I would like to hear some opinions from you:
I am thinking about setting up some small systems for crunching. Maybe its not the most efficient way, but its the most fun to me. I want to limit each system to 200 €.
My thoughts go to Mini-ITX-Boards with either Intel Atoms or AMD Bobcats. For example, i can get the Intel-Desktop-Board D525MW for around 60 €. http://ark.intel.com/products/48952/Intel-Desktop-Board-D525MW Plus RAM for 10 € and power supply for 20 €.
I think that such a system is a very good mixture between buying-cost, power-consumption and low-level-crunching power.
The AMD-Boards with Bobcat are more expensive, but they are APUs with a strong GPU-part. Can boinc use that GPU-part? Or will it just crunch on the CPU-part?
I want to run the systems as diskless client with linux. I am open for suggestions. What other possibilities do you see?

greetings
peak

SETI can use most modern GPUs.....

I'm too lazy to investigate which GPU that system comes with but a list of supported ATI's are here.......
http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/pages/DriverCompatibility.aspx

........and Nvidia's are here
http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

---

Recently I have been trying to decide if I wanted to make another MODT machine or so with a small stack of Atom based systems. Which would cost me about the same either way. I am leaning more towards the MODT setup as, with a PCIe x16 slot, it has more options for doing different things.

I don't venture much into AMD land. I only do so now as they acquired ATI. :/ I have seen benchmarks of their APU's bust most of those focus on the graphics which blow the Atom graphics out of the water.

Raistmer posted recently (the main developer for the ATI/AMD GPU applications) that the APU's do support the OpenCL applications. Whioh he is running on one of his systems. As seen here.

You might already know there is a new Atom out. The D2700 which effectively replaces the D525. I don't know how they are on prices for you, but the Intel boards are actually a bit less than the D525 boards in the places I shop.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

SETI can use most modern GPUs.....
I'm too lazy to investigate which GPU that system comes with but a list of supported ATI's are here.......
http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/pages/DriverCompatibility.aspx

thanks for the great list!
it says
"Supported Devices:1
AMD APU Family with AMD Radeonâ„¢ HD Graphics
A-Series
E2-Series
C-Series
E-Series
G-Series"
Alot of Bobcat-GPU are supported. So I will definitely try one of them out and compare its performance with some Intel Atoms.

You might already know there is a new Atom out. The D2700 which effectively replaces the D525. I don't know how they are on prices for you, but the Intel boards are actually a bit less than the D525 boards in the places I shop.

Yes, i have a list with all the Atoms and their characteristics. I will try some of them out and will see who performs good and who does not. I checked prices for Mini-ITX-Bords with the D2700 and found a good one for 74 € which is about the same as for the D525.

thank you both for your answers


PS: right now i am setting up a Fujitsu-Primergy-Server with two Pentium III 700 Mhz *ggg*. It has a floppy-drive :)
lets see how the Pentiums perform

SETI can use most modern GPUs.....
I'm too lazy to investigate which GPU that system comes with but a list of supported ATI's are here.......
http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/pages/DriverCompatibility.aspx

thanks for the great list!
it says
"Supported Devices:1
AMD APU Family with AMD Radeonâ„¢ HD Graphics
A-Series
E2-Series
C-Series
E-Series
G-Series"
Alot of Bobcat-GPU are supported. So I will definitely try one of them out and compare its performance with some Intel Atoms.

You might already know there is a new Atom out. The D2700 which effectively replaces the D525. I don't know how they are on prices for you, but the Intel boards are actually a bit less than the D525 boards in the places I shop.

Yes, i have a list with all the Atoms and their characteristics. I will try some of them out and will see who performs good and who does not. I checked prices for Mini-ITX-Bords with the D2700 and found a good one for 74 € which is about the same as for the D525.

thank you both for your answers


PS: right now i am setting up a Fujitsu-Primergy-Server with two Pentium III 700 Mhz *ggg*. It has a floppy-drive :)
lets see how the Pentiums perform

I just got a quad socket Xeon system at work this week with 3.0GHz, 400MHz FSB, 4MB cache chips in it. I am kind of wanting to run some work through it to see how it compares to it's 3.0GHz, 800FSB, 1MB brothers. However I am waiting on power cords as the supplies require cords with the higher amp connectors. They look more like -_- instead of the vertical pins on normal supplies.

Sometimes it is fun to work with odd hardware and see what it can do compared to the modern beasts. I've found some of the old stuff can still hold its own computing wise, but not when it comes to performance per watt.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Just be careful with the new cedar trail atoms (e.g. the D2500 & D2700) as they are NOT 64 bit enabled.

They are 64 bit CAPABLE, but NONE of the atom motherboard manufacturers have enabled 64 bit support as Intel has really crappy drivers for the new graphics chipset that only supports 32 bit.

Just be careful with the new cedar trail atoms (e.g. the D2500 & D2700) as they are NOT 64 bit enabled.

They are 64 bit CAPABLE, but NONE of the atom motherboard manufacturers have enabled 64 bit support as Intel has really crappy drivers for the new graphics chipset that only supports 32 bit.

What?! That's a shameful waste of CPU transistors, electrical power, and overall performance.

And I thought the Atoms were Marketed on being low electrical power and efficient...

(And I'm still suspicious of the system memory bandwidth lost to on-board "integrated" graphics...)


Happy cool crunchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Just be careful with the new cedar trail atoms (e.g. the D2500 & D2700) as they are NOT 64 bit enabled.

They are 64 bit CAPABLE, but NONE of the atom motherboard manufacturers have enabled 64 bit support as Intel has really crappy drivers for the new graphics chipset that only supports 32 bit.

What?! That's a shameful waste of CPU transistors, electrical power, and overall performance.

And I thought the Atoms were Marketed on being low electrical power and efficient...

(And I'm still suspicious of the system memory bandwidth lost to on-board "integrated" graphics...)


Happy cool crunchin',
Martin

From the reviews I have seen the Atom chips are not efficient, just low powered.
While a Pentium G620T might be 2-3 times the power you can get much more done with the given power.
I don't see why the motherboard makers would disable EMT64. That is a bit of a willy thing to do just because the built in graphics don't have a good driver yet. I don't see what is wrong with using the inbox standard graphics adapter driver.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

May i ask a heretic question? Why mini ITX? mATX boards are cheaper have a "normal" socket and are not much bigger(example).

---