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Starting a farm

R

ReaperofDreams

Limp Gawd
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Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
280
I\'m looking to start aquiring some older computers to start up my own farm. What would be the slowest processor speed I should even consider for folding? I\'m looking at spending between 100-150 on each box, and that needs to include motherboard, processor, RAM, hard drive, power supply, and case. Any ideas?




 
Well you don't need cases if you are crafty...

but from personal experiance, don't take anything less than 1ghz p3

Even with a 1ghz, it will take up to a week to complete one wu
 
and you can split a PSU to run multiple computers
you dont have to use a hardive either, from what i read, you boot off a cd or something, i cant remember cause i just woke up but hopefully someone can add to thit
 
Well. there is "anti-fold" a cd thing that unhappy_mage made that runs that way,

or there is fold-server (also by mage) for multiple computers, you only need one hdd

its a pain to setup, but works well
 
look around for bare bone systems, cheap and comes with a case, processor and motherboard. Or some comes with the processor and motherboard.
 
Are there any images I could send to a client with a NIC that supports PXE (ie get a bunch of clients hanging off my network, then when I boot them up download the image to RAM and off I go). I get a lot of power outages in my area, so I\'m worried about having to spend a lot of time reinstalling everything if my clients get turned off. I don\'t want to have to run around swapping a cd-rom drive around everytime it happens. Hard drives are reasonably cheap if there are no other good solutions.
 
Microcenter has an AMD xp 1800 with MB for $59 this week. Might be a good way to go.
 
Depending on how many boxes you are going to buy, it might be cheaper to buy a dual core AMD or Intel processor system. They'd also most likely outproduce by a big margin any older single core AMD or Intel systems that'd be priced around the $100 range. Then just overclock it and you're good to go!

--1 or 2 single new computers would be better power wise then a bunch of $100 systems.

 
Thanks for all the ideas, but now I have one more question. I've been looking at both the AMD x2's and the Pentium D's. Which one will give me the most bang for my buck? Since I'll be getting 2 instances of folding@home on a dual core system, I would then be willing to spend 200-300 on a machine.
 
If your building a farm the look at the new low power cpu's.

My five X2's @ 2.2Ghz give me 22Ghz folding power and use about 750watts.
My one MP's @ 2.0Ghz folds around 25% slower and use 25% more power.
All the systems run at a bare minimum hardware wise.

My Opteron System @ 2.4Ghz with eveything in it pulls over 350 watts out the wall.

Add the monitor etc, etc in and it works out a grand total of around 1.5Kw of power.
The electric bills soon mount up with that type of power usage 24/7.

But you dont need heating in the winter.

Luck ......... :D
 
since you are starting your farm then i would recomend dual core cpu's. don't buy piii or amd XP cpu's. if i were to start a new farm i would buy some Pentium D 805 cpu's and o/c them. thats your best bang for your buck right there but you will have to upgrade the stock HSF for something much better. if you plan to keep them stock then look at the Pentium D 3ghz or the X2 3800+ or even better.......build Core 2 Duo machines :eek: but that will get pricey ;)

as far as what to use as an OS..................up to you.
 
ReaperofDreams said:
Are there any images I could send to a client with a NIC that supports PXE (ie get a bunch of clients hanging off my network, then when I boot them up download the image to RAM and off I go). I get a lot of power outages in my area, so I\'m worried about having to spend a lot of time reinstalling everything if my clients get turned off. I don\'t want to have to run around swapping a cd-rom drive around everytime it happens. Hard drives are reasonably cheap if there are no other good solutions.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what unhappy_mage's anti-fold server is for.

 
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