Need some Help

[lelliott731]

Ok, long story short, my older brother unfortunately died 5 years ago, and since tomorrow is my birthday, I am getting a birthday present from his estate.

In reality, I get a check, and then I get to get exactly what I want so I get to remember him always knowing what I like, etc. Because he would have, but my parents & wife have no idea what I'm into besides its computer related and called Folding@Home.

Anyway, I want to build the best bang for the buck machine for under $2,500.00. I don't want it to just be nVidia GPU2 clients, nor just SMP clients. If possible, I'd like it to be able to run at least one ore two regular clients, a SMP client, and both an nVidia & ATI GPU2 clients if that's possible.

So, if that is, could I get some recommendations as to the setup some of you would build if you had that budget?

Thanks a bunch guys,
Luke

 

[Kendrak]

I'm on my smart phone, but I'd go for 2 rigs. Best Quads I could get with mobos that have 3 or 4 PCIE lanes to punch in 8800GTs. That way you can run a bunch of standard, 4 SMPs and as many GPUs as you can afford.

If i was not hardware limited I price some newegg shopping carts.

 

[capreppy]

I'll give you the list that I am looking at for a Quad GPU Folding Rig. It's in homage to tedkj's Quad GTX280 Folding MONSTER. I'm hoping to purchase a couple of these within the next couple of weeks.

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
MSI P6N Diamond LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-e Video Card
Antec TPQ-850 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black
Intel Q6600
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

I've not validated the prices this week, but after taxes and shipping should be about $1100.
I would suggest Vista x64 (flavor depends on you, but I'm looking at Home Premium). GPU Clients don't tend to be as resource intensive when using Vista (x32 or x64).

You could possibly get away with 2GB of ram, but frankly the price difference is $10 so in my book, 4GB is the sweet spot.

The case is personal choice. It's on my list because I can go to MicroCenter and just pay tax instead of shipping charges (which can be high for a case due to weight).

I've not been able to confirm, but the PSU should be sufficient to power this.

Plus with a Q6600 you should be able to run 2 SMP Clients. This box should realistically net you around 25,000 PpD depending on how well you can OC the CPU & GPUs.

 

[SatTech]

Man, that's a sick deal on that 8800GT at OverstockDealz. Too bad it's OOS, or I'd pick a couple up myself...

 

[Air Cooled 420]

I'll give you the list that I am looking at for a Quad GPU Folding Rig. It's in homage to tedkj's Quad GTX280 Folding MONSTER. I'm hoping to purchase a couple of these within the next couple of weeks.

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
MSI P6N Diamond LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-e Video Card
Antec TPQ-850 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black
Intel Q6600
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

I've not validated the prices this week, but after taxes and shipping should be about $1100.
I would suggest Vista x64 (flavor depends on you, but I'm looking at Home Premium). GPU Clients don't tend to be as resource intensive when using Vista (x32 or x64).

You could possibly get away with 2GB of ram, but frankly the price difference is $10 so in my book, 4GB is the sweet spot.

The case is personal choice. It's on my list because I can go to MicroCenter and just pay tax instead of shipping charges (which can be high for a case due to weight).

I've not been able to confirm, but the PSU should be sufficient to power this.

Plus with a Q6600 you should be able to run 2 SMP Clients. This box should realistically net you around 25,000 PpD depending on how well you can OC the CPU & GPUs.

I Like It!!

 

[lelliott731]

Looks like a good setup, anyone else have any ideas? I'd like to keep it down to a single machine if possible, so maybe if there was a good Xeon board that had multiple PCIe x16 slots, that'd be great!

 

[Vediovus]

The intel Skulltrail board has 4 16x slots if you are looking for multiple Xeons with multiple PCI-E. There may be something better/cheaper out there though, since skulltrail requires fb-dimms. Its also eATX so its not going to fit in all cases.

 

[Pocatello]

How about one computer, like the one above

and a 30" display from Dell?

 

[tedkj]

Ok, long story short, my older brother unfortunately died 5 years ago, and since tomorrow is my birthday, I am getting a birthday present from his estate.

In reality, I get a check, and then I get to get exactly what I want so I get to remember him always knowing what I like, etc. Because he would have, but my parents & wife have no idea what I'm into besides its computer related and called Folding@Home.

Anyway, I want to build the best bang for the buck machine for under $2,500.00. I don't want it to just be nVidia GPU2 clients, nor just SMP clients. If possible, I'd like it to be able to run at least one ore two regular clients, a SMP client, and both an nVidia & ATI GPU2 clients if that's possible.

So, if that is, could I get some recommendations as to the setup some of you would build if you had that budget?

Thanks a bunch guys,
Luke

Man.. truly sorry to hear about your brother, Luke. 5 years is some time for healing, but you have my thoughts nontheless.

About the system, why do you want to go with such a broad spectre of clients? I understand the reasoning for the science and potentially setting yourself up with a system that doesn't get obsolete tomorrow, but I doubt we'll see that happen.

The SMP and nV-GPU2 client really hits hard PpD-wise, and if you're after top PpD, I'd think it would be foolish to even consider normal client, and perhaps the ATI (atleast for the time beeing).

The setup mentioned in this thread has my full support. It's a mighty setup which will be able to do 25k+ PpD with 4 of those 8800GT's and Q6600 (assuming a nice OC).

4x 8800GT's will be looking at around 80W a pop, for a total of around 350W with a decent OC. A 850W PSU would pull this without breaking a sweat.

 

[lelliott731]

I was just thinking about trying to do as much different types of WU's as possible, but you're right, there's no reason to do all of that for that reason. Plenty of people are doing all the different types of WU's.