Interested in getting involved

[Godfather1138]

This research project sounds like something I could really get serious about. I lost my Grandfather to Cancer, and my girlfriend is currently going through the same with hers. Not to mention all the people that have touched my life without me ever knowing what they are dealing with.

So here is my question, and I did search for it, but there is just so much information to dig through.

I would like to build a farm, but do not have much money to throw at it. This puts me in a situation of building the basics. That's the question... what is the ideal system configuration to Fold 24/7/365. I would like to start with 4 or 5 systems, with a goal of reaching a 10 system farm.

I have been checking ebay for old PC "lots," but kinda need an idea on what I should really be looking for. I found that you need at least a 200mhz...is that really all I should be trying to beat?

Thanks, for the info and the effort that you are all putting into this project.

[dfonda]

You can build an SMP rig for $400 or less depending on if you have any parts.

Old GPU's old CD roms etc.

If it was me I would run one good rig to start ...less electricity less maintenence and higher points per day. Get your feet wet.

One dual core cpu would put you into red numbers right away.

I think a lot of us are retiring older cpu's.

$50 case
$266cpu (Quad core as of July 2nd)
$100 Psu
Find a free old GPU
Find a free old Cd rom
Find a free old Hard drive.(Or run off the CD as I do with Linux)
Free OS (Linux)

What am I forgetting guys? That would be say 2000 points per day , a huge boost for the team.

I forgot RAM $50 1 GB thats more then enough.

$ 466 total cut $100 bucks off if you go dual core

[Godfather1138]

I just can't afford to do a dual core (which is obvious by my personal rig in sig). I really don't have any parts laying around anymore b/c I gave up all my old stuff to a friend in need. I discovered that one of my friends has been doing this for a while, and he is trying to convince me that a p3 p4 is not worth messing with for this use. That can't be true, is it? The F@H site doesn't really have a recommended min rig so I'm just trying to figure out what I can do to get a rig going without spending more on it/them than my gaming rig.

Granted, I know the faster systems will get more WU's done faster, but I'm not looking to set any records with this, just do my part to help out.

[pscout]

Don't waste your time an money on low end machines ... they won't produce a lot and will still cost a bit to run.

Rather that start out with 4 or 5 rigs that you don't have, get a 4mb cache c2d, a basic mobo that oc's well, 1 gb of some currently pretty cheap ddr2 800, a $10-20 pci video card, a small hdd (20 gb is enuf, but i have senn lots of new 80 gb sata's ~ $50), and a economical hsf like the AF7.

Such a rig is prolly <$500, will produce more than 5-10 old p2-p4 machines, cost a lot less power to run. You can trim back on cpu, mobo and memory and prolly get closer to $300. and it will still outproduce the old machines.

Or if AMD is more to your liking, AlabamaCajun or Harlam357 can give you some AMD farm rig recommendations.

Don't exactly know what your budget limit is, but the current folding reality is that a few more state-of-the-art rigs with dual core cpus' or better, will outproduce the older single core cpu's by a mile and will cost lest to power and cool.

Folks are running lots of the older machines, but mostly cuz they already have them so aquisition cost = 0. If you pay your own power bill, and live where there is much heat and also pay for a/c, fewer newer rigs will cost a lot less to operate for equivalent production. Many older rigs get turned off due to heat and summer power/cooling costs.

/edit .... kinda slow on my post .... p2's won't get the work done on time, faster p3's might. P4's will but are low producers.
even getting a gpu that will fold is gonna be $100-200 and needs at least a 4x agp and enuf psu.

You might be better off to save your money until you can build/buy a decent folding rig. If somebody else is paying your power bill, then it won't matter much to your budget, but it is not very green.

The other way to fold is to borg other people's machines ... ie install it on their rigs with their permission. Friends, family etc in return for your technical help?

[inkfx]

I would try and build the farm up with the new Intel chips. They are producing very well. The Q6600 (quad-core) is going to be around $266 in about a week. If you could piece together a few rigs based on quad-cores you would have a killer folding farm. Even the lower end Intel dual-cores pull off huge overclocks and do very well at folding.

[Shelnutt2]

Ok, you need PIII/AMD Athlons or better. A PII doesn't cut it. A PIII will take a 1.5 weeks or maybe 2 to fold one work unit.

With the release of the Conroes (C2D) Stanford finally retired the last "core" that ran unoptomized. Basically they cut support for anything before PIII and made a PIII hardly worth the time. They did this in the name of progress and in exchanged released new clients that offered better performance.

A P4 system will take 3-7 days to fold a current WU, they aren't bad. AMD Athlon64's fold a bit better than P4's.

AMD Althon X2's and then the Core 2 Duo's fold the fastest, being the newst of course. A C2D will out fold an X2 nearly double. The current thing is SMP capable machines running the SMP client. THe SMP client can really only be run on X2's or greater.

There is also a GPU client. This runs on X1xx0 series ATI GPU's. The X1950 being the best/fastest and the X1650's being the slowest card that can run it although, from personal experience an X1650 folding 24/7 will take a few days to get it done. I ran the CPU client on my X1650 pro turbo for 6 hours and it only got 15% complete.

The PS3 also has a client that FAH can run on. Just though I'd note that too.

If you are in it for points and want to get the most points possible then currently the SMP clients on Core 2 Duos out produce anything else (except quad cores;)). They make th emost points because the SMP client is currently in beta and will be until the release of version 6, which no one knows when that is comming. So for now and a bit the SMP client will make you the most ppd (points per day).

As far as science is concerned the GPU client is best for science, as it has many more Floating point processing power. The GPU client use to be the #1 ppd, until the beta ended and it lost the points for being a beta (I think you get 1.5x points for beta projects) and the SMP beta now gets rediculous points (~700 ppd in a stock 1.86GHz C2D). ~2000 points on a 3.3GHz C2D.

So points = C2D(SMP) system/farm
Science = GPU farm.

Also with a GPU farm you can use anything thats P4 or better and you'll be fine. (P4 or better because it actually does use the CPU to feed the GPU data, and then the CPU also has to collect the data from the GPU).

One more thing. The SMP client is Linux/GNU (64 bit, most points) or windows (32 bit a few hundred less ppd). The GPU client is windows only. Stanford made it near impossible for the GPU client to be run in WINE under linux. Near impossible because you'd need to program in support for netframe work 2 into WINE, which hasn't been done yet.

The standard clients, run on both Linux/GNU and Windows.

[dfonda]

my friends has been doing this for a while, and he is trying to convince me that a p3 p4 is not worth messing with for this use.
Your friend is right. unless these machines are already used for something else, its not cost effective to build one.

The exception would be if you installed ATI GPU's that would do 600ppd.(and you already had the P4 laying around.)

Even then the GPU is half the cost of a new rig.

[dfonda]

I really don't have any parts laying around anymore b/c I gave up all my old stuff to a friend in need.
Use the Case ,HD ,Optical drive, from you current PC. Even Win XP if you have a copy.

You'll have a state of the art rig that besides folding will do everything else well.

You need a new PC anyway.:D

One Quad core = 10 to 15 P4's

[Godfather1138]

Wow, thanks for the great replies guys. I am really starting to understand the approach much better now. I will be in this for the science, not really the PPD but I really don't see myself going the GPU route. From what I saw that still requires pretty high end cards. Based off your comments I believe you are right that I will contribute more to the program by providing a single production system, rather than a bank of slow ones.

BTW, my budget is non-existent for this right now. That is why I was looking at the older chip sets. I can actually get a pallet of broken PCs from Salvation Army for like $75. I figured I could throw a few rigs together out of one of those, but it doesn't look like it will be worth it.

Thanks for getting me pointed in the right direction.

:D very funny dfonda. I just finished reworking this one last week, and you see what my budget did to me there.

[Shelnutt2]

How are you at programing? You ever use linux? Ever compile your own linux kernel?

If so then I might have a solution you, might be interested in for runnings some older PIII/Athlon/P4 machines, in a cluster setup.

[Godfather1138]

I'm really good at picking up new things (including manipulating code), but I have spent a total of 1hr working with linux. So probably not the solution for me. If you want to PM me about it I would be more than happy to read it over and see if it is something I could do. I have actually really been looking for an excuse to mess with linux.

[Rich_dick_33]

How well dose the pentium4D's with there 4mb hold up to folding? Do they get good PPD? Because they are like £50 each.

[traldan]

The power consumption and heat generated would probably not make those p4's worth it. I mean yeah they're cheap but some of the lower end c2d's are really damn cheap now too.

[TommyHolly]

I have 12 Pentium 4s folding for me all around 2.4Ghz to 3.06Ghz

My average daily production is only around 700-800 PPD and is a big power drain! (Of course, 10 of the 12 PCs are are family and friend's houses)
Just 1 Quad-Core running at half the power consumption could triple that! (Not to mention once I get home, I'm gonna program my numbers into my buddies PSIII Sony systems)

[pscout]

How well dose the pentium4D's with there 4mb hold up to folding? Do they get good PPD? Because they are like £50 each.

I have 4 of them going still ... but they are c1 stepping 930's ... so they oc to 4-4.2 ghz with < 1.4 V.

They produce 1000-1500 ppd running linux smp at those clocks.

I had some b1 stepping 930's which were the most commonly available 930'd and they didn't oc as easily without high volts, so their power consumption and heat production is higher. Not many of them would hit 4.2 but i think most would get close to 4.0 ghz. I killed 2 b1 stepping 920,930's with long term volts > 1.425.

There were newer versions like 925's etc but i don't know much about how they oc ... by the time they came out i had started focusing on c2d's.

You would need good HSF's to OC them on air ... I have a bunch of TT BigTyphoons that cool them and will be used on c2q replacements (although i expect to shortly move them all to large scale water cooling). I also have several Arctic Freezer 7's which work ok but limit high oc on the quads ... they are pretty cheap.

If you put them on mobo's that were c2d/q capable, it would be a way to ease the immediate $ crunch on building. A psu that will oc one of them will drive c2d/c2q, and get ddr2 that memory is rated at 800 or better. Some 667 memory will oc to 800, a lot of 800 memory will oc near 1000.

The ocz420 powerstreams i have a lot of (~ 8-10) and a few more efficient enermax 465's have been powering my 930ds, and now power my oc'ed c2d's and c2q's. Getting decent psu's and ddr2 with a long life/warranty means use can reuse them as you upgrade your rigs over time.

[Enablingwolf]

With surplus of parts. Since you say, can get a pallets worth.

You can also help the team and project in other ways too. There is a program on ocf where parts are shared to get other machines up and folding. Here is a couple of links to give an idea of what it is. Maybe some of the other folders who know more, can elborate further if your interested.

Build A Rig (http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=169)

Adopt A Rig (http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=132)

[Godfather1138]

I was reading about BAR and AAR, but from the sound of it there wouldn't be much off of those boxes that you guys would want to use. Aside from the drives.

[Enablingwolf]

Its good to see that you are reading and exploring the folding team here. If you haven't got that far yet. There is sub-teams to. You could also fold under someone else's name to help them out. Sometimes if you would like to help back up a little smack talk for someone, that is possible also. :D There is a special comraderie in this section that is not found on other parts of the domain for regular members. I cannot forget to mention the other distributed projects that are present here. You probaly seen them and found folding more suiting you though. For some, folding is a personal thing, and feels good to be part of a very worthy cause.

One of the alternate desirable things about folding, is borging. With permission you install the client on other machines to gain more points. I read it is not about the points for you. Though the points do give a way to keep track of how much you are doing. Plus if you do well. Talk a little smack. O.o

Team32 is a hard working team. Pound for pound member wise. Some nice numbers are put out. Support in a positive way is always welcome to give. Which this team is very glad to offer. As well recieve in new members helping out with the cause. Every person folding is a major part of the team, even if he/she is not a high producer. There is many ways to help out. Just doing what you can is very sweet.

If you ever have issues or questions. It seems the team will line up to make sure your square and doing good. Even if you are last in the team rankings, you get the same respect as first. Though the higher producers can talk a little more smack here and there. So sometimes it is entertaining, as well as benifiting mankind.

If you haven't got that far yet. You can meet the team.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=428901

[Godfather1138]

:thup: Thanks Wolf.

I fall into the personal column, as I lost my hero to cancer. My grandfather discovered he had lung cancer & faced it like the man he was. Unfortunately we lost him a few short months (felt like weeks) later.

I think I am going to go ahead and start Folding on my current box, and see how the temps hold up. I'm also curious if the numbers will be worth the effort (by the box, not me). It may not be a 24hr effort, but at least I can let it run overnight, and while I'm at work.

[harlam357]

:welcome: Godfather!!! Great to have you on board with Team 32. :thup:

Let me just say... "let that baby Fold!" :D A work unit is a work unit is a work unit- regardless of points. And since you're in it for the benefit to humanity... just let 'er rip. :) You will see no difference in day-to-day usage on your box b/c of Folding. The only time you may see a decrease in performance is when running something very memory intensive, and that's only if you happen to be running a memory intensive work unit (WU). The client will yield cpu cycles, but not memory. So if Folding is eating ~100MB or better for it's purposes, it will hold that memory even though you may torch off another process that pulls the cpu away from Folding.

This is all in regard to the standard, single instance client- which we recommend you start with to get familiar with Folding. The SMP beta client is a little bit different story as its memory requirements are somewhat higher.

[Godfather1138]

Up and running on this box, and I think my GF is going to let me set it up on hers tonight. My parents have also showed interest so together we will get some stuff done for Team 32!

[benbaked]

A PIII will take a 1.5 weeks or maybe 2 to fold one work unit.

A PIII Tualatin-S (512k L2 cache) can make the bonus deadlines if you use it exclusively for folding 24/7. It'll just barely make the deadlines.

With a bonus WU my PIII-S machines net between 120-130ppd, but with regular units they only get ~50ppd. Each system can finish a WU in a little under a week. Not too bad considering the meager power requirements, and if you don't really care about the points.

If you do care about the points then SMP is really where its at. SMP will net you more points per day then either a GPU or a PS3 will. An SMP box is also cheaper.

[pscout]

Up and running on this box, and I think my GF is going to let me set it up on hers tonight. My parents have also showed interest so together we will get some stuff done for Team 32!

:cool: :welcome: to the T32 fold :)