Ideal folding machine?

[creepy]

Here within the next two weeks I will have a decent amount of money to build a low budget machine which I want to stricly use for folding and irc. I was wondering what you guys would consider a decent amount of machine power for folding. Or if I should dump my current machine use it for folding and upgrade to a 3 ghz p4 for my main machine. I was thinking something along the lines of 1.5-2+ ghz,128-256mb generic memory,onboard video card or some sort of cheap one,no hdd (will use knoppix linux),and a cheap cd rom.

[jonspd]

For my current folder's they are all downgraded part's. Whenever I would upgrade my system I would upgrade the folder and get rid of the lowiest component. But IMO a 2ghz, 256mb ram, is about the best budget range there is.

[Xenocide]

p4 with ht will do you wonders

[sandman001]

For the price of a 2.4C and mobo you could have two Athlon cpu/mobo combos.

[Karbon]

I'd rather have a single 2.4C than 2 athlons.. probably get a lot more PPW
not to mention you could probably OC the 2.4 up to somewhere around 2.8ghz or 3

[MLMIB]

not to mention power 'n heat

[qualhiveldorf]

karbon, why would you want one rig vs two?

anyways, I would probably go with an athlon xp mobile (imho,the best bang for the buck), 256mb ram, a cheap msi or biostar with an nforce2 chipset, and an SLK-800 which are getting pretty cheap.

[creepy]

Alright heres my plans as of now.

1. My main machine (2.3ghz) w/ 512 memory which folds while I dl,sleep,not home,etc.

2. 1.3 ghz athlon w/ 128 memory

3. 466mhz celeron w/ 128 memory

4. still determining cpu speed probably 300mhz max w/ 128 memory

5. whatever I decide to build

6. 1.7ghz centrino laptop w/ 512 memory

I know that #4 and obvioulsy the 466mhz arent very powerfull but about how long do you guys think itll take it to pull off a work unit (i think thats what its called).

[David]

Two machines vs one high end is kinda difficult. A P4 at 3.0GHz with HT will probably beat a couple low end Xps ... perhaps...