Dedicated Folding Machine Advice

H

hackalive

New member
Hi guys,

I want to put together a dedicated folding machine.

Budget is $1000 - $1500 (US or AUD about the same these days).

So what would you all recommend I buy? What are the specs you think I should get? Where should I spend less and what should I spend more on?

Value for money (or PPD for money :P in the world of folding).

Cheers
 
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That's a tricky one to answer as the top team folders do things entirely differently I think.
Steve is a GPU intensive folder, I'm not sure about hmmblah and SnW is a GPU folder. I'm an SMP folder.

I can't advise on the GPU folding because I don't know nearly enough but if you wanted to go SMP then you really need to be looking to hit the bigadv WU's.

I would probably look at a couple of Xeon E5645's with a dual socket motherboard (asus/intel or evga if you want to try and overclock) with the 24 cores you'll be looking at around 100k ppd on the bigadv WU's from a single workstation (maybe save some cash on elastictrickery)

Sadly if money was no object I would be looking at some 2011 Xeon's but a single cpu is over budget.
 
leejc73 said:
That's a tricky one to answer as the top team folders do things entirely differently I think.
Steve is a GPU intensive folder, I'm not sure about hmmblah and SnW is a GPU folder. I'm an SMP folder.

I can't advise on the GPU folding because I don't know nearly enough but if you wanted to go SMP then you really need to be looking to hit the bigadv WU's.

I would probably look at a couple of Xeon E5645's with a dual socket motherboard (asus/intel or evga if you want to try and overclock) with the 24 cores you'll be looking at around 100k ppd on the bigadv WU's from a single workstation (maybe save some cash on elastictrickery)

Sadly if money was no object I would be looking at some 2011 Xeon's but a single cpu is over budget.
Click to expand...

Hi leejc73,

I am building a top of the range dual Intel Xeon E5 (LGA2011) machine that I will do folding and be my pc (it just wont be dedicated - given the cost of such a beast).

So I am after a dedicated folding machine I can run almost 24/7/365 within that magic $1000 to $1500 budget range. Hoping to eventually make a farm of them (if I can afford the power bills :P).

Not really after overclocking really.

Can you tell me a config of your folding machine? Or any feedback/ideas?

And any other folders want to chip in with theirs and their thoughts/ideas?

What does a GPU vs SMP rig look like? Spec wise?

Cheers
 
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GPU folding ATM is up in the air a bit, as everyone is waiting to see how and when the QRB for GPU is implemented.

ATM the highest scoring GPU WU's for my machines is the 7623 @14093 points and it does about 32K+ PPD per card on my GTX 480's and GTX 560ti 448's.( I have read where some of the better OC 600 series cards are near 40K on that WU)

The GPU projects were recently re-benched with some revised critera and most of them had a nice point increase. If the QRB is introduced it should be possible to do an easy 100K+ on a pair of better cards. That could bring GPU folding more in line with bigadv. But until something happens this is all conjecture.....

ATM I'd wait a bit before building a dedicated machine.
 
I totally agree with Steve , wait with getting a dedicated F@H rig !
I upgraded a bit to fast to the GTX670/680 (GPU's) series.........

al tho i think i will still be good, when the QRB returns and or starts ...
as my GTX680 did indeed do 100k plus !

Greetings, Ray........
 
Okay wait it is then - any idea on how long I will have to wait?

Any what about SMP folding rather than GPU?
 
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stevehat1 said:
SMP is not very exciting ATM, maybe 17-18K PPD at best on an i7 950 @4G with a card or two folding at the same time:(
Click to expand...


jeejs seems to do alright - curious as to what his rig or rigs are?

So all of the commentators above - I'm not waiting for better or different GPUs just for F@H to change how they do the points?
 
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My 3770K at 4.4GHz is getting around 32k PPD when I leave it alone, if that's any help to you.

Also, be sure not to post consecutively. The edit button's there for a reason. Merged your posts myself, but in the future it'd be great if I didn't have to.
 
Josh Weston said:
My 3770K at 4.4GHz is getting around 32k PPD when I leave it alone, if that's any help to you.

Also, be sure not to post consecutively. The edit button's there for a reason. Merged your posts myself, but in the future it'd be great if I didn't have to.
Click to expand...

Thanks for those specs :) So you basically do CPU and not GPU folding?

How can I estimate PPD based on hardware? Does someone have a grid/chart/table?

(And sorry - I keep forgetting that the Edit does not have a time out limit - ill try to not do it again) :)
 
I don't have much of a choice - I have an AMD card :)
GPU's are great for adding extra PPD to a system but they take a lot of power (less so with the newer cards).
I daresay such a thing does exist, but i've never seen it. Best bet is to ask around and see if anyone has the same components you're planning to get, and what PPD they achieve.
 
Basically I am after high PPD with low power consumption. I'm hoping to buy a machine every few months to build a farm of them - but if the power consumption is too high that will never happen.

Hoping for a budget of $1000 - $1500. That's why I am looking for a PPD table so I can figure that out.

Your rig looks fairly reasonable - whats your PSU?
 
I have 2 rigs going most of the day - my i72600k at 4.5 with an evga 670 gets around 65K PPD (26.5K PPD for the SMP) My i53570k at 4.3 with a asus 570 gets around 50K, with 18K of that attributable to the SMP. The same i5 rig with a 660ti gets about a 4K bump. Hope that helps.
 
I think maybe I will just build this machine - it does not seem like their is much point in waiting - or am I missing something?
 
The thing worth waiting for is, that the QRB starts,
cause then GPU Folding would deliver the most PPD....

Greetings, Ray....
 
hackalive said:
So what delivers it at the moment? The most PPD?

And when is QRB likely to return or start?
Click to expand...


The answer to the first question is -bigadv which requires 16 cores/threads and then still has to make some aggressive deadlines. It uses the current QRB.

The answer to the second question is an unknown regarding QRB for GPU based projects as it is currently "in the works" and unkown.

the -bigadv projects require a minimum of 16 cores/threads to even get the work units, the QRB for GPU is as yet unknown.

The outlook for the QRB for GPU looks promising and could possibly compete well with -bigadv but is still unknown. So no difinitive answer is available at this time.

This is my opinion only and should not to be used to make hardware purchases.
 
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