Help me with fastest possible new SETI Cruncher

It's been a while since I built a system (see sig) and I am not fully up on all the latest possiblities for another SETI cruncher (memory speed is of the essence) - but I am sure some people here will help me.

For starters I am thinking of buying a PIV 2.26 and a board (probably ABIT or ASUS or Epox...???) that can run with fixed PCI/AGP frequency and using good DDR (PC3200 or better) hopefully between 200 - 225MHz. Hoping to reach around 3GHz with good passive cooling - though processor speed is secondary to memory speed (since I intend to run SETI).

Now at about 200MHz with DDR what is the memory throughput? And how does it stack up against an RDRAM system running at whatever is possible with RDRAM (1066 = 133MHz possibly clocked to 1200 = 150MHz)?

Thanks

Yo

P.s.: I checked the Benchmarks page, and it appears that RDRAM running at about 120MHz can equal SETI scores for DDR at 173 or so, however there are still too few RDRAM system listed to draw a solid conclusion.

Ed just put up a good summary of P4 overclocking as it stands now. If you use a DDR board you can get the chip to higher speeds easier, but it's somewhat pointless because the memory bandwidth is not as good. With rdram it's harder to clock the chip to the same speeds, but the memory bandwidth is better and makes up for the slower clock speed. Ideally you may want to wait for a C1 stepping chip and get a dual channel DDR board. They should start showing up in October.

yeah, the best will be w/ Dual DDR. however, that will be more like oct/nov thing....earliest.

for now, a P4 w/ (at least) PC1066/133+MHz FSB will be the fastest crunch i believe. Sandra memory score 'bout 33-3400. the 400MHz DDR is 'bout 3000 or a bit higher...

the newest Asus P4T533 w/ RIMM4200 was sooooooo promising from reviews. 160MHz(FSB)x4 memory speed!! or 170++MHz x 3!! Sandra score over 4000 points!! pretty much the fastest memory score for now.........before the dual DDR come out. however, this board seems to be a bit problematic right now. (check the HardForum under Stickly Intel Forum)

I'd like to try the benchmark on this one:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4026400~root=ocusa~mode=flat

Thanks for all the responses so far. I am thinking about upgrading/adding the system in the August timeframe. So duall DDR 400 is to far away. Which are good RDRAM MObos with fixed PCI/AGP?

And who produces reliable PC1066 RDAM?

Thanks again

Yo

hallen said:

I'd like to try the benchmark on this one:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4026400~root=ocusa~mode=flat

Click to expand...

thats nice.

Yomama said:

Thanks for all the responses so far. I am thinking about upgrading/adding the system in the August timeframe. So duall DDR 400 is to far away. Which are good RDRAM MObos with fixed PCI/AGP?

And who produces reliable PC1066 RDAM?

Thanks again

Yo

Click to expand...

Well if you definitely want to go that route try the TH7II from Abit. As much trouble as I've had with it, it's still the only full featured overclocker that will handle 533 speeds. Samsung is a good bet for reliable and compatible 1066.

if you want my opinion for a superfast cruncher you should get a quad xeon mobo. with hyperthreading and 4 processors at 2.4ghz you would be spitting out 15~19 workunits every couple of hours The downside is you probbally would have to run 8 (intinstances) sp of seti.

although thats not accurate cause i haven't looked at any raw data.

and i thought the memory bandwith went up when you up the speed of it or is that just the the amount of data over time goes up.

hallen said:

I'd like to try the benchmark on this one:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4026400~root=ocusa~mode=flat

Click to expand...

Probably good for an Athlon system but I doubt that a 2GHz TBred would beat a 3GHz PIV in particular if both run the same FSB.

Very interesting though

Yo

Yomama said:

Probably good for an Athlon system but I doubt that a 2GHz TBred would beat a 3GHz PIV in particular if both run the same FSB.

Very interesting though

Yo

Click to expand...

It might come close if the P4 is paired with single channel DDR. A 3GHz P4 with rdram and a 533 or higher bus would edge it out.

Kat says

Re: What's THE board for Pentium 4 overclocking?

abit IT7

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4042351~root=ocusa~mode=flat

Kat knows IMHO.

Harvey