Another 2600K build thread

[klear]

I already purchased a 2600K from Brolloks, I have about $450 for the remaining parts needed ( Motherboard, RAM, Heatsink + Fans )

My current choices are:

$219.99 ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

$149.99 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model F3-16000CL9D-8GBRM

$64.99 Prolimatech Supermega Intel Socket 1156, 1366 and 775, 6 Dual Heatpipes, Twin Tower CPU Cooler

$12.99 x2 140mm Thermalright TY-140 (THESE DIDNT FIT! but I manged to MAKE them fit... almost)

$457.61 Shipped 80550

Any suggestions?

 

[TC]

Before suggesting anything let me ask what the intended use will be? If you just want a budget folder you could certainly save some money on the board and ram. I can't speak from personal experience, but everything I've read suggests the asrock p67 extreme 4 is a great value. I was about to buy it before I came across an open box p8p67 pro.

http://tinyurl.com/6l9jp7f

 

[RipD]

Agree with TC. The Sabertooth seems to be a nice board, but unless if has features you absolutely need you can get a good over clocking P67 board for less. Is this for folding exclusively or other tasks as well? You don't need 8 gigs of RAM to fold.

 

[klear]

This will be my daily use machine, I'd like to be able to fold on the processor with little impact on the system. Thanks for the suggestions, I will probably go with the asrock motherboard if I cant find some sweet open box deal

 

[ChasR]

On the machines I've built, the chips ran out of gas before they got hot, so you could save on the HSF. THe Cooler Master V6 GT is very good as is the retail bargain Hyper 212+.

Ram makes a big difference in -bigadv folding. You're going the right direction there, especially if it's a windows machine. In Linux, 4GB 2133 MHz would be my recommendation.

I'm partial to the ASUS boards. I own a sabertooth and a Pro and both are working well. I'm working on another sabertooth for a friend. The ASUS Official Overclocking Guide was the key for me. It spot on tells you what matters and what doesn't and gives you a good idea the voltages you'll need to attain the OC you want. It's hard to find a cooler looking board than a Sabertooth.

 

[muddocktor]

I'm using the Asrock Extreme6 board and it's a pleasure to use. The Extreme4 is basically the same board with a few less features, from what I understand.

And instead of the Supermega, go with the Thermalright MUX-120 instead and save yourself some coin. That is the same heatsink body as the Cogage True Spirit, which performed very well for me when I tested it on my 980X. And that 2600K should be easier to cool than my hex core, so it should be plenty of heatsink. You might want to think of upgrading the fan in the future to something that moves a little more air, such as a pair of Yate Lows or a Yate Medium or S-Flex SFF21F, but I would try it out with the stock fan first.

BTW, I have both a True Spirit and a MUX-120 sitting here in boxes waiting for me to get time to compare them. I have visually checked them out and to the naked eye they are the exact same heatsink, except the MUX-120 is prettied up.

 

[klear]

Thanks for the replies chasr and muddocktor. I already ordered the megahalem and 2 Thermalright TY-140 fans with some MX-4 thermal compound. $115 round trip, I may have taken your advice if I had read this sooner.

I went with everything listed above except I got a Megahalem instead of the Super Mega, test results are unconfirmed and very close, so at $5 less i chose the megahalem rev.b from svc.

I was able to sell my Q9650, Q6600 and a few other things to offset this. I went with a little overkill in all areas for fun.
I will take pictures and post results in a few days!

 

[Khemikal]

Ram makes a big difference in -bigadv folding. You're going the right direction there, especially if it's a windows machine. In Linux, 4GB 2133 MHz would be my recommendation.

The right direction being the speed of the ram (PC3 16000) or the size (8 gigs)?

 

[TC]

The right direction being the speed of the ram (PC3 16000) or the size (8 gigs)?

I would wager speed - you don't need more than 4 for folding (not even that really) but speed matters. Since this will be a primary workstation you'll want 8 gigs, but pay attention to memory timings when you buy - I would stress tight timings over raw clock speed. A number of those ultra fast dimms sacrifice timings for clock ratings. Check the cas latency before you buy. I would say it's better to go with a 1600Mhz piece that will do cas 6 vs a 2000MHz piece that runs cas 9. I have 1600MHz corsair and when overclocked to 1800+ at cas 9 it folded slower than 1600 at cas 6.

 

[TC]

And instead of the Supermega, go with the Thermalright MUX-120 instead and save yourself some coin.

Looks like a good value but doesn't come with any socket 1155 mounting hardware, or am I overlooking something?

 

[ChasR]

I would wager speed - you don't need more than 4 for folding (not even that really) but speed matters. Since this will be a primary workstation you'll want 8 gigs, but pay attention to memory timings when you buy - I would stress tight timings over raw clock speed. A number of those ultra fast dimms sacrifice timings for clock ratings. Check the cas latency before you buy. I would say it's better to go with a 1600Mhz piece that will do cas 6 vs a 2000MHz piece that runs cas 9. I have 1600MHz corsair and when overclocked to 1800+ at cas 9 it folded slower than 1600 at cas 6.

If you run Linux in a VM, you'll probably want more than 4 GB. In my testing on a 2600K speed made far more difference than timing. There was a few seconds/frame difference between 2133 CL 7 and 2133 CL 9, while there was 1:40 difference between 1600 CL9 and 2133 CL9. On a 2600K, 2133 CL9 will be almost 1:40 per frame faster than 1600MHz CL6.

 

[TC]

Good stuff Chasr - I may have to rethink the ram I was going to get for my 2600 build. Previously I was getting better results with 1600Mhz cas 6 than 1833Mhz cas 9 by about 2.5 mins per frame, but I guess that may have been caused by something else.

 

[muddocktor]

TC, 1156 and 1155 use the same mounting hardware. That version I linked is the version that just comes with the 1155/1156 mount. They also have the MUX-120 Black that sells for around $10 more that comes with the Venomous X type Intel mount that will do all current Intel sockets plus the AMD AM2/AM3 mount, but is otherwise the same heatsink (except for the black nickel finish of course).

 

[TC]

Any suggestions for a cheap but solid video card?

 

[klear]

I'd pick something up from the classifieds, or try and use the HD 3000 built in graphics, haven't really had someone do that for a folding rig i don't think.

I used to cut it close on 2xVM w/4gb back in the Q6600 days so that is why I went with 8gb.

 

[TC]

There's not any way to use the built in graphics without z68 or h67 right? Actually since this will be strictly for folding maybe I can work up a headless setup like I used to have for my seti farm. Is it possible to run folding headless in a terminal server environment with pxe boot?

 

[klear]

[08:22:23] Project: 6900 (Run 45, Clone 11, Gen 39)
[08:22:23] 
[08:22:23] Assembly optimizations on if available.
[08:22:23] Entering M.D.
[08:22:29] Mapping NT from 8 to 8 
[08:24:39] Completed 0 out of 250000 steps  (0%)
[09:09:48] Completed 2500 out of 250000 steps  (1%)
[09:54:41] Completed 5000 out of 250000 steps  (2%)
[10:39:42] Completed 7500 out of 250000 steps  (3%)
[11:24:32] Completed 10000 out of 250000 steps  (4%)
[12:09:26] Completed 12500 out of 250000 steps  (5%)
[12:54:26] Completed 15000 out of 250000 steps  (6%)
[13:39:25] Completed 17500 out of 250000 steps  (7%)
[13:41:41] - Autosending finished units... [May 20 13:41:41 UTC]
[13:41:41] Trying to send all finished work units
[13:41:41] + No unsent completed units remaining.
[13:41:41] - Autosend completed
[14:24:16] Completed 20000 out of 250000 steps  (8%)
[15:09:16] Completed 22500 out of 250000 steps  (9%)
[15:54:32] Completed 25000 out of 250000 steps  (10%)
[16:04:20] Completed 27500 out of 250000 steps  (11%)

Folding in vmware player, currently at 5ghz, any ideas why i'm only getting about 30k ppd on a P6900?

 

[TC]

What kind of voltage and cooling did you have to throw at it to get stable at 5? I'm dialing in the one I bought from Frys and so far I'm stuck at about 4.8 1.4V and temps hovering in the upper 70s with low end air. Mine will run some benchmarks at 5 with 1.45V for a few mins before hitting 80C and it usually reboots. I may be able to push it to 5+ with high end water.

It looks like your average TPF from that screen shot is around 40+ which is way off. My i7 970 at 4.2 averages about 19-20 with the windows client. Are you sure your chip isn't throttling at that speed?

 

[ChasR]

Something weird is happening. The last frame appears to have taken only 10 minutes, which is quite impossible for a 2600K on that WU. Did you install VMware tools? You will have to to get the VM clock to sync with the host.

Data from a 2600K @ 4.6, ubuntu 11.04 guest in a Win 7 host using VMPlayer 3.0.0.

Name: ChasR Big VM
Path: \\CHASR-Desktop\fah\
Number of Frames Observed: 100

Min. Time / Frame : 00:22:15 - 58,680 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:22:41 - 57,007 PPD

Are you also running GPUs?

 

[klear]

No GPUs running on the 2600k, set date and time and fixed my overclock.

Now this is getting fun, I believe I have her set up properly.

[09:25:45] Completed 30000 out of 250000 steps  (12%)
[09:47:26] Completed 32500 out of 250000 steps  (13%)
[10:08:55] Completed 35000 out of 250000 steps  (14%)
[10:30:32] Completed 37500 out of 250000 steps  (15%)
[10:52:13] Completed 40000 out of 250000 steps  (16%)
[10:59:57] - Autosending finished units... [May 22 10:59:57 UTC]
[10:59:57] Trying to send all finished work units
[10:59:57] + No unsent completed units remaining.
[10:59:57] - Autosend completed
[11:13:49] Completed 42500 out of 250000 steps  (17%)
[11:35:33] Completed 45000 out of 250000 steps  (18%)
[11:57:08] Completed 47500 out of 250000 steps  (19%)
[12:18:45] Completed 50000 out of 250000 steps  (20%)
[12:40:29] Completed 52500 out of 250000 steps  (21%)
[13:02:06] Completed 55000 out of 250000 steps  (22%)
[13:23:40] Completed 57500 out of 250000 steps  (23%)
[13:45:16] Completed 60000 out of 250000 steps  (24%)
[14:06:46] Completed 62500 out of 250000 steps  (25%)
[14:28:27] Completed 65000 out of 250000 steps  (26%)
[14:50:05] Completed 67500 out of 250000 steps  (27%)
[15:11:52] Completed 70000 out of 250000 steps  (28%)
[15:33:26] Completed 72500 out of 250000 steps  (29%)
[15:54:58] Completed 75000 out of 250000 steps  (30%)

HFM shows 61,000 PPD. Very exciting!!!

2600K @ 4.9ghz 1.44v
RAM is 2133Mhz @ 10-11-10
Thanks for the pointers, ChasR!