Which Processor?

[Bikerznet]

Hi

I am currently folding on my main pc at home, which consists of a i7-3930K CPU and 6990 & 6850 graphics cards, giving me 3 GPU's

I would like to build a dedicated Folding@Home farm and would take the following form.

Single processor motherboards
Linux Operating system
Home built open racking

I will be adding additional motherboards/cpu's etc..as funds allow over time..I think this will give me more flexibility to grow my system over time than an all out Multi-processor system from the start

I would like to know members thoughts on which CPU to use, the best bang for buck, Intel or AMD, server or desktop CPU....etc

Also how much ram per system?

I'm looking at between £400 to £500 per system? (Motherboard/CPU/RAM)

Lastly with regard to the Linux OS, as I what these as dedicated folding boxes, is there any Light versions of Linux that could achieve this? preferably booting from a usb stick?

[beer]

If you want to run them 24/7 then you should also consider how much Watt they use.

I would proberbly go for this:
ASUS B85M-G
Core i7 4770S
2 gb ram
300 wath 80 Plus Bronze
Debian stable

I have never seen a WU that used more than 200 mb ram so 2 gb is a bit overkill but then there is room to grow. Who knows the next batch of WU

PS I dont know how will the new AMD's CPU fold. The above CPU gives around 20 k PPD on windows 7 and I have heard that there is around 10% to gain if you change to linux

[bruce]

Welcome to foldingforum.org, Bikerznet.

Beer makes a couple of very good points. If you plan to fold 24x7 for as long as the hardware lasts, (A) power costs are more significant than initial hardware costs. add more machines over time, and (B) since you plan to add more systems over time there will be better CPUs/MBs, in a short time no matter what you buy today.

When the Pande Group evaluates the growth rate of the entire FAH project, they don't really care which CPU or GPU people have, they simply count slots/clients. The same goes for overclocking. Adding a system that uses X Watts isn't a lot different than by overclocking a few systems and adding X watts of folding power. There are advantages to both approaches.

[Bikerznet]

Thanks for the advice and comments

My thinking behind building several small systems to build up a folding farm is if I want to build either a 2P or 4P system the initial cost would be upto £2000, whereas what beer has put forward would only cost me 400ish. To get the 2000 would take upto a year, whereas the lesser system could be started relatively soon and built on over time.

I do understand the cost of doing it this way in terms of power consumption, i.e more motherboards, PSU's, Memory etc..but I think I can take that hit

On another point a 2P or 4P has a resilience weakness in that, it has a single point of failure in the motherboard! Lose the motherboard in this type of system and I've lost all of my processors, the other system lose a motherboard and I've only lost one processor!!!

If I had a choice (or lottery win) i would love to build loads of $P systems, with 4 GTX Titans per system, I love to play with computer hardware, that must be the electronics engineer in me

[7im]

beer had a good recommendation, but didn't mention a GPU. Consider getting a motherboard with dual PCIe x16 slots for a few dollars more. You can start out with CPU folding, then add GPU folding as time/money allows. With the GTX Titan and 780 hitting the market, you should be able to pick up some good used 6xx series boards on the cheap. I've seen PPD charts around on the web where a 660ti gets 2-3x more PPD than an i7 processor on a soon to be released fahcore_17.

[Nathan_P]

A 2p or 4p board is also normally designed for use in a server so they should last longer - there are also very few overclocking tools available to shorten the lifespan, although it can be done.

2p/4p can be cheaper if you know where to look. I managed to put together a 2p intel E5 system for about £1000, I get 200-250k PPD on it running -bigadv or it can chew through 10-12 SMP WU a day. Power consumption is 248w from the wall. Its my most efficient rig, will form the basis of upgrading my older xeon boxes and I spend about £77 a month on folding electric across all 3 rigs.

[beer]

7im: reason for that I did not talk/recommend GPU was that he stated that he would like to run Linux and GPU folding does not work on linux (yet)

[7im]

If not too much trouble, I would still plan for the GPU option in linux. PG mentions adding linux support in this QA session last month.

http://folding.typepad.com/news/2013/05 ... ve-qa.html

I've even seen mention of a linux client working in a beta version, mentioned in this (open to read) beta thread... http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=24337

But again, that's all beta and things change, so plan accordingly.

[Bikerznet]

My reasoning behind Linux as an OS is that if I use windows based systems this would increase my costs by having to purchase an OS for each system in the farm.

On my current system if I run just my CPU (i7-3930K all 12 cores) i seem to get the same PPD as if I run both my 6990 and 6850 GPU's and just 9 cores of my CPU. I may get a small PPD but the power increase and heat from my system doesn't warrant adding the GPUs at the moment!

[Bikerznet]

Just as a matter of interest what sort of PPD figures should I get from a i7-3930K and 6990 (if I don't use the 6850)?

[Bikerznet]

Think it's all change!

Being looking at various options and I like the look of a 2P System as follows.

Asus Z9PE-D8 WS Motherboard which I was going to fit with 1x Intel Xeon E5-2650W(in the short term)

This will allow me to add another CPU as soon as I can afford and also has loads of slots that I could add GPUs to again as I can afford.

While the initial outlay is more than I originally expected, I could afford this in the next couple of months and as I already have a reasonable system to fold on, this will give me a good platform to build on over time and hopefully be a good folding rig.

Comments on such a rig would be appreciated.

[P5-133XL]

Just note that that Asus Z9PE-D8 MB uses EEB Form Factor 12 inch x 13 inch ( 30.5 cm x 33 cm ) which will not fit in a standard ATX case. You will need an oversize case which will normally cost more.

That being said, that is a much more flexible MB for folding than the normal consumer MB but it won't be an OC'ing wonderboard.

[Nathan_P]

Most EATX cases will take that board - you may need to move some of the motherboard standoffs and add a couple of additional holes but its not a big job. I got a case for my Asus Z9PE-D8 for just over £60 + shipping

Oh and the board will overclock anything - its the CPU's that are locked down

[Davison]

The AMD dual core Opteron processors are available dirt cheap because they were basically only used in high end work stations & servers. I bought 10 of the 3 ghz ones last week for $5 each. Work stations with 2 dual core processors can be had used for &200-$300 & I have seen blade servers with 2 dual core processors for under $100. I have been running 7 HP work stations for about a year with no problems. I keep a couple spares in case one goes down.