$500 to spend on a (mostly) DC system

Gigantopithecus

Diamond Member
Dec 14, 2004
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Hopefully y'all can help me make sense of what I've been reading about DC projects.

I need to assemble a computer that will be used approximately one hour per day for office productivity, five days per week. I will not be paying for its electricity consumption so I figured I'd try out distributed computing. I have a firm $500 budget, and this must include the monitor, so really I have about $400 left for the computer itself. I do not need to buy an OS.

Right now I'm trying to decide between F@H, MW@H, and SETI@H. It seems that F@H is the most popular and most well-developed and supported. As far as I can tell, all three projects have 'click run & done' settings that are very easy to setup and use, and require little if any additional monitoring and maintenance. All three also have more complicated (but more rewarding) apps that utilize GPUs as well as CPUs. However, from what I can tell, only 6000-series AMD GPUs (which are out of my price range) are supported by the three programs? And from what I can tell, Nvidia GPUs seem to outperform AMD GPUs.

So if you could clarify these provisional ideas and recommend me a nice setup, I'd appreciate your time. Thanks!
 

Unheard

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2003
3,773
9
81
This will be tough. To get into a decent folding GPU you are already putting yourself in the $150-200 bracket, leaving you $200 to play with. Along with a high powered GPU will come a decent power supply, putting you at least @ $50-75 for one. You are now sitting @ say, $150. You still need RAM, CPU, Mobo, Case, HD, CDROM.

If you are wanting to do DC on that budget, I would say forget the GPU, and stick with just CPU folding. Since you are looking budget, you could pickup a AMD Phenom II X4 955 for around $130 ($100 or so used). You can also get a cheap board for around $40. 2gb of ram should suffice (correct me if I'm wrong here guys), so figure $30 for that. A budget PSU, $30 or so. Stick with your on board gfx, so no cost there. Cheap case, $30, oem CD-Rom $10-20. HDD, $30-50 for a OEM 250-500gb (perhaps a 1tb if you catch the right deal).

So for a CPU based DC machine, you could figure around $320.

I'll probably be shot down by the other guys here on AT who know more than I do, but that would be my best guess for you.
 

somethingsketchy

Golden Member
Nov 25, 2008
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You can skip out on a CDROM (as you can install nearly any OS made in the last couple of years) and if you're interested in GPU folding, you wouldn't really need a beefy CPU to handle the load. A simple dual core system would work. Same with memory, you'd only need 2-4GB max. HDD you would need bare minimum to run the OS and the DC app you want. Hell an IDE HDD would work (80GB or less).

You might be able to pull it off, however with the monitor added in, it will be very, very difficult. I'd suggest saving up some extra scratch to get a 17" LCD. If this rig is intended for any other use, the options may be limited.

EDIT: You could also save a bit and forego the case, but that depends if you don't mind your PC's internals out in the open. If the computer is going to be in a corner with very little traffic, this could be an option. Otherwise you'll have to purchase a case
 
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ZipSpeed

Golden Member
Aug 13, 2007
1,302
169
106
Hopefully y'all can help me make sense of what I've been reading about DC projects.

I need to assemble a computer that will be used approximately one hour per day for office productivity, five days per week. I will not be paying for its electricity consumption so I figured I'd try out distributed computing. I have a firm $500 budget, and this must include the monitor, so really I have about $400 left for the computer itself. I do not need to buy an OS.

Right now I'm trying to decide between F@H, MW@H, and SETI@H. It seems that F@H is the most popular and most well-developed and supported. As far as I can tell, all three projects have 'click run & done' settings that are very easy to setup and use, and require little if any additional monitoring and maintenance. All three also have more complicated (but more rewarding) apps that utilize GPUs as well as CPUs. However, from what I can tell, only 6000-series AMD GPUs (which are out of my price range) are supported by the three programs? And from what I can tell, Nvidia GPUs seem to outperform AMD GPUs.

So if you could clarify these provisional ideas and recommend me a nice setup, I'd appreciate your time. Thanks!

AMD GPUs run MW@H and Primegrid pretty well. For F@H, Nvidia rules the roost. If you're even considering using the GPU for crunching, I would first figure out which project you would like to do.

Or pump your money into a decent CPU as they tend to be more of a jack-of-all-trades and won't run into too many restrictions. Then add a GPU later when you have the funds.
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
4,823
6
81
However, from what I can tell, only 6000-series AMD GPUs (which are out of my price range) are supported by the three programs? And from what I can tell, Nvidia GPUs seem to outperform AMD GPUs.
5xxx and 4xxx ATI GPUs can also be used for S@H and MW@H - though i'm not sure about F@H. if you decide to run MW@H, be sure the ATI GPU you buy supports double precision floating point operations (FP64). from what i can recall, the ATI 57xx and 68xx series GPUs are not FP64 capable. there may be more, but someone else will have to verify it b/c that's all i remember.

also, as Zipspeed touched upon, nVidia GPUs outperform ATI GPUs by a long shot when crunching F@H. likewise, ATI GPUs outperform nVidia GPUS by a long shot when crunching MW@H. DC application efficiency is highly dependent on GPU architecture - hence the drastic differences in ATI and nVIdia GPU performance from application to application.