Hello Fellow Crunchers,

On 16 Nov 2005, I joined Seti@home, with what is now a “small” PC, analyzing data collected from the Arecibo Radio Telescope located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. For me, the project is nearing its 10th Anniversary on 16 Nov 2015, but for the rest of the projects participants it began in 1995 when David Gedye proposed that radio wave analysis be conducted using idle computers connected to the internet in the form of a virtual supercomputer; the project launched in 1999. To date, there are 73 Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) projects available to 2,750,233 combined total number of users, located globally, with the exemption of Kosovo and Myanmar (Burma). Daily, work-unit totals are tallied, and the current Recent Average Credit (RAC) is 1,618,369,767 work-units per day, with an average floating point of operations at 8,091,848.8 GigaFLOPS or 8,091.849 TeraFLOPS of data per second.

Currently, with the now old and slow system I first started with almost 10 years ago, my contribution to the Seti@home and BOINC collaboration totals 724,046 work-units and my RAC is 2217.48 work-units per day. The current configuration I am using has moved with me from my bedroom at my parents’ home, to residence while in university, and to the apartments in between, then and now. Whether it is analyzing low and high radio frequencies recorded from space, simulating the folding of proteins, or studying the gravitational wave detections equivalent of pulsars, the fact that the BOINC program is completing such large number of tasks on daily basis that typically could not be done in any other fashion is exciting and quite pleasing for me to participate in. Also, the amount of processing power that computers connected globally possess is incredible.

In honor, of my up coming 1 millionth work-unit of data analyzed and to mark the 10th anniversary of participating, I propose, that I build a more powerful computing machine to continue for another 10 years of number-crunching success. The system I have developed includes the combining of computer components readily available on the market and is designed with the limited budget I have to work with, roughly $1000 Canadian dollars.

The system I developed takes advantage of the processing ability of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) over that of Central Processing Units (CPUs). The CPU I have chosen for this design consist of 4 processing cores, though I have not included any GPUs in the current build, however, the design is capable of housing 4 GPUs each with a number of CUDA processing core far greater than that of the selected CPU. The current build consists of an Intel i5 Haswell processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics chip. The BOINC application software will take advantage of the 4 cores the CPU has to offer and the hyper-threading that the Haswell processor allows. Also, the BOINC application software will take advantage of the processing ability of the integrated Intel HD Graphics chipset for additional computations.

For addition kicks, included is a link to the countdown clock marking the 10th anniversary date.
http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20151116T00&p0=250&msg=10th+Anniversary+Seti%40Home&swk=1

Any thoughts on the current configuration are welcome. Please feel free to leave comments below.

The system configuration is as follows:

Intel Core i5-4430 Haswell 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor w/ Intel HD Graphics
ASUS Z87-WS SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Memory 16 GB : 2 x 8 GB - DDR3 - 1600 MHz PC3-12800 CL10
** GeForce GTX 660 Ti 1344 CUDA cores SLI 150W
Intel 520 Series Solid State Drive - 120GB, SATA III, 2.5"
Corsair Obsidian 900D Black ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Corsair HX1050 1050W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI/CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Platinum


Parts list including manufactures websites:

Intel Core i5-4430 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics
http://ark.intel.com/products/75036/Intel-Core-i5-4430-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz

ASUS Z87-WS LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/Z87WS/

Kingston HyperX blu - Memory - 16 GB : 2 x 8 GB - DIMM 240-pin low profile - DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL10 - 1.5 V - unbuffered - non-ECC
http://www.kingston.com/us/memory/hyperx/blu

** GeForce GTX 660 Ti 1344 CUDA cores SLI
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-660ti

Intel 520 Series Solid State Drive - 120GB, SATA III (6Gb/s), 2.5"
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/solid-state-drives-520-series.html

Corsair Obsidian 900D Black ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.corsair.com/en/obsidian-series-900d-super-tower-case

Corsair AX series HX1000 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS PLATINUM
http://www.corsair.com/en-ca/power-supply-units/hx-series?power=1050%20Watts

Additional Information:

Current Parts Price Calculator
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/34oF6

Wattage Needed Calculator:
http://support.asus.com/powersupply.aspx

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