Folding Forum

Hey guys, I've got a system I built for what I thought would be the follow-on to seti@home (thinking that Aricebo would start up again with that program) and I completely forgot that I could have been using it here. I tried firing it up yesterday and apparently the mobo croaked while in storage, so I'm getting another one UNLESS a dual 1366 socket B mobo out of an HP Z800 workstation would work better. But please read on before deciding. You'll see why, very fast

Processor: Intel Xeon X5678 3.6ghz quad core (I can go up to a hex core on this motherboard listed below) IF you recommend running a dual xeon system I can snag an HP Z800 1366 workstation mobo for 75 bucks (new pull) but it only has two 16x slots. Since we're trying to do GPU computing here, I'd think the 7 16x slots outweigh the dual CPU idea. However, I got this one cheap and a mate for it wouldn't cost me much.

Heatsink: Intel factory new water cooling solution, with REAL Arctic Silver (the old school stuff, NOT the ceramic stuff). Came pre-filled and works GREAT.

Motherboard: Asus P6T7-WS "supercomputer" motherboard (currently dead, but I found one on ebay for 190 shipped to replace it with)
NOTE: This motherboard has TWO Nvidia 200 series PCI-E/16x controllers, not just one, and it has SEVEN 16x slots

RAM: 24gb, 6 slots, currently DDR3/1333, but the board overclocks quite well.

Hard Drives: Five 5900 RPM Seagate ST5000DM000 5tb, 128mb cache hard drives that are currently JBOD, but can be put into any RAID setup you like. Also have a stand alone ESATA 25tb 5 drive array that can be used JBOD or any other RAID array as well as soon as it is populated (system itself already has its 25tb worth of drives, though honestly I bet someone sues the pants off HDD makers again since they only format out, using NTFS OR GDI, to around 4tb and small change. I can see even 200 gig, or even double that for indexing etc, but losing an entire terabyte on EACH drive just to formatting? that's INSANE. However, I get the drives for 125 each and they're FRESH NEW drives (dated June 2015)

Video Cards: Currently FOUR Nvidia 295 GTX motherboards. I'm thinking that WITH the board having two 16x controllers instead of the usual single, I could run at least two pairs of cards in SLI, for two instances of quad SLI at a minimum, or I could populate all 7 slots with 295 GTX dual GPU video cards, if it is better to NOT run them in SLI.

Now I know that the 295 GTX's are relatively OLD video cards, BUT, they don't stack up too badly against the 490 and even the 590 GTX video cards, which are also (in the 490's case I think) able to run four cards in SLI. I know the 780ti is supposed to be able to run in quad as well. However, from what I read about CUDA computing, running them in SLI makes the folding@home software see them as a SINGLE card, so I'm thinking that being able to run all 7 slots (if there's room since they are double width cards) would be a slight advantage. I haven't investigated water blocks for the video cards, simply because I'd have to run an external radiator to water cool that many video cards. I

I also have a pair of Asus branded ATI 6870's (crossfire capable) but I'm not so sure if they would play nice with the NVIDIA 16x controllers. NOR am I sure they would be much of an improvement unless they were used for what they do best, vs what Nvidia cards do best.

CASE: Antec 10 external drive bay case. WIth some mods, I think I can get all 7 295GTX's crammed in there.

Power Supply: Pre-buyout PC Power & Cooling 1.2kw power supply. I have TWO of them, so I can certainly power all 7 video cards if I need to, probably with just ONE power supply, while leaving the other P/S for mobo/processor etc use. (and keeping my bedroom REALLY warm during the winter)

I'm NOT trying to set any records here, but since unbranded 295 GTX's are pretty cheap right now, (and I'm an 80% disabled vet, 5 kids, no wife (Died at 40 years old in Nov 2009 from lung and brain cancer, went in for an earache and came out in an urn a week later) so funds are tight (I did manage to retire out of a two service, 26 year military career..thanks to an Iraqi teenager, his cell phone and a 155mm artillery shell that we thank GOD walked right over because his cell wouldn't connect right away to set it off. SO I can't work, and we manage to squeak by ok. (she'd cashed in her life insurance when I retired since she couldn't get "mad money" anymore...I'm still paying off the $30k in credit card debt that I knew nothing about until AFTER she died and the bill collectors started trying to attach to my house).

I'm inquiring here, since I have pretty good WiFI now, and I have this system that is totally overkill for gaming (I have an Alienware Area 51 ALX as my main game system and a pair of shuttle SX58H7 1366 shoebox systems for our cabin cruiser (1980 30' Bayliner Encounter) and our camper (used as video servers while on the road, dual 5tb drives in each system)

So I have a few 1366 systems. I also have a Dell XPS 730X workstation, an Alienware Area 51 ALX (also 1366 like the 730x) and a rather useless HP Z200 socket 771 xeon, and it has one of those idiotic HP proprietary power supplies, and it didn't even HAVE a 4 OR 6 pin video power connector, so it has an ATI 1900 AIW (all in wonder) video card in it. It just sits there, never use it because I can't upgrade the power supply and quite frankly it was slower than my Dell XPS 730 (not the X) with a 3.33GHZ C2D in it.

Yes, I've had the cops here several times thinking I'm a pot grower or something because my house draws so much power (I also have the home theater from hell..Yamaha RX-Z11 HT receiver, Rackmount video server with 20tb of blue ray movies on it, four Peavey CS1200 (600 watts per channel RMS, not that idiotic peak power stuff)old 1970's band amps, 9 single channel Altec-Lansing 31 band equalizers, a Pyle Pro 2000 watt class D driving an 18" passive Peavey subwoofer, two Velodyne HGS10 subs (active, 1350 watt RMS) and six JBL 135 watt 8" subs, Peavey CS600 band speakers, Jensen Model 25's (from the 70's) as the rear speakers, and Radio Shack Minimus/Optimus 7's and 11's (thick aluminum cabinets, replaced drivers with optimized drivers and custom crossovers) and an 82" Mitsubishi 1080p 3d TV. And a couch that has butt shakers bolted to the base (and it's ready for the free craigslist curb system)

This is not counting the home theater I have in my bedroom. SO we draw HUGE amounts of power at times. The Folding@home system will just add a little bit to the power draw (200 amp service and I can snap the main by flipping 3 breakers on, go figure)

I'm not bragging about my HT system, but I have a buddy with over $500k in his HT system and when he came and saw mine in action, I think he turned purple and steam started coming out of his ears. Rather than paying a grand a FOOT for uber high end COPPER interconnects and speaker wire, I had a friend make up pure soft silver patch cords and speaker wire. You really CAN hear the difference between that and copper, and I think the entire run cost me 800 bucks. HE had over 20 grand just in CABLE. I mean, you have oxygen free copper, how much further can you go with it, right? Kinda like how stupid IRIDIUM spark plugs are. True, it's VERY HARD, but it's not a good electrical conductor. Want power? FInd spark plugs that use SILVER electrodes..they're out there.

Sorry for the running off on a wild tangent there.

Anyway, since my current gaming system meets my needs at the present, I'd like to know if the system I described above is worth using for Folding@home or not. We have something like 18 laptops laying around (from my impossible to kill Dell C840 2.4thz P4 thru my HP 2760 I7 elitebook and a Toshiba P505 series 18.4" laptop. Plus around 10 or so desktops that are C2D or above. Lots of unused processing power (though most are unplugged). The surpise one of the laptops is my rarely used Dell Precision M70, which rated a 5.9 on EVERYTHING in Win7 Ultimate, except the processor (Centrino) that garnered a whopping 2.2. But it has one of the best screens ever made, WUXGA, and simply stunning for its age (oddly enough, you have to go to Alienware or Clevo to find a true 1080p 1920x1080 screen right now). Even the video card rated a 5.9 for aero! Intel's integrated HD chips STILL can't touch it.

So if you folks have time, let me know if the system would be worthwhile. It is NOT some fancy pants brand new Intel processor nor the latest and greatest motherboard (though for 5900RPM drives, the seagates do pretty well). I simply want to help, since my wife died from lung and brain cancer. Oddly, her SISTER (2 years younger) ALSO had a brain tumor RIGHT when she was halfway thru the year SHE turned 40, but NO lung cancer. Which makes me pray every night that my genes trumped their mothers, as she inherited horrible hardening of the arteries (her blood pressure was 240/160 for several years before the medical hobby shop (also known as Offutt AFB's base hospital) found both kidney areteries to be 90% plugged and it only took them what, 14 YEARS to figure that out?

So I'm guessing that sooner or later ONE of them will get a brain tumor (especially since they seem to have cell phones growing out of their ears!) and I'd like to "pay it forward" a bit if I can. (and my triglycerides are at 470, go figure, so I'm sure I'm next to kick the bucket)

One thing I do NOT understand is why the HUGE effort is being made to CURE cancer. Not for the reason you might think (EG my being a heartless SOB). What I think they SHOULD be concentrating on is KILLING OFF whatever gene or hormone allows these cancerous tumors to grow new veins and arteries to FEED themselves. Because it seems to me like a LOT of cancers lie in wait while ONE cancer is growing, like the ability for one tumor to suppress the others. Remove that, and cancer develops somewhere else.

But to me, if you choke off the blood supply to a tumor, it should DIE, right? Wither on the vine? So if you PREVENT the highway for the food and air supply from DEVELOPING, the TUMOR croaks. Now of course that won't work with ALL cancers, but anything that develops a TUMOR should at least get slowed down a lot by it. Yet virtually NO research is being done on this very subject that seems so obvious to me. I SAW the tumors they took out of my wife's brain after she died. 3.5cm and 5cm. When I took her to the base hospital a month before she died, they sent her home with antibiotics. A CIVILIAN hospital 2 weeks later said there was NOTHING physically wrong with her. Then we went to the University of Nebraska Medical Center In OMAHA NE, and they found a lung tumor that was wrapped around the blood supply to her brain (feeble blond jokes about not having 2 brain cells to rub together are ok..lol). Now they SAID that a CT brain scan was indicated ANYTIME they found lung cancer. Yet It wasn't in her records that one was GIVEN> They CHARGED for it, but either never did it or it was never read/watched etc.

I can't say that if they'd found them they could have gotten them out in time, but I'd been bringing her to the base hospital for one EYE dialating out all on its own (same eye), migranes, blurred vision, incontinence etc, for over 12 YEARS and the base didn't do squat. If I'd been a full bird colonel, she'd still be alive, I'm sure! And we ALL know that tumors that big don't magically appear in 7 days. (they did the CT AFTER the tumors had squashed her autonomic brain flat and killed her)

And no, no malpractice lawyer would touch it either.

So you can see WHY I'd like to pay it forward as much as I possibly can. (I've already given over 20 gallons of my O-negative, negative CMV blood, which I guess is a universal donor, though I can only take my own, and they use it for heart transplant patients etc.

All I need to do personally is last FOUR MORE YEARS until my son graduates high school. Then my life of pain (mostly physical now) can go away, responsibilities fulfilled. I've already got 5 grandkids and my son (14) was an UNCLE at 3 or 4 years old.

I've already tamed my "bucket list" a long time ago. I made a small, but lifelong difference in the world as it stands today. Today, and every day since 1 October 2009, I've been a parasite, since I can't work anymore. I already know I'll die alone, but I'm an only kid, I'm used to it. I never get lonely, never get bored. So four years from now, I can, as the Pink Panther once said, "EXIT, STAGE LEFT".

But until that time, I want to help. I've read that GPU computing DRASTICALLY decreased the amount of time to run a "SETI SET" as we called them ages ago. Since I have the parts, and while I still have the brains (I'm adopted so I have no clue if I'm an alzheimers candidate, but my KIDS sure think I am!), I'd like to help. If this rig sounds like a winner for folding@home, I'm happy to let her run 24/7/365.

However, what I DO need, information wise, if it sounds like a good rig, is what is OPTIMAL for hard drive sizes, since even running raid 0+1 or anything else that improves performance? I'm pretty sure I broke 4.2GHZ with that X5670, so it will clock pretty well and it does have the 6.4 giga transactions per second. This would be pure overkill for a game rig, and it would bankrupt me to put 7 TITAN Z's in it. Even the 780ti's would bankrupt me, so it's use what I have. So if ANYONE can tell me what the hard drive loads are (both room needed and bandwidth) PLEASE let me know. I DO have a pair of 128 gig Crucial C300 SSD's I could slap into it in RAID 0, but I have no idea if the "set" or chunk I'm processing would be better, but since they CAN get to the point that they die due to memory burnout, I wonder if its worth the risk, especially if the sets are really pushing the drives I/O. I also have another RAID array of five Hitachi 146gb 15k rpm U320 SCSI drives under an LSI Logic U320-2E (PCI-E 8x) dual channel controller (I also have an Asus P5NT-WS with an x64 slot I can use, since I also have the LSI logic X64 slot version of this controller) and the later P5N-T-WS (asus) mobo as well. The P5NT-WS system is in a Lian Li aluminum case with two 295 GTX's (the motherboard is an Nvidia 680i, and the P5N-T-WS is 780i, while the XPS 730 (not the x) is an Nvidia 790i ULTRA with the 3.33 GHZ C2D.

So the 680i is ready to roll, as it's simply a spare workstation that I don't use unless my good workstation dies. So depending on the minimum processor speed and GPU needed, I can more than likely bring at least ten systems online, and possibly 20, if going back to a Tyan 1398C2 motherboard and an AMD K6-3/500 (that mobo has 2mb of L3 cache onboard, which REALLY helps out a K6-3) dedicated to Folding@home. The laptops don't get much use since my son got a Samsung galaxy 3 tablet and I got an HP Stream 7. But I do travel a lot and when I do I wind up lugging THREE laptops, with probably 40 pounds of spare batteries, since I invariably kill at least one on a month long trip. Sucks dragging them thru airport security though. I've got 1 working Dell C840 P4M 2.4ghz P4, one Dell Precision M70 workstation (2.0 GHZ Centrino mobile), one HP 2530 Elitebook C2D/2.13ghz, one 2730 Elitebook laptop/tablet, one HP 2540 1.86ghz i7 elitebook, an HP 2740 2.66ghz i7 elitebook, a Toshiba P505-8980 2.25ghz C2D, 1 working Fujitsu T4220 2.0GHZ laptop/tablet (penabled no touch) 3 working Fujitsu 4215 tablet laptops 1.8ghz to 2.2 ghz C2D (penabled only, not touch), 1 HP 2760 Elitebook/2.6ghz i7, then desktops ranging from a working 80286 up thru the system I listed at the beginning of this book. I don't know if that constitutes a huge amount of computing power though, compared to power usage.

One Desktop, the Dell 3.06ghz socket 478, has an ATI 4670 AGP video card, so I'm guessing that would work. One Dell OptiPlex 5155 with a P4/630, and I have 5 shuttle shoeboxes (SFF XPC) ranging from the very FIRST real SSF, a shuttle SV24 with a P3/1ghz and Nvidia 128mb PCI video, a Shuttle shoebox P4/3.06 socket 478, with an Nvidia 7800gs (also AGP), one shuttle 3.33ghz C2D shoebox, then the pair of shuttle SX58 socket 1366 i7/960's, the aforementioned Asus 680i, 780i, 790i Ultra (the Dell XPS 730), the Alienware Area 51 ALX(which is a dell XPS 730x with an alienware bois flash, and the Asus P6T7-WS 1366 socket B, with the Xeon X5678. Plus I have way too many lower rated C2D processors and even a pair of 3.8ghz P4's, and RAM going back to the 286 days even.

So I can at least bring SOMETHING to the table that kinda sorta justifies me being a pack rat at least, if I can actually USE them all. I'd probably want everything to funnel into the video server so I don't bust my limit on concurrent connections via WIFI I'm allowed four systems, though I doubt they'd try to nail me against the wall if I had all of them online.

So if the folding@home community, who may have actually read this book thru till the end, WANTS my help, I'm happy to oblige. But it would be nice to know just how old a machine would be practical. I can run windows 7 pro 32 on all the old systems down to the lowest P4 and it runs well if you have max ram loaded. But if it will take an entire month just to do one set, that's not cost effective power wise, I'd think.

So let me know! I'm VERY interested in GPU computing (I was the top systems hardware tech at Offutt AFB since we got our first Zenith Z-100 8086 green screens back in 1984 (we were allowed to bring our own PC's in back then too, with commander approval) so I'm not an amateur at playing at hardware (Plus I've been a gamer before the original star wars X-Wing game (for DOS) was released. Besides, this would give me an ironclad reason to get rid of most of the REALLY old systems (I found a 180mhz Intel Overdrive processor in its box with the receipt while I was digging around in the attic, along with a Gravis Firebird Joystick and my first gaming rig I built myself, which was a 486 DX4-133, running 128gb of ram, which was INSANE back then.

Give me your ideas on which of those systems should be dedicated to Folding@home, and I'll do my best to keep them running.

Thanks for reading this huge book I wrote. I've been an author all my life, so I tend to use ten words where one might do.

Dave Beem. Esquire at Large.
Sgt, US Army (1980-83) Airborne Pathfinder/Sniper
TSgt, USAF (1983-2007 (Admin, B-52G flying crewchief, workgroup and then network analyst and lead systems hardware guru for the entire base.

Welcome to the folding support forum.

I have skimmed through your post and can comment on some things related to usable hardware for F@H. First there are a number of projects that can use al the CPU cores you are willing to run. So if you add either dual processors or hex core, they can be used. Balanced against that is what you are willing to spend in hardware purchases and power usage.

There are some projects still available to use just a single CPU core, but occasionally they are in short supply. Projects for 2 or more cores are generally available.

As for GPU's, current computing cores require at least nVidia Fermi or later generation cards or from AMD-ATI at least a higher end 5000 series. There are some older projects available that will process on pre-Fermi nVidia cards such as the GTX 295's you mention. The folding core used was announced as going end of life over a year ago, these 8 projects are still running until completed.

Folding basically ignores SLI or Crossfire when enabled and can use each individual GPU in a system. But the video RAM seen on the cards may be limited by the drivers to that present on a single card which can sometimes cause problems.

Dave,

I'm no hardware guru, but I think the disk requirements are pretty minimal. No need for raids or anything like that. Joe_H gave the scoop on your video cards. Sounds like projects for those are available but maybe limited. Maybe you could sell a couple of them and use the money to buy one or more GTX 750 TI's. I've seen new ones on Newegg for as little as $109. They work well for Folding and do lots of science for a really small investment. I ran two of them in a 6 year old core 2 duo system and they ran fine. That unit drew a little over 200 watts from the wall while folding. Good luck. There's lots of good support here if you run into problems. btw, your Home Theater sounds nice.

Hi and welcome

Rather than purchase some old GTX 295's buy the newest gpu's you can afford - they will use less electricity and generate far more points. SLI wise F@H ignores it and treats each gpu separately. a 750ti will pulls less than 75w from the wall and doesn't even require an external power connector and gets around 60k PPD, a 970 system will run 240w from the wall and net around 250k. You could sell of some of the older hardware to offset the costs

HDD wise, each rig can have the smallest slowest HDD that will hold the OS and software, hell you can even run it off an 8Gb usb stick if you want. If you want to go dual 1366 look at hex cores, preferably x5670 or 5675 - they will net around 50-70k ppd for 300w from the wall, I ran 3 dual 1366 rigs for a couple of years - one is now my main gaming rig and still folds occasionally

Nathan, What dual processor mobo are you using? I also think I goofed up on the xeon..it's a 5687 3.6ghz. I can get a second one cheap if needed. But finding a motherboard that will DO dual video cards in the 1366 has been an impossible search for me. All the intels have a 64 bit pci slot. I think the processor is a bastard child, because I can only fine ONE server from Intel that came with it. I haven't found ANYTHING else that supports it. Since you ran 3 of them, I'm sure you know more about them than I do. I've been trying to get my 730x motherboard to run the stupid thing, and it has bios oo6, which was ONLY available (I hear) in replacement motherboards for the 730x. It won't take the 5687 at all. I'd heard that the alienware area 51 ALX is an identical card, and MIGHT run it with the last bios that was released. Other than that, the only real motherboard choice seems to be the HP Z800 workstation mobo. I couldn't find anything in the dell precision workstation lineup that had a pair of 16x slots on it.

For Nert, thanks for the props on the home theater. I was pretty flattered when my friend offered to TRADE ME his 55" Runco plasma for my old Samsung 65" plasma (first year made, and I still think it had the best picture around excepting maybe a pioneer Kuro. He paid enough to buy a new vette back when he bought it too.) I'll take ya'lls advice on the video card. I DO like what the 295GTX's can run (for the stuff I play, it's probably overkill) but it would run neck and neck with the 400 series cards if you tweaked it right.

Does that 750ti come in a SINGLE width card by chance? Meaning NOT taking up two slots? Because that pair of Shuttle SX58 shoeboxes DO have a pair of 16x slots, so I could still run SLi if I needed to, vs the 295 taking up both slots. My main reason for retiring the 295's is that they do NOT play nice with windows 10. In fact, you can't really run ANYTHNG in windows 10 in SLI yet. You'd think that microshaft would have considered gaming rigs in their R&D, since we pretty much DRIVE most of the improvements in PC's anyway (and laptops too, it seems)

Thanks for the advice, guys. I may just put the spare 295's I have now in my son's game system since he's just got a single ATI 5970 or something like that. (whatever the last ALL In WOnder card was before they stopped making them.

Let me know about the motherboard you're using., I'm guessing if you're gaming, you've got to have either SLI or crossfire available.

Dave

Also Folding would not use SLI or crossfire. Each GPU card works for itself.

I run a dual x5670 workstation as my daily use rig using a asus z8na-d6c mobo - this is currently on its last legs and finding a replacement that doesn't involve replacing my win 7 oem licence proved to be very difficult but I managed to get a z8na-d6 and it arrived the other day - the only problem is that while it is atx it only has 1 x16 slot, now I have heard of people cutting the back of an x8 slot to allow an x16 card to fit but I'm not sure if it actually works or not. The only boards I have seen with 2 x16 slots in 1366 are supermicro or tyan in the larger SSI EEB format. As for a x5687 the only boards that I can find that explicitly support it are from tyan, although its slower cousin, the x5672 is supported on my asus board

My gaming needs are quite modest and are served by a single GTX 670

As for the other 2 rigs they were both es L5640 rigs that back in the day would do BA work units fine, on SMP they are only capable of doing 40k ppd, still not bad for 220w from the wall.

I was unable to find a 750Ti that only takes one slot (they put out a fair amount of heat when folding) but I'm happy with them. I did find a single slot 740. If I were buying new, I'd go for the 950 (See viewtopic.php?f=38&t=28013. Explicit is the best measurement of most projects.)

(I'm considering only FAH so you may make other choices based on other applications.)

Nathan, there's one on ebay right now. Pretty proud of them too.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-Z8NA-D6C-R ... 58ca71d941

If you wanted to pop for a Socket R (2011) board, you can go to octa core (be James Bondish and call it Octa-Pussy..lol, or Octa-Mom)

Personally I simply cannot believe a $500.00 + motherboard and over a grand for ANY video card (I nearly choked when I saw the price of the Nvidia Titan lineup.)

Of course I remember getting sticker shock when I bought my first REAL gaming vid card, a 256mb Hercules AGP card (Guillemot, or something like that) and it was 260 bones. But oddly enough, that card completely flattened the NEXT generation of cards that came after it.

I think the most expensive mobos I've ever purchased were my Asus P5NT-WS (680i) and the P5N-T-WS (780i that fried in the box and Asus's well known tech support (WHAT tech support or warranty?) refused to warranty it BECAUSE it was DOA, directly FROM ASUS, no less!

I've only had one Tyan board, a 1398C2, running an AMD K6-3/500 (mobo had 2mb L3 cache). THAT was a good setup too.

But honestly it seems that every ASUS board I've had died on me. My BH6, A7V, A7V-266, A7V-8X, CUV-8x and several others of that era ALL croaked or went into bizzaro land where only Mensa eggheads could talk to them and get them to work. I don't think I EVER managed to get a single ASUS board replaced under warranty either. I had a pair of BFG 680i boards grenade one right after the other, so much for THAT lifetime warranty! But BFG did have the best drivers around.

I still have four BFG video cards running flawlessly.

But I guess it's like replacing your say, 20 year old truck with a new one. When I priced the equivalent new GMC K3500 crew cab longbed one ton dually diesel to my 97 (options wise), I was quoted a figure that equaled the materials for a new 2800sf house! Now the totally crazy thing? I looked under the front end (mine is 4wd) and I have about 2 or 3" of suspension travel before I hit the bump stops. The NEW trucks were RESTING on the bump stops on the frame from the factory. I showed the salesman AND the new truck manager and they were both scratching their heads. Muttering "unloaded, on the stops..what happens when you hit a chuckhole with a 30' 5th wheel full of cattle hanging off the end, bend the frame?"

I can tell you that my 84 suburban has more metal in it than a new one does, same with the trucks.

So maybe, in a way, that price diff is in all the computerized crap they have in trucks today. I mean, who in their right MIND puts leather seats in a PICKUP TRUCK and expects then to last? Or even worse, a bloody sunroof? Yet motherboard options sure seem to be going the same way. Which is why my last four mobo replacements have all been from dell or HP workstations. Maybe a generation or 2 back from current (meaning they're CHEAP now) but proven, and CHEAP. Hence my re-using my dell restore DVD's all the time. My HP restore DVD's only work with one or two HP models, and they've been that way for decades now. I used my dell win7/pro restore disk from my 730x and installed it on my 2000 vintage Dell C840 and my Precision M70 (and EVERYTHING works on both of them too..including dual booting between win98 and win7 is kinda neat, though I do have to reinsert the other DDR stick since win98 doesn't like to boot with over a gig in it.

I think the Nvidia 740 series is basically a GF240 series that's updated for DX11. Single slot, HDMI out, and you can find them with 4gb GDDR5 sometimes as well.

Thanks for the info!

Dave

I've had pretty good luck with asus boards - I've used them in all my rigs over the years and a couple of friends builds as well and all have lasted 4-5 years but maybe I'm just lucky.

As for socket 2011 that's what my current folding rigs are, 2 dual octo core rigs and a dual 12 core machine