Fall is on it's way and I need a new cruncher

[Neurodog]

Hi all,

I've been away for most of the summer and I need to slowly rebuild my farm. I've sold all three of my quad's back in April to finance another hobby.

I'm looking to start with updating my aging Opteron 165 to a 6 or 8 core system.

I've been looking at the AMD x6 1055 but was wondering if with a budget of $500 CDN I could get something more powerful? (I mostly run Boinc projects)

I would need: Motherboard, CPU and RAM for a total of around $500.

I know both AMD and Intel boards are close to the end of their life for the current architecture. But I can't wait till 2011 for them.

Your help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Simon

 

[somethingsketchy]

Your best bet would be a hexacore system (AMD), with enough RAM to satisfy any BOINC project...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.500630

This will bring you about $378 (if you only go with 4GB of RAM). Throwing another 4GB into the build and you'll still have money to spare for a good air-cooler

 

[Ken g6]

Don't forget a GPU! Though don't ask me which one to buy; I'm still debating between a GTX 460/450 or a 5770/5850/6770HD.

 

[Neurodog]

Thanks for the reply!

I guess the 890GX chipset with a x6 1055T is a good match.

Ken g6: I've already got a 4870 doing Collatz and it's doing well.

 

[biodoc]

Welcome back Neurodog! The x6 1055T is a good choice. Been thinking about getting one myself.

 

[Neurodog]

Got my parts:

Gigabyte 890GX
AMD x6 1055T
4 gig of ram
CPU cooler

Sadly my temps seem way too high at around 60c at stock running Boinc...I've already re-seated the heat sink with the same results. Maybe I'll just lap the sucker!

 

[Philippart]

what cooler do you use?

too much/not enough thermal paste?

 

[Neurodog]

what cooler do you use?

too much/not enough thermal paste?

This is the cooler that I got:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16835185098

But at first I didn't put enough thermal paste and the second time I think I used a little too much.


Edit: now that I think about it...I did increase the voltage to try and get 4Ghz off the bat but was unsuccessful and I think I might have left it higher...

 

[Markfw]

I have trouble with my current motherboard with 4 ghz, I only got 3.7. My old motherboard (same chip) got 4127, but I killed it in 30 days. (cheap but fast)

 

[bryanW1995]

I will never go cheap on a cpu cooler again. I was thermal limited at 4.2 on my i7 b/c I got a TRUE instead of a megahalems or nh d14. and even that was with geting fans into push/pull and extremely high airflow/noise.

let me know how you do, I'm still looking at a 1055t rig for my office.