Dear Friends in Space!
I'm planning to set up a SETI/BOINC oriented system. I've been reading lots of posts and unfortunately my research is inconclusive. Therefore you guys are my last hope. ;-) So to clear a little bit. The system should cost at most $1000, should be eco friendly (low power consumption) and size doesn't matter. And now, I discovered myself (+read about it ;)) that the most important thing in CPU is L2 cache (I have Pentium M 1.8 GHz 2MB which is more efficient that Xeon 2.6 GHz 512 KB) but what about L3 cache? As far as I know it's little less accessible for the core than L2 but Itaniums and i7s has lots of it... And now there's also the CUDA thing... I'll appreciate any suggestions! Thx in advance and happy crunchin'! :-)

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"Failure is not an option."
Gene Kranz, Apollo 13 Flight Director

"Be the change you want to see in the World"
Mahatma Gandhi

My web-page:
www.dywanik.eu

Well your best bet is to have a quad core system with a moderately high-end card (or two) for CUDA. The more L2 and L3 cache the better. It won't be eco-friendly though, running full-tilt on CPU and GPU will eat up a fair bit of juice. It's typically a trade-off between computing power and electric power. The more eco-friendly, the worse of a cruncher it is.

Here is an example from Newegg:

ASUS P5QL PRO LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - $86.99
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W - $169.99
Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $19.99
MSI N250GTS-2D512-OC GeForce GTS 250 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 - $124.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3160813AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - $39.99
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $54.95
Antec EA650 650W Continuous Power - $79.99

Total - $576.89
With 2x video cards - $701.88
With 3x video cards + 850w power supply = $1026.86

Now this particular board has 3 PCI 1x slots in addition to the 16x slot, so you could add multiple video cards for additional CUDA processing. Adding a second card you could do with the existing power supply. Adding a third may require an upgrade to this power supply:

Antec TPQ-850 850W - $199.99

That would put you over budget by a bit though.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

It's allways a trade off.

Cheap, good, fast.. pick any two.

If you want to build yourself a good everyday PC thas a good cruncher then base it on a Intel Core2 quad. While the various levels of cache have an effect on CPU performance, the actual cpu makes a huge difference. The Intel Core2 just crunch this sort of work better.

So buy a quad core Intel CPU, a decent system board and consider a CUDA capable graphics card. That can be added later of course.

While we look at the top crunching rigs with envy.. consider how much they cost, and the power they draw. The top PCs on the poject are pretty imnpressive, but I reckon I could built a stack of simple quad cores for the same cost, same power draw, just it would take 5 boxes to do it.

Ian

P.S. Look at the optimised applications. They make a HUGE difference to the RAC, especially on the newer CPUs. My quad core will will do 4 x AP units in about 16 hours, compared to about 40 hours for the standard app.

Well your best bet is to have a quad core system with a moderately high-end card (or two) for CUDA. The more L2 and L3 cache the better. It won't be eco-friendly though, running full-tilt on CPU and GPU will eat up a fair bit of juice. It's typically a trade-off between computing power and electric power. The more eco-friendly, the worse of a cruncher it is.

Here is an example from Newegg:

ASUS P5QL PRO LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - $86.99
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W - $169.99
Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $19.99
MSI N250GTS-2D512-OC GeForce GTS 250 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 - $124.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3160813AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - $39.99
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $54.95
Antec EA650 650W Continuous Power - $79.99

Total - $576.89
With 2x video cards - $701.88
With 3x video cards + 850w power supply = $1026.86

Now this particular board has 3 PCI 1x slots in addition to the 16x slot, so you could add multiple video cards for additional CUDA processing. Adding a second card you could do with the existing power supply. Adding a third may require an upgrade to this power supply:

Antec TPQ-850 850W - $199.99

That would put you over budget by a bit though.

I would skip the Q8200 and use a Q9550 or Q9650...more L2 cache...better for SETI...

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

I have built several i7 rigs for others for around a 1000 bucks. I would look at the following:

Antec 300 case $61.00 shipped buy.com
i7 920 $288.00 Newegg.com
A-Data 6 GB RAM kit $84.00 shipped
MSI X58 MOBO $179.99 after rebate
Corsair 400 watt PSU $39.99 after rebate
WD 500 GB Caviar Black HDD $69.99 shipped
Xigmatek S1284EE cooler and backing plate $55.00
MSI GTX 260 vidcard $159.99 after rebate
LG DVD Burner $24.99

Total = $962.95

Don't let the "little" 400 watt PSU fool you. It's i7 certified, very high quality, and actually has more amps on the 12v rail than many higher wattage rated PSU's. I have them in one build OC'd to 3.8 ghz and another to 4.0 ghz, both with with rock solid voltages and very little ripple. Also, you don't need expensive RAM with these i7's, the extra money isn't worth the marginal gain in performance, IMHO.

Overclock this setup to 3.8 or so, install an optimized application, and 10,000 RAC should be yours in no time.

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Now this particular board has 3 PCI 1x slots in addition to the 16x slot, so you could add multiple video cards for additional CUDA processing.

If these 'PCI 1x slots' are what I think they are (those small PCI slots which are used for some of the more modern sound cards etc.) you won't find it easy to put a worthwhile graphics/CUDA card in them. Or have I misunderstood your message?

Regards,
John.

Now this particular board has 3 PCI 1x slots in addition to the 16x slot, so you could add multiple video cards for additional CUDA processing.

If these 'PCI 1x slots' are what I think they are (those small PCI slots which are used for some of the more modern sound cards etc.) you won't find it easy to put a worthwhile graphics/CUDA card in them. Or have I misunderstood your message?

Regards,
John.

Whoops, my bad. Yeah they're the tiny ones. Upgrade to this:

ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - $129.99

That has 2x PCI-E 16x slots.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

not to knock Intel rigs but an AMD phemon II 940 with 4 gb ram and and a $100 mobo will put you in the top 400 on seti. How do I know? because my rig is doing just that. I'm hovering around #360-400 depending on how many WU's are pending. Now its a given that the GPU will add to any RAC. the 940 is a really nice CPU. I don't see amy major change in my electric bill.

Now its a given that the GPU will add to any RAC. However this appears to be where you'll end up using a lot of Watts if you choose to run a high end nvidia Cuda card.

A simple newegg CPU/Mobo/Ram combo:

Phenom II 940 3.0ghz priced with mobo
Asus M4A78-E (combo) $339.00
4 GB PC8500 Corsair ram: $51.00

Throw in the DVD, Case, Coolermaster HSF and graphics and its about $350 more.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

The i7's with HyperThreading enabled give you 8 logical cores, plus whatever you end up with GPU-wise. I'm still in the experimenting stage, but my main rig is currently completing about 10 or 12 AP WU's per day, depending on my computer usage, with an average CPU time of 50,000 seconds. I run 10 AP WU's concurrently, and they usually take about 17 or 18 hours, clock time.

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not to knock Intel rigs but an AMD phemon II 940 with 4 gb ram and and a $100 mobo will put you in the top 400 on seti. How do I know? because my rig is doing just that. I'm hovering around #360-400 depending on how many WU's are pending. Now its a given that the GPU will add to any RAC. the 940 is a really nice CPU. I don't see amy major change in my electric bill.

Now its a given that the GPU will add to any RAC. However this appears to be where you'll end up using a lot of Watts if you choose to run a high end nvidia Cuda card.

A simple newegg CPU/Mobo/Ram combo:

Phenom II 940 3.0ghz priced with mobo
Asus M4A78-E (combo) $339.00
4 GB PC8500 Corsair ram: $51.00

Throw in the DVD, Case, Coolermaster HSF and graphics and its about $350 more.

For about the same price from the same source, an Asus P5K MoBo + Intel Q9550 plus the same additional bits and pieces will put you in the top 150 (needs a bit of overclocking to get the RAC to 8K). Add a good vid card and you can get into the top 10 - if you don't monitor the power bill too carefully. I think the Core2 architecture still has it on the bangs for buck measure.

F.

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I'm not sure I mentioned this but I do not run a Cuda. So my rank is held back abit by that. I'm not at all sure what a highend GPU would do for me. From what I've seen the intel 920 takes a great deal more time to complete a Wu since its really running a 4 core using HT to make it look like an 8 core CPU. There is really not much advantage to using an intel 920 vs an AMD 940. For the savings you'd get from buying the AMD you'd be able to buy another GPU

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I'm not sure I mentioned this but I do not run a Cuda. So my rank is held back abit by that. I'm not at all sure what a highend GPU would do for me. From what I've seen the intel 920 takes a great deal more time to complete a Wu since its really running a 4 core using HT to make it look like an 8 core CPU. There is really not much advantage to using an intel 920 vs an AMD 940. For the savings you'd get from buying the AMD you'd be able to buy another GPU

Adding even a single CUDA card will have a big impact on your RAC. Two CUDA cards would be able to smoke even a quad core machine.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

Adding even a single CUDA card will have a big impact on your RAC. Two CUDA cards would be able to smoke even a quad core machine.

Hmmm. Not strictly true. My GTX295 is, effectively, 2 CUDA cards and it produces about the same RAC as my overclocked Quaddie. That is, the Q9450 with Op Apps will do about 8k, each half of the GTX will do about (stock speed) will do about 4k.

F.

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I'm not sure I mentioned this but I do not run a Cuda. So my rank is held back abit by that. I'm not at all sure what a highend GPU would do for me. From what I've seen the intel 920 takes a great deal more time to complete a Wu since its really running a 4 core using HT to make it look like an 8 core CPU. There is really not much advantage to using an intel 920 vs an AMD 940. For the savings you'd get from buying the AMD you'd be able to buy another GPU

Not trying to be argumentative, but the i7, when properly overclocked and optimized at least, can crunch 8 AP WU's in 50,000 CPU seconds or less.

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Since you hedged your bet by saying a properly OCed i7, I assume you are referring to the i7 940 which is obviously a very fast but cost prohibitive machine.
The main thing that makes the intel chips "better" for seti is that the apps are created for Intels. no fault there since there are more intels to work with. Of course there will be a bit of lag in there for AMD's. If the case of properly Oced i7 920 were true then my AMD would not be anywhere near the top. Granted their is an abundance of Intels there and thats just market share. There are several AMD 940's that are in the top 300 that obviously are able to and desire to OC a great deal more than me.
As mentioned before adding the GPU is whats really going to cost one. I can't imagine have a PC that would use electricity like a high watt hair dryer. That gets a bit expensive. even if its only for bragging rights

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Hmmm. Not strictly true. My GTX295 is, effectively, 2 CUDA cards and it produces about the same RAC as my overclocked Quaddie. That is, the Q9450 with Op Apps will do about 8k, each half of the GTX will do about (stock speed) will do about 4k.

F.

Fred, shouldn't your 9450 be able to do better than that? One of my 9450s is currently:
Average credit 10,888.32

And I don't do any CUDA.... Or is the CUDA slowing the processors down such that the RAC for just those is lower (loading up the cards, etc)?

-Dave

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The q6600 is still a good deal. Mine in a pk5, I'd rather have a 9550, and a 8800gts (low end card,the 320M model, was $79 including shipping) has 10,600 Rac.

The i7 920 is what I was referring to. Many examples (including mine) will overclock to 4.2 ghz or higher. I don't for longevity sake. As for power consumption, OC'd I believe it draws something like 180 watts. This particular rig will never win a low power contest anyway. It is has 2 GTX 260's, RAID, water cooling etc. Its designed to be a powerhouse for gaming and video editing and as showpiece for others I build computers for. SETI was an afterthought.

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Hi, I was thinking of using my 'old'PentiumD (RAC=1000), driving 4 x 280 or 2 x 295 cards.
Or an OC'ed (3,7GH)QX9650 with 2 or 4 CUDA cards. And a 750 -1000Watt PSU.

Saw an add for a 'super-computer', made up of ATOM/XEON's and nVIDIA's Graphic Chips, the TESLA computer, the TERA 10, uses 1.8MW + 2MW COOLING.
Computing capacity 10 TeraFLOPs.

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Hmmm. Not strictly true. My GTX295 is, effectively, 2 CUDA cards and it produces about the same RAC as my overclocked Quaddie. That is, the Q9450 with Op Apps will do about 8k, each half of the GTX will do about (stock speed) will do about 4k.

F.

Fred, shouldn't your 9450 be able to do better than that? One of my 9450s is currently:
Average credit 10,888.32

And I don't do any CUDA.... Or is the CUDA slowing the processors down such that the RAC for just those is lower (loading up the cards, etc)?

-Dave

Dave, You may be right and I was being conservative. I was going on the figures from before I started using the GTX. My measurements of late have been somewhat hampered by the server problems but I did get the rig up to a RAC of over 17k (No 9 in top hosts) before switching 2 cores back to CPDN last week. Certainly there is a slight "hit" from the support needed by the GPU.
The other drawback with the GTX295 is the noise of the fan running at 100% when both cores are flat out. It was driving me bananas so I now have just one GPU core crunching and use the other for iPlayer or general video tasks; 60% fan is sufficient to keep the GPU below 65C now, and one GPU core does more than half as much as 2 GPU cores (memory contention).

F.

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