Build a low cost i7 hex core system

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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Apr 25, 2001
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At this point in time buying an L5640 from ebay appears to be great bang for the buck to go intel hex. Your mileage may vary, but the MSI board does support the cpu.

Here's what I did:

1. L5640 cpu $389 shipped from ebay
2. 3X1gb G.skill DDR3 $84.99 from Newegg
3. Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF $29.99 from Newegg
4. Open box MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard $136.99 Newegg
5. Corsair 400CX PSU $29.99 after MIR from Newegg

Total cost $670 plus some shipping from Newegg

Throw a cheap vid card in, small used hard drive and you are off to the -bigadv races!

Fold On!
 
o_O

that is surprisingly affordable.......now to figure out if i can do that lol.....meh maybe in a few months
 
Then the second step is to get a second proc and SR-2 board.
 
DooKey said:
At this point in time buying an L5640 from ebay appears to be great bang for the buck to go intel hex. Your mileage may vary, but the MSI board does support the cpu.

Here's what I did:

1. L5640 cpu $389 shipped from ebay
2. 3X1gb G.skill DDR3 $84.99 from Newegg
3. Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF $29.99 from Newegg
4. Open box MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard $136.99 Newegg
5. Corsair 400CX PSU $29.99 after MIR from Newegg

Total cost $670 plus some shipping from Newegg

Throw a cheap vid card in, small used hard drive and you are off to the -bigadv races!

Fold On!
Click to expand...

You might want to include the cost of the OS in that package as well, since we're not able to run -bigadv under Linux any more...:rolleyes:
 
Axdrenalin said:
You might want to include the cost of the OS in that package as well, since we're not able to run -bigadv under Linux any more...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

This is not true, as proven by the X6 bigadv work by Overclock.net. The question is, how many cores can you use with Linux + Wine. I am going to do some testing this weekend to see.
 
That and there are a bunch of us that have extra win keys laying around.

If you don't have any extra keys, the family pack with 3 keys is a darn good way to go.

$50 a key.
 
Kendrak said:
That and there are a bunch of us that have extra win keys laying around.

If you don't have any extra keys, the family pack with 3 keys is a darn good way to go.

$50 a key.
Click to expand...

That is just an upgrade key, isn't it?
 
or google the way to do it...there is a way to do it with the media you get with an upgrade....*wink*
 
How is the performance of one of these chips compared to an i7-920? What kind of tpf would I see on a 2684? Sadly, that's the only thing I am getting lately.
 
My 980x at 4.3ghz gets right at 32min TPF on 2684s. That's with 2x 480s folding as well. Using -smp 11 flag.
 
Windows Home Server "Vail" preview is available for testing if you need a temporary OS. :) The family pack is also a good deal--I got it the first time around.

MicroCenter has the Cooler Master HSFs on sale, and the Hyper 212 Plus is $23.99.

Overall this is a screaming deal for a bigadv system.

edit: my 980X @ 4GHz gets 32:11 TPF on P2684, with a GTX 285 also running.
 
So if I already have a compatible mobo (P6T) and all of the other components, I can upgrade from a 920 to a hex core L5640 for about $200 net.

$389 L5640
-$180ish for selling the i7-920
-------------------------
$209 total out of pocket

And that would be give me about 33700 ppd compared to the 18900 I get with the i7-920 on 2684s.

Very tempting.
 
I'm already dreaming of an SR-2, the option of these cheap hexas that would also be compatible make it even more appealing.
 
zero2dash said:
I'm already dreaming of an SR-2, the option of these cheap hexas that would also be compatible make it even more appealing.
Click to expand...
Yes, highly compelling. I strongly recommend anyone pondering a SR-2 strongly consider these processors and the time-frame of potential availability. I don't know when mainstream hex-core Xeons will drop to that price level once these L-series are no longer available..
 
This L5640 going for $350 with 20 min left....if I only had the money to jump into 1366....
 
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Intel Xeon 6 Core L5640 2.26Ghz 12MB 5.86GT ES CPU
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Too tempting....
 
I am going to just start buying these for folks to pick up as they can...it would be a very reasonable upgrade over a quad I7 for anyone running an X58 board that will support the chip.
 
Hmmm... Got no money right now, but if I could move my gpu farm and sell the pair of 5530's I have... Might be a no money upgrade, and then I'd regain the points I lost from selling the GPU's and another 20k, all while running 50-75 watts less than just skynet alone, great move for a broke folder
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Dookey, do you have ppd numbers on your system using this chip? I can tell you what two of them do in an SR-2, but I am curious how well they do in a single processor system.
 
I'm pulling 36 min TPF @3.7ghz on a 2684. At least I think that's what I'm getting. I'll verify after work today and give you the PPD.

My L5640 is pulling 28K PPD on the 2684.
 
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@Dookey, I saw you mention earlier in the thread that you are using -smp 11 on your 980x. How much of a change in ppd did you see versus just using -smp?
 
Does the mobo require a bios update? I want to do this but I don't have another i7 to use for updating the bios.
 
If the bios on your board supports the 980x/970 you should be good to go.
 
tjmagneto said:
@Dookey, I saw you mention earlier in the thread that you are using -smp 11 on your 980x. How much of a change in ppd did you see versus just using -smp?
Click to expand...

I noticed a 2k or more PPD decrease if I just ran -smp. I think it's because I'm running a gpu client as well and it needs cycles and affects things more if all threads are at 100%.
 
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