Ressucitate rig or build new one to run Folding@home ?

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frenchie
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Ressucitate rig or build new one to run Folding@home ?

Post by frenchie » Wed Jan 13, 2010 1:23 am

Hi,
I have and old socket 478 motherboard with a P4 at 2,4GHz, 768Mo of RAM, a 6800GS AGP GPU (it replaced the MX420 that was there originally which you could almost run without a heatsink !!), and a 400W PSU. It's just packed in a storage box for now.
I'm in a building frenzy and I'm thinking of putting it all back together in a small homemade hackbox and use it mostly as a folding box (also a file server / media player (will be plugged on my TV)), to be on 24/7, and to not be more than 9cm high (my design so far). It will run windows XP Home. I want to be able to do some folding with it (and make it before the deadline). Since this is SPCR, I won't even mention that it has to be quiet.
My plan is to change the PSU fan with something quiet and add a slow moving fan as exhaust. I'd love to keep it to those 2 92mm fan !

HOWEVER, I can't just put it back together ; I need :
- an AGP riser card, because the AGP card is a full-size card and it does'nt fit in my design (around 15€ including shipping)
- some kind of hack to get that GPU to run passive. The current heatsink has one of those small whinny fans on it.
- a new socket 478 retention clip (the one I have now is broken, costs around 10€ including shipping)
total cost around 25€

My questions are :
Is it worth it to spend those 25€ and put all this back together to fold ? I'm not sure the PPD/Watt will be worth it...
Should I invest in a more modern cheap board / CPU / RAM combination of some kind, and use the 8600GS card I have (it's cool and runs passive)? If yes, any suggestions ? I'm thinking E5300 on cheap mobo and 1Gb RAM, to keep the price to a minimum (I have no experience with AMD but I'm open to suggestions)
Should I add to the previous question a decent low profile passive GPU to fold with (price must be below 100€) ? I'm thinking 9600/9800GT

Thank you for your comments !

NeilBlanchard
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Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:15 am

Hi,

I doubt that a P4 and an old video card would be worth more than about 100 points per day. I think only the CPU would work at all, and P4's were pretty poor at Folding, IIANM.

cordis
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yeah

Post by cordis » Wed Jan 13, 2010 2:09 pm

I pretty much agree with Neil, I have a P4 (~3ghz) laptop that runs win XP, and running 2 jobs on it I was able to get 200-300 ppd, I shut it down after a couple months, it just wasn't worth it. The CULV dual core 1.3ghz laptop I got last year is now doing 600-700 ppd since I upgraded it to win 7. Almost anything more modern will give you much better ppd/Watt, anything with at least 2 cores and a better video card will blow a P4 out of the water. Hell, my little fileserver backup box with an Atom 330 is putting out 900ppd (but it's running linux). So yeah, something more modern would definitely be worth it. The tricky part will be the video card, not sure if anything modern will have an agp slot. Or if you'll be able to find something passive that still folds well. Although, maybe some of those new Nvidia cards (210/220/240) might work, they seem pricey but I think some of them have had passive or at least resonably fan-swappable heat sinks. Whatever you decide, good luck with it!

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:39 pm

Neil, Cordis, Thanks for your inputs !!!

I'm going to finish modding my case and then I'll look into the parts problem...
I guess those extra ones are just too old for anything... I might put it back together in an new case and give it to my grandparents to get them started with the internet. An ssd will speed it up nicely. And it'll give me more room to store more stuff ; great !!

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:21 am

I'm late chiming in, but don't dump any more money into that old setup.

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Thu Jan 14, 2010 12:18 pm

Thank you kansakilla.
I'm going to see what cheap mobo / CPU /RAM combo I can find, and when I have more $$$$, I'll throw in a decent GPU in there. It should work well.

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:24 am

Ok, I think I'm going to go with a P43 motherboard (ASRock P43ME), with one PCI-express slot, 2GB RAM and an E5300 (total around 110-120€). I'll invest in the biggest low profile GPU I can find later (9800GT so far).
I'll post pics when I'm done.

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Post by aristide1 » Sat Jan 16, 2010 10:01 am

Frenchie, no it is better to donate the P4 to a charity.

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:50 am

Ok, so I just got an Asrock P43ME motherboard (2nd hand, like new, 30€) and an intel E5300 (50€) processor.
I have a couple of 1Gb RAM sticks I can use, and a temporary 8600 GT GPU. I modded an old 350W PSU I had laying around with the 80mm scythe fan that came with the Minja (connected to a molex adaptor with a Noctua ULNA).
I'll keep it to that for now, it'll all go into my latest media/folding project (pics to come in the gallery soon... hopefully).

Thank you all again for your inputs

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