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ghost6303

2[H]4U
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well, its that time again- ive been out of the performance computer world for several years (back when the e6600 just came out). stopped playing games due to lack of time, let my computer age into the pile of junk it is now, barely able to run two standard F@h txt clients. time to build a new one.

a good gaming computer is not necessarily a good folding computer- but a good folding computer is as good a gaming rig as i would need. this computer is going to be on and folding (and hosting some personal data for myself) 24/7, and i would like to play some bad company or similar every once in a while and watch some high-def videos, and have it look good. so its primary function will be to fold for #33.

my question is-
what is the best video card/processor/whatever else combo out there to get the most PPD out of my cpu cycles? i read nvidea GPUs are the best crunchers out there currently...?

the i7-930 is $300 when the i7-870 is $550- is 64 bit processing any better for folding? (i have all versions of windows, compatability isnt an issue).

a reasonable budget is probably $1500-2000 for mobo, cpu, ram, video card(s), and water blocks, though that number is flexable. (well of course its going to be water cooled!). i already have all other associated hardware. thanks.
 
welcome back friend!

Alot of folks here run the i7's, (i7 920)
9800x2's are good, or the 260 Core GPU's are good,

Lemme compile a hardware list for ya for a good folding system.
 
gkanakis is selling off some 9800GX2's. I get about ~10K from each of mine. Obviously decent gaming card. The GTX275 is a good card and good for about 7500 to 8500 depending on WUs. The 'egg seems to be out of them at the moment (at least they were last night when I was looking for a card for a HTPC).

I've got two i7's running Big Adv now and definitely worth it. If you have a MicroCenter nearby, you can get them for 180+tax. I am thinking about getting another one for my HTPC build.

 
the 9800gx2 has been out for several years, no? im not looking for a $1000 brand new card, but it should be somewhat newer so it wont be obsolete by the time i open the box. the GTX275 is probably what im more interested in. the number of stream processors is what has the greatest impact on folding points correct?


and that i7-920 is a realy good price on newegg. that would leave enough left over for moar ram or another video card.

it kinda breaks my heart- i was an ATI guy back in the day when ATI was on top. i feel dirty going to the dark side...

thanks for the suggestions though.
 
Welcome back to the fold! Definitely go with a socket 1366 cpu. The i7 920 is the best bang for the buck right now.

If you want to game and fold without breaking the bank on a video card I'd recommend the $350 GTX 470 coming out in the next couple of weeks. I wouldn't buy a last gen card if this is going to be a gaming/folding computer. For the same $$ you can get a 5850, but it won't fold nearly as well and the gaming performance is about equal to the GTX 470.

Don't go small on RAM, buy 12gb if you are going socket 1366 and plan to fold while gaming.

With your budget I'd also look at one of the Intel SSD drives to boot off of and buy a nice 1 tb WD black for data.

For a PSU I'd go with at least an 750-850 watt, maybe something like the Corsair HX850. Don't forget to budget for Windows 7 x64.

Fold On!
 
Everyone else pretty much answered everything the way I would, except you asked if 64-bit OS is any better for folding. For what the method you're going to want to fold (e.g Bigadv), YES, simply because it's going to require (not recommend) at least 6GBs of RAM which isn't possible to address on a 32-bit OS (since it can only use up to 4GBs).

Just to echo what the above have said, go 1366 (i7 920/930), a bit better value, features and upgrade path, in a nutshell.
 
I was actually just reading the topic a few rows down regarding the gtx480 and how its almost 3.5x faster at folding then the 295. that looks like its going to be the best bang for the buck coupled with a i7-920. Il probably start out with 6gb ram, and buy another 6 when i have some spare moneys.

i have over 4tb of hard drives sitting on my desk, il punch myself if i buy another one anytime soon hah. and i have a good solid 750w OCZ power supply and windows xp and 7 x64 versions already.
 
I think I saw some screen shots of the 480s PPD last night somewhere. I'm pretty sure it was getting around 14-15k PPD on the GPU2 client, which is about the same as a 295, I think. Before I saw those screen shots, I also read that the 480 was supposed to be at least 3.5x faster than a 285 (not 295). But I could be wrong on all of that, I'm just going off what I've skimmed over about it. I haven't specifically searched for numbers on the 480s PPD output currently. I don't think anyone will know for sure until the new client is released for Fermi cards.
 
this is where that 3.5x reference came from, from the post a few rows down titled 'who wants a fermi now?'

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783&p=6

i havnt read thru the entire anandtech writeup but depending on the circumstances around that test, it could be very impressive if it is indeed accurate. though in a few other threads around here 3.5 to 4 times the performance of a 285 might not be correct.

i have a month or so until i start buying for this build anyways, so we shall see when these cards are actually released how the numbers play out. i would certainly be down on spending an extra few hundred bucks ( + ~50% ) over the cost of another card if it meant that i would get a card that was several magnitudes faster.
 
I'll say +1 to socket 1366 offerings.

If you really feel icky going with team Green on your vid card, there are some other options besides folding@home that make great use of the ATI GPU. Collatz conjecture, Milkyway@home, and RC5-72 are the three that I am familiar with. Of course it all depends on how the GTX480 and 470 work in real world testing with folding@home. There is some speculation that some of the smaller work units may not be able to leverage the full power of the new nvidia GPUs due to the large number of shader units. Time will tell.
 
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