Best Bang For The Buck Folding Machines

[arekieh]

Originally Posted by Lude

Its the PS3.


PS3s crank out ~900 PPD right? First of all, it is going to take over $400 to build a PC to get that many PPD. While PS3s only produce ~900 PPD, they do a lot more work than a PC producing ~900 PPD. When PS3s started folding, their PPD were quite a bit higher, but Stanford lowered the points for the PS3.


I think PS3s are the best bet. Rumor has it theres going to be another price cut somewhat soon.

srry, but if i dished out the cash for a ps3, id be too busy playing on it to fold xD

[Bal3Wolf]

Originally Posted by Lude

Its the PS3.


PS3s crank out ~900 PPD right? First of all, it is going to take over $400 to build a PC to get that many PPD. While PS3s only produce ~900 PPD, they do a lot more work than a PC producing ~900 PPD. When PS3s started folding, their PPD were quite a bit higher, but Stanford lowered the points for the PS3.


I think PS3s are the best bet. Rumor has it theres going to be another price cut somewhat soon.

But if its for points a quad doubles maybe more even my c2d avgs 2600 ppd running vmware linux.

[Taeric]

My two quads - Q6600 G0 at 3.4 (used for gaming as well) and X3210 B3 at 3.0 GHz - together crank out about 6k ppd, and that includes frequent downtown on the one system for gaming. Pointwise, quads running SMP are the king of the hill for points/$. That, of course, doesn't address the issue of which system contributes most to folding. See my post earlier in the thread for my thoughts on that.

[CL3P20]

which system contributes most to folding

-> referring to the PS3

Pointwise, quads running SMP are the king of the hill

-> pretty self explanatory for anyone still in Q.

..Can we sticky those quotes for the F@H section.

tnx Taeric.

[RonindeBeatrice]

I think that a quad with 4 1950's is definitely the best balance. The four GPUs are only ~$500 and the SMP client (even running @ 60% because of GPU cycles) on a quad will still finish WU's within the alloted time. So you get the raw number benefit of the GPUs and the wide range of WU's with the SMP.

[CL3P20]

interesting..from what I have heard, it was not a good idea [for efficiency/time sake] to run GPU & SMP together...

You are obviously not having any issues producing points, as you are consistently just ahead of me in production on a weekly basis. Are you OC'ing the Opty's..or are they coping with the GPU/SMP mix at stock speeds? Thats a pretty hawt setup for a f@h rig..sure beats my 9 rigs, all spread out all over the place.

[dralb]

What is considered a "good" ppd? I am getting 800-1000 atm. (also only going 16-18 hours a day folding, and I'll probably end up with a higher average once I fold for longer than a month) Even if you clocked my CPU back to the 3480 I was running on air, that seems like a good price/performance ration. I mean, the CPU and mobo were only $165 and you could get them for less now then when I bought it. Am I missing something? I also have a PSU and flash drive I got FAR. That with a free stick of DDR2 I got from a member, thats cheap. Just add any cheapo gfx card and your gtg.

[RonindeBeatrice]

Originally Posted by CL3P20

interesting..from what I have heard, it was not a good idea [for efficiency/time sake] to run GPU & SMP together...

You are obviously not having any issues producing points, as you are consistently just ahead of me in production on a weekly basis. Are you OC'ing the Opty's..or are they coping with the GPU/SMP mix at stock speeds? Thats a pretty hawt setup for a f@h rig..sure beats my 9 rigs, all spread out all over the place.

I'm not running GPU clients. It is "bad" for PPD, but this is not about PPD. The only folding I'm doing right now is a single console on my work rig, and a SMP on my opties. They're running stock clocks ATM. I'm adding a Phenom (as soon as the motherboard is available) and am picking up a G0 for this work rig on Monday.

I did notice folding slow down when I was running a GPU client back when I had my 1950, but with four cards each assigned affinity to a processor, even if they consumed 30% duty the quad would still be able to complete the WU in the time alloted ( it normally takes <1 day, but you're given 3(?) )

Motherboard
Quad
4 x 1950's - I'm sure some members of OCN have these things that they'd part with for ~$100 each.
Ultra X3 1000W (it goes on sale for $200 pretty regularly)
Cheap Ram
Cheap HD.

Cost <$1200

Folding power: Priceless.

[CL3P20]

What is considered a "good" ppd? I am getting 800-1000 atm. (also only going 16-18 hours a day folding

Well.."good" is producing points..not good is not producing points

If you were to run SMP on your rig you would get around 1760 points per WU, your CPU would be able to finish most SMP WU's in about 16-20hrs.

I have 14 cores folding..producing ~4k ppd on average..some people have 6 cores and do ~10k or better.

[dralb]

Originally Posted by CL3P20

Well.."good" is producing points..not good is not producing points

If you were to run SMP on your rig you would get around 1760 points per WU, your CPU would be able to finish most SMP WU's in about 16-20hrs.

I have 14 cores folding..producing ~4k ppd on average..some people have 6 cores and do ~10k or better.

I am running SMP and getting the 1760 WU's. If I am not on it, I can do a WU in 14-16 hrs. I assume that there are other things I could do to improve that (if it wasn't my main rig)