BigAdv with Opteron 8300/8400 chips.

ok, here we go, here are pics:

http://i.imgur.com/EIiIcyR.jpg <-- find my reflection! :D

http://i.imgur.com/63tT2Os.jpg

to get them to fit i first took apart the X mounts for the 212's, then removed the screws that came with them and kept the spring for the top. i then took the bottom arm and drilled holes with a 3/16" drillbit in either end to accommodate the new screw positions. the arm had a natural dip where i ended up making the holes. i then screwed them down with the screws that came with the copper 1u heatsinks and the spring from the X bracket of the 212. also note the orientation of all the heatsinks, and the one with the fan blowing the other way.

fun and easy enough, there is plenty of arm left after drilling and i am most likely going to be ordering more if they are ever back instock for $10/ea
 
Cool!

Sorry, had to say it.

if they go back in stock for $10, I'm getting 4 too.
 
Why did we let this thread die? It should be renamed and moved to the guide section. You can build one of the folding rigs in my sig for under $300 and get around 180-200k ppd.

Processor- Opteron 8431 - I just bought 8 of these at $25 a piece and he is down to $20 shipped with plenty left.

Motherboard- H8QME-2+ - I've bought 3 boards from this guy and he has plenty left. I got him to $110 shipped for two boards, not sure if he will do that again but he should definitely do $100 shipped for one. These kits also include 16gb of ram and four 1u pure copper heatsinks.

Power Supply - A good solid 850w power supply will do. Roughly $70.

CPU Adapter - Can be had for $10. Just a simple PCI-E to 8pin CPU plug will do.

Case - Naked of course. No cost.

Hard Drive - OS can be run on a USB drive or old spare Hard Drive. No cost.

Fans - 90% of people have fan's laying around. If you don't, these are only $15 and they worked for me.

There you go. Under $300 investment and you are in the BigAdv arena with 24 cores at almost 200k ppd.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Some people have trouble keeping these cool in warmer climates and need better cooling than 1u copper.

Those 8431s are super cheap though, that would betempting if I didn't have all these 2011 processors :)
 
yeah, I bought 4 @ $20 a piece. Then managed to screw up one of the sockets in the swap. Did you know 3 of them will still make the deadline on a 8101? Run a lot cooler than the 8386's. 36-40 in my unheated workshop crunching an 8101. Now if I could quit getting the 8018's on my 660ti I'd be happy.
 
Wow I had no idea three would make the deadline. What PPD?
 
Last edited:
Penn7.
Using this calculator the min TPF to finish a 8101 is 34 minutes.
I think Quinsp posted that in this thread somewhere in the first few pages.
http://www.linuxforge.net/bonuscalc2.php
I just plugged in a 8101 with 34, 35, 36, anything over 34 gave 0 bonus points.
Please report back if you make deadline or not.
 
Putting in a time of 34:01 gets 87550 ppd on the calculator. Depending on upload time that system would barely make deadline.
 
thats where I am, flucuates from 34:00 to 34:03. quess we'll see. The first one didn't make it because I had a 24hr downtime.
 
It finishes about 1:30 am tomorrow, I'll report tomorrow morning. fingers and toes crossed.
 
Right now tpf is 33:56, but say this probably jinxes it. I do have good upload speed normally. just have to wait and see.
 
bigted said:
Some people have trouble keeping these cool in warmer climates and need better cooling than 1u copper.
Click to expand...

That is true, but I would guess there's an equal amount of people who can't afford a g34 or 2011 4p rig. You could purchase 4 socket f heatsinks that provide better cooling and still be under $400 for almost 200k ppd. Maybe we should create a thread that has rigs at different price points?
 
PuppeteerNessus said:
That is true, but I would guess there's an equal amount of people who can't afford a g34 or 2011 4p rig. You could purchase 4 socket f heatsinks that provide better cooling and still be under $400 for almost 200k ppd. Maybe we should create a thread that has rigs at different price points?
Click to expand...

problem is how often prices change, just at the beginning of the year those 8431's were in relatively high demand and would run $90/ea, so at $20/ea that's an awesome deal since demand is lower.

there is a hot deals for folders thread that gets bumped up with deals every few months, maybe making that more active would help out? just throwing ideas around :)
 
I'm just happy I've only got about $280 in mine, including the 8431's. It will fold till they change, then find a new purpose or owner.
 
Wow. Well that sucks. Really kills the whole Socket F thing like you said. And I DID just purchse an additional four 8431's yesterday.
 
bigted said:
see this post from tear: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040473863&postcount=4

as long as deadlines don't change, there are workarounds to make F still capable
Click to expand...

That's encouraging. You probably don't remember, but back when this thread was hoping my third h8qme-2+ board was having issues that would only allow it to boot three processors. Well once I restarted this thread I decided to give it a shot because it's just set idle and I was able to get it working with four 8386's, so I decided to build my third 8431 board. Either way, I already had everything, so even if I only get 4 months out of the new board, it was only $80.
 
Is this kind of build still worth it? Been wanting to build a 4P rig and I'm not looking to spend a ton of money doing one at this time.
 
Short answer, we don't know yet.

Long answer:
The core count to get BA WU will shortly go up to 24, so that is a hardish limit on what can get BA. Secondly, your rig will need to be able to complete the WU before the preferred deadline in order to get QRB. Currently there is no further information from PG with regard to this and if it is going to change. This is why we don't know yet.

If you have a use for a low end 4P other than FAH and you can do it for cheap, go for it. If you are building solely for FAH, I'd wait to see what shakes out. If you really want more PPD and can't wait to see what happens, get the newest GPU you can afford to purchase and power. You'll get 100-150kPPD with a single high end GPU.

Summary:
Changes are coming but the path forward is not yet clear.
 
I have a NOOooob Question. Hopefully TEAR, Musky, or someone With Server knowledge can answer this.
Can we take our low-end 4p 84xx and by using infiniband cards, connect 2 Server motherboards:eek:
If this is possible, would that make a 4p Quad (16) into a 8p Quad (32) or even 48:confused:
I currently run Cent OS 6.5 in Desktop Mode, should I install this in Server Mode:confused:
Would special software have to be written to make this work:confused:

Thank You For Your Time
In Reading and Responding
MaddMutt
 
MaddMutt said:
I have a NOOooob Question. Hopefully TEAR, Musky, or someone With Server knowledge can answer this.
Can we take our low-end 4p 84xx and by using infiniband cards, connect 2 Server motherboards:eek:
If this is possible, would that make a 4p Quad (16) into a 8p Quad (32) or even 48:confused:
I currently run Cent OS 6.5 in Desktop Mode, should I install this in Server Mode:confused:
Would special software have to be written to make this work:confused:

Thank You For Your Time
In Reading and Responding
MaddMutt
Click to expand...

No one has been able to do this yet. You are basically talking about a cluster of some sort. You would need some sort of middleware such as vSMP/ScaleMP, but licensing is very expensive and no one knows if it would work anyway. No one has found a free alternative for this, thus it has not been done. There are a few threads even on this forum on exactly this topic if you want to do some searching to see where each thread eventually died.
 
Thank You For Your Vast Knowledge.

BOWING WHILE CHANTING:

Were Not Worthy!!!!!
Were Not Worthy!!!!
Were Not Worthy!!!!
 
So now that Vijay has revised the requirements for BigAdv and 24-core folders will be BigAdv eligible until the end of BigAdv on January 31, 2015, I've been looking into some cheap 4P folders to take advantage of the yearlong reprieve.

I found this sale for a Supermicro H8QME-2+ motherboard and 16GB of RAM for $100 (with a make an offer options so it might go for less)

and this sale for 2 6-core Opteron 8434 processors for $120 for the pair (also with a make offer option).

For $300 plus the cost of a power supply, it might just be worth pulling the trigger on this kit to run BigAdv for a year on a 160-180k PPD folder.

Will I see any compatibility issues between this motherboard and these processors?

From the Supermicro web site, they LOOK compatible, but is anyone running this setup?
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
To answer agrikk's question, you will most likely have to flash the bios for 6 core processors. There is a link in the first post for flashing.
 
Yeah, I figured there'd be a BIOS update involved, but that's no sweat.

8434's for $50-60 or 8431's for $15? Hah! $130 for a 24-core folder?

But now I'm interested in the G34 build for $500. :) Bill1024, for which parts did you search?
 
8431's PPD are close enough to 8435's PPD that the price difference would drive me to get the *much* cheaper option.

if you wanted to price some G34 options, you should join #hardfolding on freenode.net IRC. We love spending other peoples' money :)
 
The one thing to remember is PG hasn't given us the new deadline times yet. If they tighten them up to much it will knockout all the socket F rigs and possibly some 32 thread rigs too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top