Why not much mention of videocard power consumption?
I am under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that performance cards can consume 100w!
Do all current available performance video chipsets "throttle down" power consumption when not using certain functions?

I wanted to give a big thanks to all for the great ideas everyone has provided! I really appreciate it.

I look forward to crunching on my new computer!

---

John Miller
SpaceLinks.net
SpaceLinks.net News Page - Latest Headlines!

on this one, I am running all around my cubicle every day, like a kid in a candy shop.

Please, you have to post that on YouTube for us! : )

And then give us samples of those chips s to 'test'...

---

Crunching SETI@Home as a member of the Whirlpool BOINC Teams

this would be nice if seti ported to cuda ...

Well, I will be porting SETI to something that will be more x86 compatible, but massively parallele too, as soon as possible ... The code I am doing now will be a perfect match! it is x86!

on this one, I am running all around my cubicle every day, like a kid in a candy shop.


wow?

I am not sure if anybody has tried to see how the new 45nm's OC compared to the Q6600 which just loves to OC. ...

One of the two videos posted by who? in the IDF thread had a guy from extremesystems with what I think might have been a yorkfield (can't remember). I do remember being shocked at the GHz, He was using some sort of multi stage phase cooler they has to enclose for the noise. The on-stage excercise was to get 4? world records in two minutes.

Taking a 5 min break, while my code is running tests.

Thanks to hafnium, the current leakage is reduced by 10, decreasing dramatically the amount of heat going out of the CPU. since the heat is lower, it will allow the change phase coolers to keep the temperature lower, allowing you to run at -70C or -100C at home, without too crazy hardware. Since you run cooler, you don't need to increase the voltage as hard as before, so, you can get closer to supra conductivity and get higher frequency.

I feel very humble when I work with those genious of material science in my company, those people push the limits of physics every day, and they do it like you go shopping in the mall attitude, relaxed, smilling, and no big head :)

Well, you can expect Penryn to be faster than Core 2 on SETI, I have been secretly running it ;), and it is a WOW!

I recommand to by a P35 based motherboard, just because the upgrade is quaranty to Penryn familly (Make sure the motherboard maker claim it). If cash is not much of an issue, DDR3 is insanely fast, as soon as you get to overclocking. I got some DDR3 running at 2.0GHz, CL9 with water cooling on it, it is coming online here as soon as the Corp let me run it publically.

wow?

this would be nice if seti ported to cuda ...

---

for crunching and rendering does psu really matter? I wonder for regular user 350-450wt is enough for those applications (including q6600)?

The basic idea here is that you don't want the power supply running "flat out."

As you approach the limit, regulation won't be as good, and the parts in the supply will be running hotter. You may not have power left over for upgrades.

---

If your thinking about "price" only includes the cost of acquisition, the advice so far has obviously been good. If you're including the cost of operating the system, the cost of electricity needs to be factored in. That's when it becomes uncertain whether a Q6600 or a low voltage Core 2 duo would be most productive in terms of credits per total cost.

If you are the sort that even has the slightest thought of overclocking, the most modestly overclockable motherboard will give you CPU voltage control. Since most folks find their sample of Q6600 runs correctly for BOINC at well over stock speed at stock voltage, you can almost certainly instead choose reduced voltage (and therefore power) substantially at stock speed.

As the system overhead power is likely constant between a Q6600 and a dual core option, I suspect you'll find the total cost discounted to the present time of the future stream of power payments and the initial acquisition cost is likely much better for the Q6600, probably near stock speed but undervolted appreciably.

Obviously specific samples differ, but my 6600, which nominally commands slightly over 1.31V, booted and ran BOINC at stock 2.4 GHz at just under 1.12V commanded. I think it might have had adequate margin for me to be comfortable at 1.15V. That would be a huge power savings over the 1.35V 3.006 GHz setting I choose to run instead.

You pay a lot extra on the ultra low-voltage low-power parts for the guarantee that they will run a little lower voltage than most of the plain vanilla parts will run anyway.

---

Might try to build another computer but...so what do you think is the best items to use if the computer is to run (only SETI)...for the lowest price for the most good. I will have to use Window XP.

If your thinking about "price" only includes the cost of acquisition, the advice so far has obviously been good. If you're including the cost of operating the system, the cost of electricity needs to be factored in. That's when it becomes uncertain whether a Q6600 or a low voltage Core 2 duo would be most productive in terms of credits per total cost. Even AMD Barcelona systems may be competitive when power costs are included.

As I don't have a broadband internet connection, it's all theoretical as far as I'm concerned. I could possibly get Satellite internet at a cost of $50 per month, but that would obviously drive up the cost of credits.

                                                                Joe

I am not sure if anybody has tried to see how the new 45nm's OC compared to the Q6600 which just loves to OC. ...

One of the two videos posted by who? in the IDF thread had a guy from extremesystems with what I think might have been a yorkfield (can't remember). I do remember being shocked at the GHz, He was using some sort of multi stage phase cooler they has to enclose for the noise. The on-stage excercise was to get 4? world records in two minutes.

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

what about this one: Core 2 Quad Q9450 : 2,66 GHz - 12 Mo cache L2 - TDP 95 Watts ??

It would certainly be a good choice. The larger L2 cache may help crunching a bit. I am not sure if anybody has tried to see how the new 45nm's OC compared to the Q6600 which just loves to OC. Also depends on what the street price works out to be when it is released. The Q6600 is currently in the $280.00 range. A very good buy for a quad!
We shall see!

---

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein
"With cats." kittyman

what about this one: Core 2 Quad Q9450 : 2,66 GHz - 12 Mo cache L2 - TDP 95 Watts ??

---

The Q6600 most definitely is THE cpu of choice for Seti crunching.

Yep, Couldn't agree more. :D

Until Penryn, of course! : )

---

Crunching SETI@Home as a member of the Whirlpool BOINC Teams

The Q6600 most definitely is THE cpu of choice for Seti crunching.

Yep, Couldn't agree more. :D

---

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

The Q6600 most definately is THE cpu of choice for Seti crunching.

---

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein
"With cats." kittyman

[quote]I'll throw my 2 cents worth. I asked the same question about 6 months ago and got several suggestions. My question was “what would give the most RAC for the Buck”. Since then I have build about 15 computers trying to get the answer to my question. The most recent one is the best so far. Here what I put together on earlier this week.
ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi. It has the newest Intel Chipset and memory speed booster. It also overclocks easily.
2 Gig of Corsair XMS DDR-2 800 ($100 at Newegg) You said that you plan to use a 32 bit op system such as Vista or XP the most memory you can use is 3 Gig. But 2 will do nicely.
As far as Hard drive SATA is the only way to go now days. If you plan to do video editing you will need a fairly large drive. I have started using Western Digital Caviar SE 500 GB drives. ($105 at Newegg) Video editing needs fast hard drive access too. To accomplish this I use 2 hard drives in a RAID 1 (stripped) configuration. The one I just put together actually had 5 500 GB hard drives in a RAID 10 configuration. This give you not only speed but also data redundancy.
The CPU of choice is the Q6600. Can’t beat the performance for the buck.
For video editing the best graphics card for the price is the PNY GeForce 8800 GTS. It’s fast and reasonably priced.
Here is the full list of the computer I just put together. Went over your $1,000 budget, but you needn’t put in everything I did.

XION Onyx XON-303 Black/Blue Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, $69.99
XION Supernova XON-600F14R-201 ATX12V 600W Power Supply, $119.99
ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard, $214.99
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor , $277.99
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail, $100.00
Western Digital Caviar 500GB 7200 RPM SATA2 Hard Drive, $105
Thermaltake CL-P0310 120mm CPU Cooling Fan, $54.99
PNY VCG88GTS32XPB GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported HDCP Video Card, $277.99
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM write and LightScribe Technology Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model LH-20A1H-185 - OEM, $31.99
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal USB 2.0 digital card reader with Floppy Drive$37.98
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM, $139.99

Total for all this was just over $2,000., but that was with 4 hard drives and 2 optical drives.

Like I said I have gone thru about 15 configurations in the last 6 months and this is the best I have come up with so far. Hope this helps.
[/quo




Might try to build another computer but...so what do you think is the best items to use if the computer is to run (only SETI)...for the lowest price for the most good. I will have to use Window XP.


What is the least amount of

---

http://boinc.mundayweb.com/teamStats.php?userID=14824

for crunching and rendering does psu really matter? I wonder for regular user 350-450wt is enough for those applications (including q6600)?

depends on what else is in the box besides the Q6600, and also on how you choose to run the Q6600 (voltage and clock rate). My box with a Q6600 running at 3.006 GHz at 1.35V commanded rarely draws over 250W, though peak may reach 265 or a bit more. I have three hard drives, two optical drives and a bit of other stuff, but my graphics card is so modest it was originally sold without a fan (mine came with a very small fan). With my draw, I think a high quality "honestly rated" supply at 350 might be enough. But many supplies are not honestly rated, with funny restrictions on specific rails and such.

If you stay away from high power graphics cards and from substantial overvoltage overclocking, and get a supply with an honest rating and decent regulation (for example, Seasonic, or the Trupower series), then 350 is probably enough, and 450 is plenty. If you go in for insane gamer-oriented graphics cards, and overclock and overvolt them, your CPU, your memory, and your chipset like crazy, then probably not.

---

for crunching and rendering does psu really matter? I wonder for regular user 350-450wt is enough for those applications (including q6600)?

---

Mandtugai!

Me I've used a Tt Toughpower 750w psu for a dual core(E4300 @ 3.37GHz) and an OCZ 850w psu for a quad core(Some might say these are too big, Trust Me, They aren't in this case), mainly the reason I think an 850w psu is needed on My Quads is cause the air cooling I employ uses a built in TEC and my hdds all spin at 10,000rpm, It doesn't hurt that the Intel PCs run at or above 3.27GHz 24/7(QX6700 @ 3.27GHz). One quad core PC running at (QX6700 @)3.37GHz is using an OCZ 700w psu(Not quite big enough), But to get It booted, It has to be warm booted after clearing the cmos and then loading a profile, Then It works fine and eventually It will get an OCZ 850w psu too(Then I'll have 3). Note I've tried smaller psus and they don't work too well or for too long either, Only the OCZ 850w psu on the quad works with My setup, Other setups will not be so hungry for power, I have an AMD based 2.6GHz PC that has No TEC(XP120) and It uses only an Enermax 550w psu. So I'll stick with what I know works.

Note: I once tried the Tt 750w psu on a quad and It would boot the quad, But the PC ran sluggishly, I changed It out for an OCZ 850w psu and the sluggishness didn't reappear again, I next used the 750w psu in an e4300 dual core with no problems, I then tried using the 750w psu in another quad that I have(I own just two Quads PCs) and It wouldn't boot the quad then I put the 750w psu back in the e4300 PC and It would not boot again, Turns out the psu needed to be RMAed as an OCZ 850 psu booted the e4300 PC as setup for the 750w psu with no problems, So the 750w psu was RMAed to Thermaltake.

---

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

I just built 2 quads. Here is my build list from NewEgg:

1 GIGABYTE GA-G31MX-S2 LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $78.99
1 LOGISYS Computer PS550ABK ATX12V 550Watts Power Supply With SATA and 20/24 Pin connectors. - Retail $24.99
1 A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1A16K - Retail $68.99

Subtotal: $172.97
Shipping: $7.83
Amount Paid: $180.80

I reused a case and HD, got the CPUs from ClubIT (G0 stepping, $280 with shipping), and am using 1 stock and 1 aftermarket cooler (Freezer 7 Pro). I have Windows x64 on both (eBay), but would have put Linux on them if I didn't get a good deal on x64. I don't plan on OCing them, too much maintaining for me. If you really want low buck, TigerDirect had a barebones system for about $570.

---

Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward