64 bit ALPHA processor based machines for seti?

[MechEngineer]

I was browsing the seti site and noticed that the alpha based machines really rocked for seti. Some of those machines would do a seti unit in like ....... an hour.........drool drool ........ I was looking on Ebay and saw a fair number of older Alpha based servers on there for sale. Some looked like a 500 mhz machine with 512 mb memory were going for like $300-$500 for the cpu. Some of these were 2mb cache. I also understand Windows NT 4.0 will also work on these systems. Will these systems that are for sale on EBAY work well for a seti cruncher?

 

[networkman]

/me looks around for Poof..

 

[conjur]

Had a Compaq Alpha running NT 4 where I used to work. Was a nice box. Don't remember much else about it, though.

 

[CyGoR]

When you buy an Alpha system, be sure it has at least 500Mhz.. And, ofcourse, the more L3 cache it has, the better!!
I'm having a very very old Alpha 166Mhz system working, but my 486 DX4 100Mhz was even faster!! I'm now saving money
for a new Dual Intel Xeon IV system, those just kick a$$!!
Indeed, Windows NT 4.0 works with alpha cpu's. Unfortunatly, Win2K or XP won't work with them.. The most Linux distributions
are having special Alpha releases which also works perfectly.
The system you described looked fine for Seti! Only I really don't know if it outperformes a modern system.. The systems which are
doing about one our aren't 500Mhz systems
Probably 900Mhz with 8Mb of Cache
If you really want to go fast, by the SGI 750 workstations with Dual Itanium

 

[Poof]

Just as an FYI, my alpha w/433Mhz 2MB L3 cache, running Red Hat 6.2 for alpha, does a WU in 8 - 10hrs, depending on the angle range. Generally the *nix clients sortof suck due to gcc compiler, when compared to the windoze client having been compiled with Intel's compiler. However the alpha client was actually compiled with the Compaq C compiler for *nix, so actually, it does quite well and about on par to the x86 windoze client, as opposed to how the sparc, or PPC clients perform.

Basically, the alphas are running right alongside the Xeons with at least 1MB cache and similar MHz. This means they run WUs faster than the traditional P3s or T-birds at similar clock speeds and is on par with the times from my dual Xeon (currently running at 500Mhz) . In any case, it's the large L1/L2/L3 cache that helps when running SETI... with large = 1MB or higher. Seems the P4 Northy's 512K cache doesn't make much difference though.

 

[MechEngineer]

So what is a good time these days for someone on a limited budget? I have a 1400 Athlon (not the XP) on a KR7 mbd and win2k. I run the command line version of seti and get around 5 hours per wu. What are the times for really bad (but still semi affordable) systems doing per wu?

 

[Crazee]

Do you just want to put together a cruncher or do you want to do other things with it?

 

[MechEngineer]

I want to be able to do other things too.

 

[MechEngineer]

Update on my current rig.....

I tweaked some memory timings in the bios and it looks like I probably am going to be just under 4 hours per work unit instead of 5 . I am going to keep tweaking and see what else my rig has to offer.

 

[Poof]

Unless you're OCing that T-bird or get a VHAR, you may or may not get results consistently under 4 hrs/WU, although it might be close.

My XP 1900 (1.6 GHz OC'd to 1.7GHz) is getting ~3:30hrs avg, CAS 2-2-2 and my T-bird (when it was OC'd from 1.2 to 1.4) was getting results just over 4hrs.

[EDIT, BTW, it takes OCing a P4 1.6a northwood to at least 2.2GHz in order to match the times of the XP @1.7GHz...lol]

 

[Assimilator1]

My Athlon XP1500 1.33GHz overclocked to 1.53GHz does av AR WU's in 3 1/2 hrs (thats KT266a chipset,DDR RAM @ CAS 2-2-2-6,4way inter ,153 MHz) ,Win98SE Lite