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Budget Folding Boxen...

OSUguy98

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2006
Joined
Oct 8, 2003
Messages
3,959
What's the going rate(s) for the most economical folding boxen?
With the current assortment of processors out there, which are turning in the best (pts/hr)/$??
 
I would say AMD's over Intel at the moment due to Tinkers being revalued.
At the moment 9 of my 11 cpu's are running them.
Average is over 3.5 points per hour per Ghz.

I would go for a fully intergrated nForce2 with a 2500+/2600+ and see if it overclocks.
Fry's do that deal for around $100.

Luck....... :D
 
the best i could do on newegg was a little below $300 for a full (and not too horrible) system - 2500+, nforce2 (w/ integrated graphics), case, psu, cdrom, floppy, 40 gig drive, 256 megs o ram.
 
Bodega said:
the best i could do on newegg was a little below $300 for a full (and not too horrible) system - 2500+, nforce2 (w/ integrated graphics), case, psu, cdrom, floppy, 40 gig drive, 256 megs o ram.
Yeah I come up about the same at the egg.
  • Not sure how well if at all the K7VIG 400 OCs so the 2700+ gives you a healthy dose of MHz all by itself:
    • Biostar K7VIG 400 Mobo (Everything integrated) - $47
    • Athlon XP 2700+, 2.17GHz, T-Bred Core(Retail comes with HSF) - $107
    • Cheap stick of DDR2700 128MB - $27
    • Maxtor HD, 40G - $51 <----shopping elsewhere for this would be a better idea
    • Linkworld Black/Silver Mini Case - $28
    • Grand Total of $275 which includes shipping. Tax not included.
  • Another option would be the 2800+, 2.08GHz, Barton Core, Retail HSF (Not sure what that would get you over the T-Bred other than the newer Barton core) - $121
  • For cooler running at almost the same raw MHz you could go for the mobile XP 2600+, 2GHz, Barton Core and pick up a HSF for it - $95 for the CPU and less than $10 for sure for a HSF.
Even using one of the optional processors above it comes in under $300, though just barely. You don't need either the floppy or a cdrom if it's only folding. Just plug in a CD-Rom from your main system or if you have a spare use that during the initial building and install of whatever OS and then once that is done take the CD-Rom back off and put back where ya got it from. No reason for a dedicated floppy either, do the same as the CD-Rom if you really need one.




Also, if you're hardcore like some of the freaks around here you can always forget the case and just put it in an empty pizza box. Can't bring myself to do that so I pay a bit for a case.

Good luck and have fun!
 
If you do some scrounging, you may be able to either find an old system with a 1gb+ hard drive, or you can probably buy one for less than $10 from some local shop (used)
 
Don't forget about all those old 1700 and 1800 xp's still floating around out there for $50 or less. Just modded two for a friend, got 2+ gig out of both. Used that msi board too. Works great as a folder. Volcano-7 HSF is still fairly cheap as well. Don't forget the "scrounge" part as mentioned by Bill Clo, lot's of goodies to be had that way :D

Fold on

BillR
 
I can generally piece together a budget AMD system for about $150. (Once I put together a 2Ghz AMD system for only $105 because of a nice deal at Fry's). This is a barebones layer that can either boot from a CD-rom folding OS, or be booted via PXE from a Linux terminal server. In either case, I use Overclockix Linux for my OS. Less hardware = better folding for less $
 
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