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Thread: best crunching machine to build on budget |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 6
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kateiacy
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 23, 2010 Post Count: 1027 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I'm currently crunching on 3 machines that were purchased for other purposes. They work fine for crunching but definitely aren't the best choices for it.
----------------------------------------I'm planning to build a new machine sometime before the end of the year solely for crunching and would love some advice on what would be my best choice for $800-$900 US. This will be my first try at building a machine myself.* I have installed RAM and HDD before, and I have installed and maintained Ubuntu Linux on all 3 of my current machines. My requirements: most efficient CPU for crunching for the budget desktop machine; ideally not too big as my space is limited needs wifi ideally will have Nvidia card with compute capability 1.3 for GPU BOINC projects needs enough RAM to run multiple CEP2 WUs (0.5 - 1 Gb per thread) adequate cooling so I can overclock Cost savings: will run headless so no cost for monitor, keyboard, mouse will run under Linux, so no cost for operating system Thanks in advance for suggestions and thoughts! *Edit: I realize that isn't quite true! My first computer ever was a Sinclair ZX-81 that I built from a kit in the early 1980s.   [Edit 1 times, last edit by kateiacy at Oct 26, 2010 1:58:22 PM] |
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GTCola2010
Cruncher Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Post Count: 40 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi Kateiacy,
----------------------------------------I had this same question and I copy/pasted this advice for myself from Sport at SeriousCrunchers: "personally I'd opt in for a fresh 550 watt PSU ...$45( I have one of these and love it) An ASUS AM2+ MoBO @$75 an AMD Phenom Quad processor @$60 You will need a cooler but I'm sure you have a decent one laying around or add$35 for a top shelf Cooler 2X2 gig DDR2 RAM@$80 $260 so far.....$295 with cooler Add a decent Case @$45 And we are in the $300/$350 range" [Edit 1 times, last edit by GTCola2010 at Nov 4, 2010 11:30:58 PM] |
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trn-XS
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Jan 23, 2010 Post Count: 61 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Anything Intel with hyper threading usually gets great PPD, maybe an i7-860 based rig. I'm sure you could build a headless 860 rig for less than 800.
----------------------------------------As for the budget I recommend for a cruncher, no case, 1 basic HD, basic RAM (3gb would be great for 8 threads), good enough Mobo, and good cooling. Control the cruncher with SSH and control boinc remotely with the boinc manager and advanced > select computer. Then install ubuntu server (abandon ye desktop enviroment!) and let er rip.  |
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kateiacy
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 23, 2010 Post Count: 1027 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thanks to both who responded with great ideas! I think I might actually manage an AMD Phenom hexacore in my budget range -- will be doing further research over THanksgiving holiday and hopefully building this thing in December.
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martin64
Senior Cruncher Germany Joined: May 11, 2009 Post Count: 445 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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If your machine runs 24/7, don't forget the power consumption. If you can save, say, 100W in your setup, this will sum up to 876 kWh savings in a year. I don't know what that costs in your case, but in our country that would have a price tag of more than 200$ a year, which I would recommend spending in a more energy efficient setup rather than power consumption.
----------------------------------------Regards, Martin  |
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krakatuk
Advanced Cruncher Germany Joined: Oct 3, 2008 Post Count: 141 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I think AMD Phenom hexacore is efficient enough in your case. You can wait till the new 95W version comes out - this one should be even better.
----------------------------------------Another option - build two boxes with the new Athlon x4 615E. These CPUs are cheap and extremely energy efficient. They have only 45W TDP in comparison to Phenoms 120W. You would get 8 cores consuming very less energy and would be able to stick double amount of GPUs inside.  |
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