Need to build a new system to crunch with...

Hey... haven't been here or crunching in ages... did a couple years of chemotherapy and am starting to get with life again...

still running my old p4 Northwood over clock from eons ago, and I really, really need to build a cruncher, but have no idea where to start with quad or dual cores...

I know it is probably lazy of me to ask, but life is too short: anyone want to share insights or reviews that might put me back on track with building a stonrg core (mobo, cpu, memory & GPU) that would make a good cruncher and decent gaming system?

I left off with the 2.4 Ghz P4 @ 3-something, DDR2 and AGP... which still runs great BTW...

Thanks for any help you might lend...

Crunch On

Glad to see you back visiting the forums and the Seti scene again, Morpheus.

The scene for crunchers has changed quite a bit since the P4 days and right now the Intel Core Architecture procs are king of the roost in crunching production and also for gaming too. Since you want to both game and maximize production, I think a quad would be the way to go. You could probably get an absolute higher overclock out of a Wolfdale DC proc but it still won't equal to the production of a quad core proc. I'll try to give you a few choices as far as what equipment I would go with at different price points.

Mobo:

Inexpensive - Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, good overclocking board, no firewire, RAID or SLI though. Mine was able to do 500 fsb out the box with an E6750

midrange to cheap - Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R - also a good overclocking board, has 8 sata ports and does RAID, no firewire though. Have this running an E6300 at 485 fsb in my daughter's machine.

High end - Abit IP35 Pro - 8 sata ports, RAID, firewire. Don't own one of these; just going off of what I've read here on the forums.


Processor:

Dual Core - E8400 - 45nm Penryn core proc. Overclock well and good "bang for the buck". Also has SSE4 instruction set and more L2 cache than Conroe.

Quad core - Q6600 - Best "bang for the buck" in quad core procs for now. The G0 stepping (which basically should be all that's available by now) overclock well and will turn in some awesome points production in Seti crunching. Who knows when affordable Yorkfields will be released, but they will probably be even better overclockers except for the fact that they will natively use a 333 fsb and that might limit your overclock due to the lower multi's used on them for a set speed. Or if you have big bucks handy, you can buy a Q9650 Yorkfield right now but they will hurt your wallet badly.


Ram:

The best "bang for the buck" ram I've used is the Crucial Ballistix (2 x 1GB) DDR2 667 kit. Don't let the relatively low speed rating of this stuff fool you. I've had mine to 560 MHz with 5-5-5-15 2T timings and 2.1v vdimm on my DS3L system.


Video card:

Midrange - EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512 - good, solid video card with lifetime warrantee.

Mid-high end - EVGA GeForce 8800GTS - similar to the GT, but faster default gpu and memory clocks.

Anyways, that would be my choices for you to look at. Hopefully someone else will step up to the plate and give you their recommendations too.

Wow, great work muddocktor!

I'll second the vote for the following components:
Abit IP35Pro
Q6600
Crucial Ballistix (although I lean towards the pc8500's) (tracer or not is irrelevant)

Note: The Ballistix are a bit temperature sensative, so ensure good airflow over them at all times.

Any thoughts on the ASUS P5E WS Professional LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX or the ASUS P5N-T Deluxe LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX
mobos? Or is the Abit better (stable, fast, problem free, etc)?

Being a "rookie" again, I would like to find somthing with the best chance of being stable out of the box... I will OC as I gain my savvy again, I think. Took me a year or so before, and I am in no real hurry now...

Thanks again...

Good to see you back in action Kris. The previous posts are a good start. I'd mention the 8 core server I'm selling but you could do as well for a lot less.

Good to see you all, too!! It's been a while for me... and thanks for the help thus far...

SLI in my opinion is money wasted. Just spend your budget on a single card.

I am running Q6600's in an Asus and and Abit, the Abit was far easier to overclock in my opinion (Both systems were otherwise identical).

And my P4 Northwood is finally getting too tired to game on but still goes SETI 24X7.

From what little I've read about the new 780i Nvidia chipset, it doesn't seem to overclock the fsb as well as the later Intel chipsets. HardOCP was only able to get 450 fsb stable out of it in their review they did a few days ago on the EVGA board with that chipset. And reading the article, it sounds like it was the best of 5 different 780i boards they tried, but they didn't mention the models of the others.

For an X38 chipset board, I might be able to help you out in a week or 2. I have a Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 waiting for me to install into my main rig at the house when I get back in from offshore. I will be running a Q6600 in it too. I've heard that the X38 chipset boards can be quirky; I guess I will be finding out soon.

Welcome back Morpheus. I use the p35-ds3r, and its a great board. Its rock solid out of the box, and if you want to overclock, it will push almost anything you throw at it.

This is what I'd do for a crunching/gaming rig.

ASUS P5K Premium
Q6600 SLACR G0 revision quad core, or E8400 45nm dual core.
Team Group D9GMH - this is the only place you will find this deal.
ATI 3870 X2 - dual card performance in a single slot package.

The newer X38 chipset isn't worth anything aside from better CF bandwidth, overclocking on the whole is more difficult and often cannot reach the performance of P35 boards. Same with 780i, better than 680i for sure but still a pain in the *** unless you can't live without SLI.

I'll add a vote for the IP35 and Q6600 best bang for the buck out there. That Q660 is a SERIOUSLY good cruncher.

Definately voting for P35 and Q6600. Best bang for the buck rigth now!

On the motherboard front Anandtech is in love with the x48 chipset (because of the ability to directly adjust tRD in the bios.) But those motherboards are still about two weeks away and you'll be looking at the added expense of DDR3 so I'm with muddocktor on using a tried and true P35 mainboard.

On the video card choices, it may be worth noting (if you're power conscious like me) that the HD3870 has very low idle and 2d power consumption. (bottom of page) Its 3d usage is about the same as a 8800GT as well which is what drove me to purchase the 3870 over an 8800GT. Although, looking at the big picture, both are still extremely power efficient with consumption numbers much lower than other serious gaming cards over the last few years several years so you can't go wrong with either.

Also note, if you're really worried about power (like I sometimes am), and you spend most of your time on the desktop (ie 2D), you can easily underclock the video card quite substantially, giving lower power consumption. Just something to mull over in the ol' noggin.

BTW, Good to hear you're back Morph. I know how hard it is to live with a loved immediate family member having gone through chemo, I can only imagine what it would be like on the recieving end.. Hope that you're better and getting back on track

Best wishes mate

Hello all… good to hear from you all again… I have been trying to get moved into the new location so have been hit & miss here…

After everyone’s help and a little reading of reviews & misc (in my spare time ) I’ve decided on the following so far:

Asus P5K Deluxe

Q6600 Quad Core

Crucial Ballistix 2Gb DDR2 667

EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512

WD 80Gb SATA drives (2 in RAID 0)


Was going to add a Zalman 9500A heatsink but am not sure if I will need it. Guess I’ll shop for a new CD/DVD burner, Case, Power Supply and Monitor.