• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Beginner Hardware Questions

N

Nyn

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 10, 2005
Messages
84
I've been looking for a bit of a project for myself and wanted to do something that had some substance to it. Obviously Folding is a great way to have some fun, play with some hardware and help do something good for the human race (god knows we probably need all the help we can get).

I've been rummaging through the forums for a while trying to really soak up information and get a handle on some basic questions. Maybe there is a Hardware FAQ that relates to folding that I am missing somewhere? If there is kindly point me to it and that will suffice. :) I believe I have the basics but I'd like to just pose the questions to the larger audience here and see what the recommendations are.

I'm going to start Folding on my main system's CPU(Opteron 180) and GPU(7900GT) on Vista64 while I'm not using the system to game on. I would however like to put together a couple of boxen to strictly fold with.

In terms of budgeting and hardware purchasing I'd like to hear from people who have been doing this for a while as to just where the best money spent is in terms of hardware. Are you better off with say a lower end Core2 chip with a beefier video card? For example, am I better off with a cheaper say E2200 with a 9800GT on top of it or is it better to go with a Q6600 and ramp down to 8600GT?

Essentially I just want to stretch my purchasing dollars as far as they can go in terms of the CPU and GPU. If I can find a happy medium that keeps me in the $200-$250 range for CPU/GPU that would be ideal. Obviously they will require a bit more (case/mobo/ram/HD).

I should mention I intend to run linux on them, I wouldn't think that should affect what hardware you would choose, but again some of you have been at this a lot longer than I have.

In advance, I really appreciate any input. :)
 
A couple things that come to mind right away. The 7900GT that you have will not fold, you need a CUDA capable card, meaning 8000 series and up. Second, there's no GPU client for Linux so far.

If you're looking to keep the cost down, a real attractive card right now is the 8800GS, which can be had for $60-70 after rebate. This card can be paired up with just about any recent CPU for a respectable PPD.


216
 
Wow, where to start.

Ok, first problem looks like your 7900, near as I can recall it won’t fold. 8 series and higher cards will fold.

Now, if you happen to have that Opti 180 in a DFI or similar board with dual PCIE slots you can easily run 2 8800 GT or GS or even bigger cards, assuming you have a large enough PSU.

You mentioned the Q6600 which as of right now based on dollar per point is still the best deal going. There are many and varied configurations you can set up with that CPU and a multi GPU board as well as a combination of the SMP client plus GPU clients.

One possible combination would be what I’m doing, VMware server running an instance of Linux (with in Windows Vista 64) as well as a GPU client. I have three machines setup like this and I average around 17k to 20k points per day.

Look at the guides at the top of this thread and try a few things. Keep in mind if you chose to go VM with Linux you will have to hit F-8 on each reboot and select disable driver signing enforcement, not a big deal really.

That should give you a place to start, or start thinking, each of us here use various configurations that suit our needs.

Luck man;)

 
Q6600 + an 8800 series card (Which isn't much more than a 8600GT) is the best option I think.
 
You have 2 options that will get you good points for the cost. (that are easy to set up)

1) You can run a CPU only box
A mobo, CPU, RAM, CDROM, and a PSU are all you need.
The Q6600 is still the best bang for buck. If you want to OC a good HSF is a must.
Running notfreds you can get 4-7k out of a box.

2) GPU box
Get as cheep of a multi PCIe board you can get (I got a used board and works great)
Then start loading up GPUs
8800GS are great for cost
I have a box with 2x 9800GX2s, great for getting as many GPUs into one box as you can.

The GPUs will give you the most points.... now. That can and probably will change. The 4-5k that a 8800GS is getting now might go to 3k in the near future.



 
Thanks a ton for the feedback I appreciate it!

I primarily am a gamer, and will likely be picking up a single 9800GT before the end of the week. So for my primary box running Vista that should do the trick. :)

I'd like to run Linux on the new box that I'd like to build specifically for Folding, so for now I will stick with cpu only systems. I'll probably look at the Q6600's in some very basic barebone system. Are there any efforts to develop linux based GPU clients? Perhaps down the road I will migrate to a VM setup and add GPU's to the mix.

For a CPU only setups like that are there any caveats I should be aware of? Maybe I am just missing it, but are there any memory minimums beyond the basic OS requirements?

Thanks!
 
Nyn said:
Thanks a ton for the feedback I appreciate it!

I primarily am a gamer, and will likely be picking up a single 9800GT before the end of the week. So for my primary box running Vista that should do the trick. :)

I'd like to run Linux on the new box that I'd like to build specifically for Folding, so for now I will stick with cpu only systems. I'll probably look at the Q6600's in some very basic barebone system. Are there any efforts to develop linux based GPU clients? Perhaps down the road I will migrate to a VM setup and add GPU's to the mix.

For a CPU only setups like that are there any caveats I should be aware of? Maybe I am just missing it, but are there any memory minimums beyond the basic OS requirements?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can run a notfreds disk system. That has the client and OS all on one bootable CD.

2GB memory is the min.

I like the notfreds computers because all you do is turn them on and forget about them.

 
+1 for notfred's. Even via VMWare, it's pretty much set and forget.

 
If your going a pure CPU system then go Linux.
The Linux client is more stable than the Windoze one and can give better Points per Day with the A2 protiens.
If you have to run Windoze, then look at running the Linux client inside VM's.

It is now possible to run the nVidia GPU client under Wine.
The PpD is the same as runing under Windoze.

I tend to run multi client boxen.
A Q66000 + two 9800GTX's
I'm running two GPU clients on one CPU core and two Linux clients inside VM's on the other three CPU cores.
They give a nice 12k-16k PpD depending on the protiens crunched and only pull ~350 watts from the wall.

Luck ............. :D
 
+ one thousand, one hundred and twenty on the "notfred CD" program. IMO it's the easiet, least complicated and the fastest way to get up and folding (d'oh, of course you need a capable "dual or quad" CPU). Just go here "http://reilly.homeip.net/folding/cd.html", change to your username, team and whether it's a dual or quad CPU, download the 16MB ISO image, burn this to a CD and boot from the CD. (easy breezy to the max) :p

I know you can make other adjustments :rolleyes: I didn't bring any of the other adjustments (tweaks) up because I was trying to explain the proccess as easy and uncomplcated as I could. (ie I've read something about VMWare, using the "dual" config on a quad to run two instances, etc)

OBTW: If you have any problems or questions I would post to nomad8u because IMO he's the resident expert on the "notfred CD". ;)

Another OBTW: It automatically configures the program to be read with FAHmon. (at least it did for me in both Ubuntu and Windose) :)

DC'n for the CURE

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top