 4ghz per core. Can be done with a little bump in voltage on most of them it seems as they were designed to run 800mhz FSB.

I'm buying one for encoding and maybe some F@H sort of thing
 
2.6 GHz is child's play for the D1 stepping Xeons. To get that all you have to do is move a jumper on the mobo. No wore mods, no fancy cooling, nothing. I've taken mine to 4 GHz unstable. I think it was my RAM and the on-board voltage regualtors holding me back. I'm working on some mods to make it stable past 4.2. Also note that the Xeons are hyperthreaded whilst the 805 is not.

Personally I'd take the Xeons (as I laready have) but perhaps in the future I'll build a 805 machine. I do feel the itch to build a dual core machine... :D
 
Dual/Quad/8-way Opterons are also good for encoding, I think that they are supposed to be better than xeon though more expensive.
 
As billy said the majority of 1.6's will get to at least 3ghz on stock voltage, unfortunatly im having a some issues with mine at the moment, im pretty certain its the board (typical as thats the most expensive part :rolleyes: ) as some PCH and PC-DL's have issues with clocking. The majority don't but there are about 40% that have problems.

As energize suggested you could always go for a 4 way dual core opteron system, now that would be impressive. (on both scores and your wallet) :p
 
BillytheImpaler said:
You could do a whole dual Xeon cruncher like the one described here for a quarter of the cost of a single s940 Opteron.
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I dont know where you are getting your prices from....

AMD Opteron 242 (1.6 GHz) £142
AMD Opteron 244 (1.8 GHz) £137
AMD Opteron 246 (2.0 GHz) £160
AMD Opteron 248 (2.2 GHz) £170
AMD Opteron 250 (2.4 GHz) £240
 
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