Best PC For Folding?

[Feänor]

yeah but i would like a Monster Folder.... its for a good cause.. who cares about the electricity bill lol, the gpu thing limiting the entire pc?

Ïf you want to fold seriously, then cpu folding is the way to go. SMP units have a exponential bonus system for points (the faster you finish a work unit, the higher the bonus added to base points will be) and the gpu units don't.

When i leave my i7 970 folding alone, it nets my around 42000 ppd. Adding a gpu drop the smp output to 35k. Adding a second gpu gets me 30-32k for the cpu and 15-17k per gpu. So yes you're right, the gpu ppd will compensate for the cpu loss. BUT, that is when folding regular SMP units. 4p systems using linux fold very special work units, called "bigadv". The bonus points on those are HUGE and as the gpu you install add points in a linear way, the bonus points will drop exponentially. So for this specific case, no it is not a good option.

If you want to have yourself a monster folder, get a rack, multiple 4p g34 motherboard to fill it, MANY 12-cores magny-cours cpu (they are a little better at folding than interlagos), 4 stick of ram per cpu (try to get the best timings possible for ddr3-1333 ram) and a gold or platinum 600-700w psu. Install linux and follow one of the many good linux folding guide to optimise your rigs.

You may want to pm buck nasty or bogmali, they have a lot of experience with folding and can give you good advice.

 

[mstenholm]

The absolute best single pc would be something like this:http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/5U/5086/SYS-5086B-TRF.cfm

80 core/160 threads, but probably over 100k$, and good luck powering this thing 24/7!

If you're talking about ppd/w or ppd/$, nothing can beat a 4p opteron rig. You can build one for under 3000$ and get over 300k ppd while consuming around 500w.

No gpu can get close to those numbers, and the cpu cycle they use will lower the ppd production of the smp client by a lot more than ppd the gpu(s) can produce. So even if your quad socket g34 motherboard has 5 pci-e slots, don't bother filling them. For the price of 5 gtx 580, you can build another rig!

Right on in both posts.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Ïf you want to fold seriously, then cpu folding is the way to go. SMP units have a exponential bonus system for points (the faster you finish a work unit, the higher the bonus added to base points will be) and the gpu units don't.

When i leave my i7 970 folding alone, it nets my around 42000 ppd. Adding a gpu drop the smp output to 35k. Adding a second gpu gets me 30-32k for the cpu and 15-17k per gpu. So yes you're right, the gpu ppd will compensate for the cpu loss. BUT, that is when folding regular SMP units. 4p systems using linux fold very special work units, called "bigadv". The bonus points on those are HUGE and as the gpu you install add points in a linear way, the bonus points will drop exponentially. So for this specific case, no it is not a good option.

If you want to have yourself a monster folder, get a rack, multiple 4p g34 motherboard to fill it, MANY 12-cores magny-cours cpu (they are a little better at folding than interlagos), 4 stick of ram per cpu (try to get the best timings possible for ddr3-1333 ram) and a gold or platinum 600-700w psu. Install linux and follow one of the many good linux folding guide to optimise your rigs.

You may want to pm buck nasty or bogmali, they have a lot of experience with folding and can give you good advice.

Well said. Gaming and Folding PC's have two different purposes in life, so don't confuse the two. As for electricity, it IS the number one cost with Folding and the 4P G34 rig is the best PPD/watt. You can beat the AMD PPD with an Intel rig, but the cost goes through the roof as mentioned before.
(I'm not back yet, just had to respond to the mis-information in this thread)

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Now with all the high end systems explored, what would be a good entry level system for someone just starting out with crunching on a very tight budget? A single cpu socket board type system and single graphics card. Why I ask is that I maybe considering giving folding@home a go for awhile.

 

[[Ion]]

Now with all the high end systems explored, what would be a good entry level system for someone just starting out with crunching on a very tight budget? A single cpu socket board type system and single graphics card. Why I ask is that I maybe considering giving folding@home a go for awhile.

You can score used GTX460s for just under $100, and they'll do about 13-15k PPD each. If you threw one in each of your WCG rigs, that wouldn't be too expensive and would give great PPD (although GTX460s do draw close to 150w each).

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Hmm thats actually doable. What if I wanted to commit 1 full rig to Folding? Say like my 4400+ considering it is a Sli capable board? Would I drop 2 460's in it and run them in Sli and also use the cpu? I actually have another system in the works to replace that one for crunching.

 

[[Ion]]

Hmm thats actually doable. What if I wanted to commit 1 full rig to Folding? Say like my 4400+ considering it is a Sli capable board? Would I drop 2 460's in it and run them in Sli and also use the cpu? I actually have another system in the works to replace that one for crunching.

Don't run them in SLI, FAH works best when there's a separate instance running on each GPU. You could run SMP on the CPU as well, but it would do ~10-15% of the PPD of one GTX460, so you might as well leave it on WCG

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

cool thanks.