please comment on these C2Q combos <$300

gnewbury

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - September 2007
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May 4, 2001
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Well at pricewatch the prices for combos have finally dipped under $300.

Are any of these looking good?

I'm in need of more heat.

 
Sorry, don't see anything under $310 there...
I'd say it's a gamble, since I don't know of many 945 boards that can take G0 stepping.



Edit: "my" should have been "many"
 
Sorry, don't see anything under $310 there...
I'd say it's a gamble, since I don't know of my 945 boards that can take G0 stepping.

Why would it matter if it's a G0 stepping or not? It should be supported regardless of the steppings?
 
got 2 G0 stepping Q6600s on the Asrock 4core dual VSTA, overclocking them is a pig but they are stable at stock speeds.
 
Sorry, don't see anything under $310 there...
I'd say it's a gamble, since I don't know of my 945 boards that can take G0 stepping.
Darn - When I posted The lowest price was $300, now it's back up to $309!

 
Spend $300 and have a stock 2.4ghz quad set up right that can put out ~2800PPD or spend $420 (P35 MB, High end cooler, and a GO Q6600) and overclock to 3.4ghz (not much trouble) and get 4000PPD. Points per dollar is close. Points per watt will prob go to the overclocked unit.
Now if you could get a cheap set up and only clock it to 333mhz FSB for a 3.0ghz chip that would be a real winner
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031647030 said:
Spend $300 and have a stock 2.4ghz quad set up right that can put out ~2800PPD or spend $420 (P35 MB, High end cooler, and a GO Q6600) and overclock to 3.4ghz (not much trouble) and get 4000PPD. Points per dollar is close. Points per watt will prob go to the overclocked unit.
Now if you could get a cheap set up and only clock it to 333mhz FSB for a 3.0ghz chip that would be a real winner

Bro, how are you getting 2800PPD out of a stock 2.4ghz Q6600? I've got 2, one at 2.7 and one at 2.8ghz and they only put out about 2450PPD.

 
Bro, how are you getting 2800PPD out of a stock 2.4ghz Q6600? I've got 2, one at 2.7 and one at 2.8ghz and they only put out about 2450PPD.

mine also only does about ~2100 PPD.....and its at 2.8...
 
Bro, how are you getting 2800PPD out of a stock 2.4ghz Q6600? I've got 2, one at 2.7 and one at 2.8ghz and they only put out about 2450PPD.


Download VMware server and get their free serial number. This limited version of VMware is free and it allows you to to run a virtual O/S inside of your original O/S but you are limited to utilizing 2 cores. By running 2 linux O/S's through VMware under windows you get a higher CPU utilization (~25%). I usually get 2 WU's done every 21hrs- 24hrs(remember I am running 2 at a time)(~12:30Min/frame-14min/frame) for about 4000PPD on both of my 3.1ghz Quads with 2 gig of ram. You will nee 2 gig of ram for the besause you need to dedicate at least 512meg (I use 600meg)to each virtual Linux machine. Try it out. Its easy to set up. Free. and you might gain a few points. Just for fun I will set up a quad at stock speed and see how many points I can really get but it should be close to 2800PPD. Or see the above post that clicked in before me
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031648487 said:
Download VMware server and get their free serial number. This limited version of VMware is free and it allows you to to run a virtual O/S inside of your original O/S but you are limited to utilizing 2 cores. By running 2 linux O/S's through VMware under windows you get a higher CPU utilization (~25%). I usually get 2 WU's done every 21hrs- 24hrs(remember I am running 2 at a time)(~12:30Min/frame-14min/frame) for about 4000PPD on both of my 3.1ghz Quads with 2 gig of ram. You will nee 2 gig of ram for the besause you need to dedicate at least 512meg (I use 600meg)to each virtual Linux machine. Try it out. Its easy to set up. Free. and you might gain a few points. Just for fun I will set up a quad at stock speed and see how many points I can really get but it should be close to 2800PPD. Or see the above post that clicked in before me

Gotcha. I really really don't want to have to mess with Linux, so I'll just stick with my slower Windows version.
 
Gotcha. I really really don't want to have to mess with Linux, so I'll just stick with my slower Windows version.

I don't know squat about Linux. I just loaded the O/S (Fedora Core 4 64bit DVD), made a folder for F@H, downloaded the F@H into the folder, started the terminal and typed in the command to start the folder and what do you know, Its running. I can still use the computer for windows stuff because the folding is being done in a window.
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031648487 said:
Download VMware server and get their free serial number. This limited version of VMware is free and it allows you to to run a virtual O/S inside of your original O/S but you are limited to utilizing 2 cores. By running 2 linux O/S's through VMware under windows you get a higher CPU utilization (~25%). I usually get 2 WU's done every 21hrs- 24hrs(remember I am running 2 at a time)(~12:30Min/frame-14min/frame) for about 4000PPD on both of my 3.1ghz Quads with 2 gig of ram. You will nee 2 gig of ram for the besause you need to dedicate at least 512meg (I use 600meg)to each virtual Linux machine. Try it out. Its easy to set up. Free. and you might gain a few points. Just for fun I will set up a quad at stock speed and see how many points I can really get but it should be close to 2800PPD. Or see the above post that clicked in before me

Quite nice... Is this under Vista or XP?
I have vista and c2q6600 at 3.4 :D I might consider changing to this method and watch my points climb upwards... maybe not...
 
Its using XP but I have't heard of problems with VMware and Vista. You should get near 4500PPD out of that quad. It might just help you pass Bluefish.
 
[QUOTE='[BRO]By running 2 linux O/S's through VMware under windows you get a higher CPU utilization (~25%).[/QUOTE]

I run one Windows instance and one Ubuntu instance on each quad. Two VMWares uses too much RAM.




 
I run one Windows instance and one Ubuntu instance on each quad. Two VMWares uses too much RAM.





Ram is cheap. I just bought 2 gigs (2x1gig) for $50 with no rebates. Do you assign affinity for your smp in windows? I set mine for each instance of Linux (I prob don't need to)
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031650692 said:
Ram is cheap. I just bought 2 gigs (2x1gig) for $50 with no rebates.

Both of my machines have 2GB of RAM. Firing up two VMWares takes at least 1GB of RAM, twice the HDD space for virtual drives, makes it even more of a pain to reboot, and kills the responsiveness of the machines. It's not worth it since I actually use the machines for other things.

[BRO]Alaskan;1031650692 said:
Do you assign affinity for your smp in windows? I set mine for each instance of Linux (I prob don't need to)

Yeah, setting affinities is necessary with the VMWares so it's good that you're doing it.

After I start up VMWare and boot Ubuntu, I change the affinity of VMWare (vmware-vmx.exe) to Cores 2-3. I don't set the affinity for Windows SMP because every time a work unit is sent, the threads are reloaded and affinity is reset. So Windows SMP has access to all 4 cores, 0-3. It uses Cores 0-1 predominantly but also uses up the remaining CPU time from the VMWare, which only uses 43-48% of Cores 2-3 at any given time. This results in 100 CPU utilization.

It's a slightly slower setup than two VMWare/Ubuntu but there's only about a 10% hit on the Windows instance.

 
I'm doing the 2 VM on my quad and it does make the machine less responsive to wake up, but opening word still takes... (lemme check right now... "one one thousand, two o.." ) ..not long.

Worth the boost, and I don't lose as much time if the server won't send out a new WU or whatever.

sharp
 
Well if Word was the end all of computer usage you'd have a point. Then there are the other things I listed like, "Firing up two VMWares takes at least 1GB of RAM, twice the HDD space for virtual drives, makes it even more of a pain to reboot." I still prefer VMWare/Ubuntu + Windows SMP.

I don't lose as much time if the server won't send out a new WU or whatever.

Huh?

 
Well if Word was the end all of computer usage you'd have a point. Then there are the other things I listed like, "Firing up two VMWares takes at least 1GB of RAM, twice the HDD space for virtual drives, makes it even more of a pain to reboot." I still prefer VMWare/Ubuntu + Windows SMP.



Huh?

When I upgrade my "desktop" to a quad I'll prob go the same route. R%ight now my quads are dedicated so responce is not an issue. They seem to open web pages fine though :D
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031664934 said:
When I upgrade my "desktop" to a quad I'll prob go the same route. R%ight now my quads are dedicated so responce is not an issue. They seem to open web pages fine though :D

Myself, for casual browsing and light apps (burning and such), i leave the 2 VMWare instances running without issues. When I want to game, I just shutdown one instance to get 2 cores available for me and when done, restart the instance. The other instance is still chugging away since games doesn't use all 4 cores at all.

 
Intel has listed their Q6600 for $209 plus tax again... but only for those in the business. If you are eligible, check your site. I have bought 2 quads.... so they keep renewing the offer. Even though they are limited to one per customer I could, in theory, buy another for $209.

p.s. my last quad direct from intel was a G0 stepping.



 
if someone could manage to fold on one of those i'd be pretty damn impressed :D

 
Sorry if this isn't the best place to ask this, but what's a reasonable PPD expectation for a single SMP instance on a Q6600 running natively on Linux? Would it be better to run two instances? What about a single instance on a C2D?

Sorry, haven't kept up with it lately...
 
Sorry if this isn't the best place to ask this, but what's a reasonable PPD expectation for a single SMP instance on a Q6600 running natively on Linux? Would it be better to run two instances? What about a single instance on a C2D?

Sorry, haven't kept up with it lately...

2.4ghz single instance ~2100PPD......... 3.0ghz 2600PPD
2.4ghz Windows/VMware/ 2x Linux ~2900PPD .......... 3.0ghz ~3500PPD
 
[BRO]Alaskan;1031648487 said:
Download VMware server and get their free serial number. This limited version of VMware is free and it allows you to to run a virtual O/S inside of your original O/S but you are limited to utilizing 2 cores. By running 2 linux O/S's through VMware under windows you get a higher CPU utilization (~25%). I usually get 2 WU's done every 21hrs- 24hrs(remember I am running 2 at a time)(~12:30Min/frame-14min/frame) for about 4000PPD on both of my 3.1ghz Quads with 2 gig of ram. You will nee 2 gig of ram for the besause you need to dedicate at least 512meg (I use 600meg)to each virtual Linux machine. Try it out. Its easy to set up. Free. and you might gain a few points. Just for fun I will set up a quad at stock speed and see how many points I can really get but it should be close to 2800PPD. Or see the above post that clicked in before me

If you use this can you have 4gb of ram and use it all with 32 bit OS? say 1gb for each linux and 2 left for windows?
 
If you use this can you have 4gb of ram and use it all with 32 bit OS? say 1gb for each linux and 2 left for windows?

You don't even need to use 1GB. Each VMware only needs 512MB - 768MB of RAM.



 
If you're running a 32-bit OS, you won't have a full 4GB to work with, even if you have that much RAM installed. It's a situation that dates back a few decades, and boils down to the fact that all your computer's I/O is mapped out of the memory address space, and therefore those addresses aren't available as RAM. Dan's Data has a rather thorough article on the subject. So if you have 4GB of RAM and a 512MB video card in your machine, you'll have access to something less than 3.5GB of RAM.
 
If you're running a 32-bit OS, you won't have a full 4GB to work with, even if you have that much RAM installed. It's a situation that dates back a few decades, and boils down to the fact that all your computer's I/O is mapped out of the memory address space, and therefore those addresses aren't available as RAM. Dan's Data has a rather thorough article on the subject. So if you have 4GB of RAM and a 512MB video card in your machine, you'll have access to something less than 3.5GB of RAM.

That's correct. I have 4 Gb but only Vista 32 bits so I see 3.32 Gb with my 8800GTS 640MB.
 
If you're running a 32-bit OS, you won't have a full 4GB to work with, even if you have that much RAM installed. It's a situation that dates back a few decades, and boils down to the fact that all your computer's I/O is mapped out of the memory address space, and therefore those addresses aren't available as RAM. Dan's Data has a rather thorough article on the subject. So if you have 4GB of RAM and a 512MB video card in your machine, you'll have access to something less than 3.5GB of RAM.

Alright... That's true... But I didn't understand why you threw in the video card in?
 
The size of the video card effects what can be addressed, AFAIK. It cuts into the 3.5 or whatever is available in 32 bit.
 
The size of the video card effects what can be addressed, AFAIK. It cuts into the 3.5 or whatever is available in 32 bit.

I did not know that but I don't think that's the case here because it's a texture memory and not something an OS will really use?
 
I did not know that but I don't think that's the case here because it's a texture memory and not something an OS will really use?

The problem here is that the addressing space is limited to 4 Gb with a 32 bits OS. The space is shared among all the memory (system, video, addon cards, etc...) so if we get capped at 4 Gb, it will need to allocate the space to the memory space of addons cards then keep the rest to the system.

Technically, if you slap a piece of shit Trident video card with 1 Mb of memory, you can get 3.99 Gb available.

 
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