First round gear selection discussion

Agreed!

Suggestions for first round:
(1)Quad
(2)Ps3's
-GodofGrunts

For the quads, try something like -

- Q6600 G0 (duh, ~$250)
- Abit IP35-E or DFI Blood Iron ($100 or less)
- Decent kit of DDR2-800 (go with a 4-4-4 kit, <$50)
- High efficiency PSU (consider oversizing for use on multiple systems - see CDs guide on the issue - good opportunity to spend a bit more up front to decrease future expenditures and reduce overall power consumption)
- Best bang for the buck HSF (<$50)
- Ideally, it could run on a flash drive, but I've yet to successfully do a "low impact" install of a 64 bit Linux distro. There are some great guides out there for Linux installations that greatly extend the lives of flash drives, but the ones I've seen are all 32 bit. I made one attempt at substituting a 64 bit version into a 32 bit guide, and it didn't pan out (granted I tried this one time with one distro). If someone can get this going, a 4 GB flash drive for about $20 would be ideal for this project (cheap, very low power consumption). Otherwise, a small HDD would be the best alternative.
- If this is going to be a stand alone set of gear, get a $30 SATA DVD drive now that can be used for installations on this and all future systems.
- From all I've read, there doesn't seem to much of a performance difference among distros for native Linux installations. I've used SUSE and Ubuntu with good success, though any distro should work fine. The $0 price tag is nice as well.
- I would go caseless or use a Lian Li mobo tray. May also need to invest in a 120 mm fan or two, depending on the air flow in the room to keep some air circulating over components other than the CPU.

They typicaly don't overclock as well tho you could snag a cheap pci card off ebay or newegg for under 10bucks and that would work fine.

This is about the best I could do in a hurry. I would figure the case, CPU cooler, and mobo are the things that people would have different personal preferences on. I only picked that case because it seemed about the right price and it's just for price-comparison purposes, but I know absolutely nothing about RaidMAX (and have never used their cases). As for RAM I would highly recommend the Ballistix. Video card doesn't really matter as long as it's cheap. And CPU cooler, I just picked the Xigmatek because some people say it's almost as good as TRUE but it's quite a bit cheaper.

These are just my ideas, so let's hear everyone else's ideas and get to buying stuff!!!!

P.S. This was all from Newegg.com just because it was easy to put it all together. I'm happy buying from wherever admin gets the best deal

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RAIDMAX O2 ATX-302BP Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 420W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: ATX-302BP
Item #: N82E16811156182

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$52.99 $52.99

ABIT IP35-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: IP35-E
Item #: N82E16813127031

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$99.99 -$10.00 Instant $89.99

EVGA 256-P2-N733-LR GeForce 8400GS 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail
Model #: 256-P2-N733-LR
Item #: N82E16814130316

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$37.99 $37.99

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model HH80562PH0568M - OEM
Model #: HH80562PH0568M
Item #: N82E16819115018

Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy

In Stock
$245.00 $245.00

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA1065 - Retail
Model #: BL2KIT12864AA1065
Item #: N82E16820148069

Return Policy: Memory (Modules, USB) Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$99.99 -$15.00 Instant $84.99

Maxtor STM380215AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: STM380215AS
Item #: N82E16822144466

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
$37.99 $37.99

LITE-ON Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DH-16D2S-04 - OEM
Model #: DH-16D2S-04
Item #: N82E16827106095

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$17.99 $17.99

Scythe SY1225SL12SH 120mm Case Fan - Retail
Model #: SY1225SL12SH
Item #: N82E16835185060

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$8.99 $8.99

XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
Model #: HDT-S1283
Item #: N82E16835233003

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$36.99 $36.99

SONY PlayStation 3 w/Spider Man 3 40 GB Black - Retail
Model #: 98006
Item #: N82E16868110021

Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
$399.99 $799.98
Subtotal: $1,412.90

-$70 Mail In Rebates

Total $1,342.90
+ Approx $50 Shipping
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~ $1,395 +/-

q6600 and a couple ps3's I would agree that is the best use of our money

Okay new thought:

I just found out about this program called the Affinity Changer Utility that is supposed to increase performance of SMPs by up to 1000PPD. Which translates into faster WUs. So this is what I'm thinking....
For max performance, we get two quads and over clock them as much as possible and one refurbed PS3 which would put us as ~$1550.
That's a little over I know, but here's some more ideas!

What if, we don't buy hard drives for the quads? We can just run them off 64-Bit Ubuntu CD's (free dollars). That saves us ~$110 which brings us down to ~$1440

PS I've been running F@H on live CD's for over a week and haven't notice any change is folding times.

Which puts us ~$5 dollars over budget. Surely Admin can shell out an extra $5?

I think the affinity changer app only works on Windows and more or less gets it on par with Linux SMP. Since free Linux is more economical than expensive Windows, I'd say we go with that.

With a live CD, is there any way to save data when reboots are necessary? If so, that would be a good option. If not, we should really pursue the flash drive option.

Also, keep in mind this gear is going to have a Canadian home, so be sure to price gear north of the border.