What is the driver recovery issue? I haven't had any difficulties with these cards thus far, for whatever that might help.

Regards,

Here's the post I was referring to It's the bottom paragraph

I see. I recall Steve mentioning that now.

Frankly I don't know the answer to that. He might have been having heat problems perhaps? I know that when I did put the side on the case it was keeping too much heat in and the cards eventually took themselves offline as they overheated. Perhaps Steve was experiencing something like that?

Otherwise, unless he was overclocking too high and the cards were failing that way I don't have an answer. The 285s (EVGA) I'm running however are dead stable after flat out running on SETI 7/24 now for nearly a month.

Regards,

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The 285s (EVGA) I'm running however are dead stable after flat out running on SETI 7/24 now for nearly a month.

Thanks for info. How many tasks a day do you go through with your cards? I gather the host with 3 285s in it is a large server? I f you don't mind me asking what flavor of Windows 7 are you running?

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As I write this it is 21.2 degrees where my computer is & my q6700 is sitting at

c#0 68c c#1 65c c#2 62 c#3 61 degrees

I unfortunately to not have the benefit of air conditioning, in summer where my computer is gets up to over 30 degrees. I know this is not good but there's not a lot I can do apart from turn a fan on. Temps are with four mb tasks running under lumus opti app & are are taken with core temp 0.99.5 Computer has been running since about 22.00 UTC 17th

In terms of the GTX 285 how many tasks does it process at a time & is this card good for gaming or are the 295's better? Are both cards affected by the driver recovery issue?

The 285 can process a single task at once. Just like every other 2xx card, except for the 295, which can process two at once.

For gaming, no, you probably [edit]won't[/edit] find a noticeable difference. S@H, yes, there will be a noticeable difference.

Is the 30c ambient inside the room?

Considering You have no form of A/C, I'd stick to the 285 or at most a pair of 285's, As they'll run cooler than a 295. Me I don't have any working A/C, I just have a swamp cooler, But then I live in the Desert, Their less effective in other areas of course.

I contradict. The NZ climate is not hot enough to force a downgrade from a 295 to a 285. Unless you happen to live in Alexandra. Sometimes Christchurch.

I don't have an A/C either. I've never had a use for one.

I was going by the mentioned room temp of 30C(86F), Thats pretty warm here too, I have the swamp cooler on right now on the low setting and It's 23C(73F) in here now.

Heck as of this edit, It's 89°F / 32°C outside. :D

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

The 285s (EVGA) I'm running however are dead stable after flat out running on SETI 7/24 now for nearly a month.

Thanks for info. How many tasks a day do you go through with your cards? I gather the host with 3 285s in it is a large server? I f you don't mind me asking what flavor of Windows 7 are you running?

Good questions. I don't know how many tasks the cards go through in a day. I know the machine's RAC is presently 21,600 (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=5336154) and I hope I can squeeze a bit more out of it. What that translates into in terms of tasks I'm not quite sure.

The OS is Windows 7 64 bit Professional. The next version up didn't have anything I was looking for. I would likely have been just as happy with XP 64 bit Pro or Vista 64 bit Pro (is there such a thing?!). It just happened to be the 64 bit OS easiest to get. I bought a hard drive for my son's laptop at the same time so they sold me an OEM version of the OS for a lot cheaper than it would have been otherwise.

The box was originally intended to be a server (see this thread for the conclusion of my build: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=58707. Huge kudos to those who gave me advice on it. Funny enough, Windows Home Server (just 2003 Server under the skin) didn't really like the machine much. Lots of driver problems and hence the switch to Windows 7 for it. That and Home Server is 32 bit and I'd bought a ton of RAM in anticipation of running lots of stuff and couldn't use it until Home Server V2 (essentially 2008 Server 64 bit) came out.

Regards,

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64-bit is the way to go these days. Programs are demanding more and more RAM - Adobe Photoshop CS4/5 included. I'd say the average amount of RAM installed in a computer these days is 4-6GB. Laptops, probably more around 4GB.

As for flavors of Windows 7, your best choice is Home Premium x64 or Professional x64, unlike prior released (Vista, XP) the flavors are 'stacked' or 'nested' in a sense. Everything in the Home Basic edition is in the Home Premium edition + more, everything in the Home Premium edition is in the Professional edition + more, everything in the Professional edition is in Ultimate edition + more.

Win7 is the way to go. Win XP is finally transitioning to 'legacy' software.

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- Luke.

I was in Harvey Norman yesterday & saw a Hpe 190A I7 860 2.8, 8GB DDR3(unsure on speed) GTX 260 1,843 MB & 1.5 TB With Win 7 Pro.heres it is http://www.harveynorman.co.nz/hp-elite-hpe-190a-desktop-pc.html for $3,796NZ $2,734.26 I know this is a large step down from the 3.33 I7 I was talking about. I feel it will suit my needs & is half the price. What are your peoples thoughts? I wasn't able to find a similar speced system under top computers at a quick glance.

Thanks

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I was in Harvey Norman yesterday & saw a Hpe 190A I7 860 2.8, 8GB DDR3(unsure on speed) GTX 260 1,843 MB & 1.5 TB With Win 7 Pro.heres it is http://www.harveynorman.co.nz/hp-elite-hpe-190a-desktop-pc.html for $3,796NZ $2,734.26 I know this is a large step down from the 3.33 I7 I was talking about. I feel it will suit my needs & is half the price. What are your peoples thoughts? I wasn't able to find a similar speced system under top computers at a quick glance.

Thanks

Great looking machine is my first impression. I don't like the NIC card - 10/100 is definitely too slow these days. 10/100/1000 is what you want and it is not anything big in terms of price.

Secondly I like the amount of RAM and that it is DDR3.

The GPU should be something more hefty or you will be disappointed I think given the outlay otherwise for things. The Nvidia card will be the main boost to your crunching prowess and there's where you want to invest if you are thinking of crunching more than just a passing interest.

Otherwise all pretty good. HP of course is eating just about everyone's lunch with the quality of their machines so you won't be unhappy there.

My only other observation is that if you are might get more bang for the buck assembling this yourself. The ingredients are there as well as the fine advice you will get on the Number Crunching forum. I know the origins of my main cruncher were found right here with the input I received. It's given me a machine that is pushing right up there and I undoubtedly wouldn't have footed the bill for one premade with the specs I was able to assemble.

Best of luck!

Regards,

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Thanks woodenboatguy. The reason why I'm getting my pc from a shop or custom built is because

I have Cerbral Palsy. My hands will not allow me to work in confined spaces.

I will more than likely go the custom built way because there are certain things I want that the HP doesn't have. I'm still interested to hear peoples points of view. I haven't fully made up my mind yet.

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Thanks woodenboatguy. The reason why I'm getting my pc from a shop or custom built is because

I have Cerbral Palsy. My hands will not allow me to work in confined spaces.

I will more than likely go the custom built way because there are certain things I want that the HP doesn't have. I'm still interested to hear peoples points of view. I haven't fully made up my mind yet.

I saw that from a previous post.

Having seen you posting on here, and simply my sense of you is that you allow it as little room as possible to define or limit you. I honestly admire your spirit and I am confident in suggesting you are going to construct one honkin' kick ass rig. A little help from your friends is always preferred anyways....if only to share a moment of celebration thereafter...your choice of beverage of course.

I'll toast you from here when the news arrives. Likely Scotch or a Canadian rye whisky.

Cheers!

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My nephew is building systems right now in his HS class so I thought I'd give him a shot at building me a new rig. I'm not really a hardware guy. Won't do too much GPU crunching due to limited ventilation in the room. Using newegg as I have a $50 credit there as a prize from a work contest. I already have a Case so that's not needed. Here's what he's offered:

CPU: i5-750(4 cores) - $200

Motherboard: MSI P55 (2x pci-e; 4 DDR3 slots; 10 USB ports; 6 SATA ports) - $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130253

Memory: 4gb DDR3-1333; Corsair - $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145198

Hard Drive: 500 gb Western Digital Caviar Blue - $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136040

Power Supply: 650w; Corsair - $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

Video Card: ATI Radeon 5830 - $240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125317

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Hi Speedy.

I live in Auckland and run four moderate crunchers.

I would be happy to help you with your build, send me a PM.
You are welcome to have a look at my rig.

I do recommend some good case fans though to help with cooling, the 295's run hot.
The gaming case is critical IMHO. I was running server cases, and they could not keep things cool enough. Even now I average over 80 degrees on the aircooled boxes.
At one stage I was running six over three boxes, before the 5970 came out. I keep a token GTX260 for Seti though.

Cheers
David

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Hi David...
So many New Zealanders in this thread. We really need to get together on Skype... :)

As for you Jarod - how is your build going? Figured out what your going for yet?

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- Luke.

I'm still not 100% decided on what I'm going to build. I am mainly stumped on what gfx card to go with. I'd like a 480 but some people are having great crunching success but other say they are not good. So the question is do I gamble $1,099 on a 480 that when they get things sorted will be a good cuda card or spend $839 on a 295 on a older card that we know works? In saying that people have been having some issues with the 295's

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$1029 incl at present for the 480.
http://playtech.co.nz/afawcs0139235/CATID=301/ID=13717/SID=722563950/productdetails.html

Time is your friend for this one. The longer you wait, the more apps there will be for them.

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My nephew is building systems right now in his HS class so I thought I'd give him a shot at building me a new rig. I'm not really a hardware guy. Won't do too much GPU crunching due to limited ventilation in the room. Using newegg as I have a $50 credit there as a prize from a work contest. I already have a Case so that's not needed. Here's what he's offered:

CPU: i5-750(4 cores) - $200

Motherboard: MSI P55 (2x pci-e; 4 DDR3 slots; 10 USB ports; 6 SATA ports) - $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130253

Memory: 4gb DDR3-1333; Corsair - $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145198

Hard Drive: 500 gb Western Digital Caviar Blue - $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136040

Power Supply: 650w; Corsair - $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

Video Card: ATI Radeon 5830 - $240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125317

Now there's the deal of the century. That will make a great rig.

No CUDA card though eh?

[edit] I would bump up the power supply - you can never get enough power and not putting a strain on it at it's upper capacity is worth the added few dollars it will cost in the long run [/edit]

With that many SATA ports consider doing a RAID setup. RAID 0 is smokin' fast if you can stomach the cost of using 10000 rpm drives. It will give you the biggest perception of speed (given the physical IO is the slowest part of the whole system of course).

Regards,

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$200 for the i5 750? Not bad, Since It's New, I bought/won an i5 750 for $187.99 delivered or $183 before delivery. :D

Now the online sale looks like It's bearing fruit, As per rules here I can't more then this, As usual, If You really want to know, PM Me for more info. Question is will It be in time? :|

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Since you don't have a/c, may I suggest the Corsair Hydro Series H50 chiller in a push/pull configuration. The chiller includes a fan in the kit, and I installed the exhaust fan that it replaced as the puller. The packaging also includes alol of the parts required to fit multiple cpu types (ie.LGA775/1366, AMD2 & AMD3).

I installed one on my Core2 Quad Q6600 Windows 7 (64-bit) last week and am very satisfied with it. Like you I do not have a/c in the room where the machine is located, just a ceiling fan and open windows. Over the weekend the temps averaged at 31c (89f) and I never observed the cpu temp over 54c (129f). The max for this cpu is 85c (185f) as specified by Intel.

I am also piecing together a new machine build and had already purchased a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT cooler. I will not be installing it, but will order another H560 to replace it. The cost for me was $79.99 USD. Check out the web page for it http://www.corsair.com/products/h50/default.aspx

Guru3d.com has a very good review on the H50 that you may want to check out. http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsair-h50-cpu-cooler-review/1

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

Now there's the deal of the century. That will make a great rig.

No CUDA card though eh?

Sorry for the delayed reply--work has been tough this week.

Didn't want to do CUDA as ventilation is minimal in that room and I want to heat it up as little as possible.

If I up the power supply something else has to come down.

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Didn't want to do CUDA as ventilation is minimal in that room and I want to heat it up as little as possible.

If I up the power supply something else has to come down.

I wish you & your nephew all the best with the build

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OK I've had a change of plan with my build

Intel i7 980 Processor
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard
Gigabyte GV-N470D5-13I Graphics Card – 1gb
USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports
22x LG DVD Writer (Dual layer, Dual Format)
Gigabit Network onboard
12gb of Kingston DDR3 Ram
2x 1tb Western Digital 64mb Black Edition Sata Drives
19in1 Digital Camera Card Reader
Enermax 620w Liberty Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

The thing I'm wondering about is weather a Coolmaster Haf 922 case will give me the same amount of cooling as a haf 932 case? Also the 922 case will make it easier for me to reach cd/dvd drive ect. comes in at under $5,000 NZD

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