Ok. I've decided not to get SSD's because for 3 256gb SSD's (I'm going for three setups), it would cost $600 for the cheaper SSD's. I figured a 128gb SSD wouldn't be enough once you take into account the operating system and the amount lost to formatting. and even then its $300 for so little space. I think I'm just going to go with like 3 $60 7200rpm drives. I'll post a shopping list son.

Tentative Shopping List So Far:

*Note* I got 3x of everything you see here since I am planning on having 3 computer setups.

Western Digital WD AV-GP WD10EURX 1TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive: $90

Rosewill RV350 350W ATX 1.3 Power Supply: $30

Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G: $8

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop: $75

ECS B85H3-M3(1.0) LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard: $70

Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics: $240

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler: $34


Each motherboard has one place for a graphics card, however, if I want to add graphics cards, I'll most likely need to upgrade the PSU. I have no Cases though I may add some since I'm still under budget. I'm considering upgrading to full size motherboards w/ 2-3 graphics cards slots each as that should still keep me under budget enough to get full sized cases (which I like better).


The total cost for all three computer setups as of now is: $1641

Ok if I update my cart with 3 Antec 900 Cases (good cooling) and upgrade to a motherboard that can support multiple GPU I get to $2200, which in my opinion still isn't too bad. If I really wanted to I could cut costs but as of now I like the current config. What's your guys opinion?

Just starting to work my way throug your build but I like what I see so far. Looked at the dual cpu boards but have always backed because of cost. most of the dual boards are server boards. You really have to pay attention when you move to server equipment: bufferd cert memory, non-standard size for cases, server cpus etc. consumer CPUs don't usually work on dual boards.

Unless you are getting a volume discount, I recommend building one unit first, get it set up an crunching, and evaluated. If all is well, order the other 1 or 2. I personaly wait for the good sales at either newegg or micro center and buy parts as i find the deals.

To me this is a great part ot the joy of being a cruncher: specing the parts for a new machine and doing the build. I feel like an engineer for the first and a brain surgeon for the latter. :). After that comes the tweaking and measuring performance gains. great fun.

My last suggestion: after you think you have the build speced, put it away for at least a day, post it here and let us tech heads give it a good QC, before you order. It's easy to forget something or spec an incompatible part when you are swapping parts on the build sheet.


Starting a big 4th party in the next hour or so and will probably not be back on line for a couple of days (yeah, when my family starts a party everthing else stops for a while; Old Scotch-Irish tradition repurposed to the 4th of July.

good luck. can't wait to see what you build.

B2I

There was some talk about Haswell at https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,35205

And I like i7 hyperthreading even if I suggest restricting BOINC to 4 threads for memory reasons or whatever. It is just too useful to ignore.

Luck,
Lawrence