It is THE way to go if you want to get that involved with FAH. In the other thread (on [H]ard's forum), some of the responders were backing away from the IL cpu, because it's performance was disappointing, compared to the MC.
OK, so the IL with 16 cores, is slightly slower than the MC with 12 cores. Somehow they forgot that the IL is almost half the cost of an MC (IL 6272@ $539 vs. MC 6172@ $1,017).
The risk is that the Pande Group will again change the bigadv points structure. A few years back, it was the addition of the Cell processor in the PS3, that stood us on our ears - they burst onto the FAH scene, and suddenly could out fold everything!
PG had to cut back on the pointage they could make, to keep the computer folders, from mutiny.
Then it was the GPU's turn, and they were tearing it up with their tremendous folding speed, and huge ppd!
Fast yes, but still with a much smaller memory, and those cards were burning through power as fast as they were folding.
Now, PG wants to work on larger proteins, and to do that in a reasonable time frame, they need a large number of multi-core server-type, folders - and bigadv was born. There are other folding projects that are working on the smaller folding problems, but they don't have the big iron to tackle the bigger folding questions - they aren't FAH, by a long stretch.
This is all beta stuff, so what the future will hold is anybody's guess. My guess is that FAH has come full circle. CPU >> Cell >> GPU >> and now back to CPU, but with an emphasis on multi-core processing. FAH will ALWAYS want large server type hardware, to handle it's wu's, and will reward that commitment to it's science, with more points. Bigadv wu's may stop any time for the servers, according to Pande Group, but I doubt it will happen in 2012, and I believe you'll always be rewarded well in points. Whether it's at the high rate of today, or at the standard SMP level, you'll always be earning more points with a 4P IL server rig (6272 or up), than any single processor rig.
The competition for the 4P boards out today, will be the 2P SR boards rumored to be coming out in 2012. They would have to improve by more than 50% over the SR-2 boards, and cut their power needed by a substantial amount, to equal the 4P IL boards out today.
I have tried folding on rumors of better hardware, and found it to be "over-rated".
If you want to make that kind of commitment to folding, you can't do better than the 4P server boards, and that has AMD stamped all over the choice of cpu. On a point/dollar basis, or a point/kwh basis - it's the most efficient folder atm, and I don't see that changing any time in 2012.
Macaholic chose the 6272 IL, and that is the "sweet spot" model for price/performance, in the IL, imo. I shop on-line, NewEgg being "home base", but any other reputable seller is OK. (SuperBiz, etc). I avoid Ebay with very rare exceptions.