What could have been the cheapest dual core ever.

[aristide1]

Still having a case and a hard drive lying around and noting recent NewEgg Specials I could have done this:

$15 PS Antec EA380, possibly even a $10 Coolmax (after rebate) 500 watter. But after checking the Antec has like twice as many safety seal approvals on it than the Coolmax.

$48Gigabyte GA-M61SME-S2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 mobo - AM2 and it overclocks as well. But for $18 (more than 30%) more the Biostar TForce 7050 gives you a 2.2volt VDIMM jumper, and solid state caps for the processor (the rest are electrolytics, but also less critical.)

$50 AMD X2 3800 on special, didn't last long. The 4000+ is now $61.

$20 Crucial 2*512MB DR2-667 CAS3, or get twice as much for $27 and use just one stick for a cost of $13.50

$2The COOLER MASTER RR-CCH-L9U1-GP 92mm Hyper TX2 CPU Cooler. Yeah this cooler made a big splash initially because its got a plastic skirt to "help cool MOSFETS", but obviously the thing has tanked since then. ZipZoomFly was giving them away on Black Friday.
And they still have them for $2 now at:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ps=homain2

You could a 1 or 2GB USB flash and have a whole system for about $150

[merlin]

In terms of cpu and mobo, I've done some be-2300 combos from frys for $89. That's a great cheap dual core that can easily overclock to 2.5ghz usually. The rest of the parts weren't quite that cheap though

[aristide1]

I'm trying to think of other ways to lower the initial cost of a folding machine. On these AMD folders (max 95watts) one could share a power supply for 2 boards without over taxing the ps. I have heard of splitters for the main CPU 20/24 pin cable, but I haven't seen them.

The thumb drive would decrease power usage and heat.

Using only one stick of memory would use less power, but I haven't determined the performance penalty yet. I have yet to see any one my folders use more than 1GB of memory.

[Matija]

$2The COOLER MASTER RR-CCH-L9U1-GP 92mm Hyper TX2 CPU Cooler. Yeah this cooler made a big splash initially because its got a plastic skirt to "help cool MOSFETS", but obviously the thing has tanked since then. ZipZoomFly was giving them away on Black Friday.

Why would they do that? The HyperTX is a great cooler for midrange systems. It's still selling for $35 here.

You seem like such a wasteful nation... :/

[aristide1]

I agree with all your points. I believe what you are seeing is that there are other coolers that cooler better even though they cost much more money and the extreme cooling capabilities may not be required. So when I said this cooler tanked I meant only from a marketing stance.

Taken to the most extreme would be water cooling.

Also - Cooler Master may have over estimated demand and now simply wants to move inventory out of it's warehouses. Storage costs money as well.

Not everyone in the US is this silly. For example I have seen people take 2.1GHz AMD X2 Brisbanes processors up to 2.8GHz on stock coolers.

I would hope that this would lower the price of this cooler in your country as well.

[Matija]

Nah, man...

1) Get free HyperTX coolers
2) Ship them to Croatia
3) ???
4) Profit!

There's bound to be someone, somewhere, who would have bought all those coolers for enough to make at least a slight profit for ZZF. I just find it strange that they gave them away like that...

Hardware prices are high here, and in lots of other places in the world. You've surely seen threads about the cheap Antec Solo here on SPCR -- it still costs $135 minimum here through an online retailer, and an incredible $172 maximum in one shop.

Why can't that price difference be exploited somehow?

[aristide1]

Why can't that price difference be exploited somehow?

It depends, what would happen to me if I was caught exploiting this huge price gap?

[Matija]

A mansion and a harem of blondes?

[fri2219]

The most efficient way to do the computational work is to cram 64K Power5 derived processors in one location and skip the distributed circle jerk nonsense.

From transmission line loss alone (energy waste) and considering the lack of published results accomplished, the folding at home project needs to be folded up.

Don't take my word for it, read the analysis in July 10 2006 Science.

[aristide1]

The most efficient way to do the computational work is to cram 64K Power5 derived processors in one location and skip the distributed circle jerk nonsense.

From transmission line loss alone (energy waste) and considering the lack of published results accomplished, the folding at home project needs to be folded up.

Don't take my word for it, read the analysis in July 10 2006 Science.

I have no doubts to your claims but:

1. The most efficient way? I can apply that question to anything today, converting heat or motion to electricity and back again.

2. Transmission line losses - same point. Frankly I want to have a motor that runs on natural gas that can turn the compressor on my A/C, eliminating the whole electrical conversion process. Or all homes that get natural gas can have their own generators. Sounds goods, not likely.

[QuietOC]

$20 Crucial 2*512MB DR2-667 CAS3, or get twice as much for $27 and use just one stick for a cost of $13.50

You missed Newegg's deal on Monday of 2*512MB Mushkin DDR2-1066 for free (after rebate).

[aristide1]

You're right I did.

[QuietOC]

I'm trying to think of other ways to lower the initial cost of a folding machine.

G4s are suppossedly quite good at folding, though I think the Playstation 3 is the best bang-for-your-buck for folding right now. Though, I wonder if you can do folding on the HD 3850...

[autoboy]

I am amazed that my PS3 can wipe the floor of all my machines folding for a mere $400 and 130W. I shut most of mine down because there seemed to be no point anymore. There is no reason anymore to buy a PC strictly for folding, except maybe if you had a x1900 in it folding.

[aristide1]

I am amazed that my PS3 can wipe the floor of all my machines folding for a mere $400 and 130W. I shut most of mine down because there seemed to be no point anymore. There is no reason anymore to buy a PC strictly for folding, except maybe if you had a x1900 in it folding.

A little more info please?
Points per day?
What's involved in setting it up to fold?

I had heard they use 200watts to fold. Hmmmmm.

[aristide1]

We are now in position 26.

[mattthemuppet]

The most efficient way to do the computational work is to cram 64K Power5 derived processors in one location and skip the distributed circle jerk nonsense.

From transmission line loss alone (energy waste) and considering the lack of published results accomplished, the folding at home project needs to be folded up.

Don't take my word for it, read the analysis in July 10 2006 Science.

Can you provide a more accurate reference? Science was published on 7th and 14th July 2006, neither of which contained any reference I could find to efficiency of distributed computing. I'm not being arsey, I'm just really interested in reading the article but I don't have time to plough through all the issues looking for it

[spookmineer]

I am amazed that my PS3 can wipe the floor of all my machines folding for a mere $400 and 130W. I shut most of mine down because there seemed to be no point anymore. There is no reason anymore to buy a PC strictly for folding, except maybe if you had a x1900 in it folding.

A little more info please?
Points per day?
What's involved in setting it up to fold?

I had heard they use 200watts to fold. Hmmmmm.

From FAQ PS3:

How do I get a copy of Folding@home for the PS3?

If you have PS3 system version 1.6 or later, you will see a Folding@Home icon in the Network column of the XMB (PS3 menu). Just click on the icon and that's it. If you don't have 1.6 or later, please perform a system upgrade.


The GPU client is still the fastest, but it is the least flexible and can only run a very, very limited set of WU's. Thus, its points are not linearly proportional to the speed increase. The PS3 takes the middle ground between GPU's (extreme speed, but at limited types of WU's) and CPU's (less speed, but more flexibility in types of WU's). We have picked the PS3 as the natural benchmark machine for PS3 calculations and set its points per day to 900 to reflect this middle ground between speed (faster than CPU, but slower than GPU) and flexibility (more flexible than GPU, less than CPU).

[aristide1]

I don't think people are aware I can put together a dual core for about $200, uses 95 watts, and gets about 1000 points per day.