Economical Farm VS. One Good Machine

[upriverpaddler]

I fold part time on 2 machines at home. Mine and my wifes. I've been scouring ebay for "lots" of parts to try and set up a naked farm. As much for the thrill of accomplishing it as to how much good it will do. But prices are holding me back.

Can you explain to me the difference between...

One P4 2.4ghz w/ 1gb RAM running 10 services.
(this is possible if I read another thread correctly?)
vs.
Ten PII 233mhz w/ 128 mb RAM each running 1 service.

Where do I settle on a good balance of CPU speed/RAM and productivity and value.

 

[Carnival Forces]

the second will be much better
A) it can OC like a fool
B) it can do "Big Units" WUs which are worth more points
C) it will actually turn in units on time (the p2's you will probably need to set to timeless)

you need to look for something above 1 ghz (anything below is called a "crapper") and preferably something that can OC a lot (a sempron or a 2.4c p4)

HT can net you ~15% more ppD then a p4 with HT off (but Stanford prefers you do it with it off because results get turned in faster)

AMDs are generally better at Tinkers
Intels are generally better at Gromacs, and (i think?) Ambers

Intels are the only ones that can do QMDs (the HUGE ones that require 1gb of ram (for a machine that is used) or 512MB for a dedicated folder)


go with the p4.

 

[KodiakStar]

One P4 2.4ghz w/ 1gb RAM running 10 services.
(this is possible if I read another thread correctly?)

You can run up to 8 instances on one computer....
but you should NOT do that.. at all... unless its 4x Dual Core CPU's on that MB...

One instance per CPU... if the p4 has HyperThreading (HT) then you can get away with 2.

vs.
Ten PII 233mhz w/ 128 mb RAM each running 1 service.

Where do I settle on a good balance of CPU speed/RAM and productivity and value.

you would want at least 800 mhz machines... but i would go no less then 1ghz anymore.
I have a farm of 733's and they take a while to get things done. 233 would be too painful.

There was a thread around here that I will bump, with a spreadsheet that looks at cost and estimated PPD (points per day) for setting up a new machine

 

[marty9876]

Careful with the 512 meg ram limit for QMD's. Currently the limit is 504 meg for the box to get QMD's. Onboard videos that take more than this will prevent you from getting QMD's.

Also, with 512 your box running QMD's will be mostly useless for other activites.

 

[Bill Clo]

I fold part time on 2 machines at home. Mine and my wifes. I've been scouring ebay for "lots" of parts to try and set up a naked farm. As much for the thrill of accomplishing it as to how much good it will do. But prices are holding me back.

Can you explain to me the difference between...

One P4 2.4ghz w/ 1gb RAM running 10 services.
(this is possible if I read another thread correctly?)
vs.
Ten PII 233mhz w/ 128 mb RAM each running 1 service.

Where do I settle on a good balance of CPU speed/RAM and productivity and value.

Those 10 systems will use alot more power, driving your utility bill up much more. A typical modern PC will use between $5-10 a month, depending on your local rates. Add more for summer use. Yes, those old P2 machines will use less power, but they will still cost ya. Figure 34w max per processor, 20ish for motherboard, 7w for a hard disk, maybe 5 for an old PCI video card... 66w thereabouts. X 10 PCs, 660watts.=15.84kwh /day, @9cents/kwh. That would equal about $42.77/month.

One P4 2.4ghz non-Celeron would outperform all 10 systems greatly, and cost maybe $7-10 a month, versus $42.77...

You might get those P2s real cheap, but the ongoing costs will add up fast.

I'd skip anything under 1ghz, personally. Unless your electric bill is free or something.

A better approach might be to sell off the 10 systems for say, $50 each to someone who needs an el-cheapo Internet only machine. $500 would buy 2 fairly decent dedicated folding boxes if you shopped around.

There, saved you a lot of money.

 

[Sevenpants]

I'd look into a dual core box if you can stretch the budget a little bit. You get twice the performance of a single core high end box for only a couple hundred $ more (cpu + extra 512 RAM). I'm not sure how the Intel dual cores OC, but the AMD ones are great OCers. The X2 3800 is supposed to be out in a week or two for $400 or so.

 

[ICE_9]

I went with a 2.8 P4 with HT, mobo, and 1 GB ram for it also. I am using it to replace a 450, 700 and 500MHz system so that I can get more WU out for about the same or a little less power usage. Plus the HT adds the extra instance. Total cost for the upgrade was $150 for board and P4, $81 for mobo. Granted that I have some old spare vid cards and some nics, power supplies, floppy drives if needed.

 

[OSUguy98]

If you do decide to start with buying new/semi-new parts.... Here is a place that I've been working on to help all of us folders who feel the need to build more boxen It's still a work in progress, so bear with me


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 

[unhappy_mage]

A good compromise, I think, would be a couple of dual p3s (see k*'s farm). They're about $100 for the board and chips, and tack on another $100 for psu and memory. That's enough to fold on; set up a fold-server for one of them, and boot the others over LAN. This lets you just throw another box into the pot and power it on and have it start booting. Once the (fairly tricky, granted) setup is finished, there's practically no user input needed. It just folds.

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