I thought of creating a thread that we can keep updating. It will serve as a reference for people building a new cruncher, and for people looking for a fix to their hobby. The goal here is to create the best possible cruncher within an acceptable budget. Only seti@home to be taken into consideration, and the machine wouldn't be meant for other uses.

Here are some criteria to consider:
- price: to be kept at minimum, i.e. no optical drives, over-dimensioned power supplies or hard drives, no monitors, ...
- power usage: taking into consideration unnecessary power consumption when choosing hardware, comparing to provided computing power. Also power sources, i.e. electricity, solar, wind, ...
- cooling: liquid cooling, air cooling, noise, ...
- footprint: micro/mini/full ATX, rack mounted servers, ...
- scalability: possibility for future upgrades, replicating the setup to have two or more machines, multiple machines running as cluster, ...

The above is just to get the idea started, It will be updated based on the comments and suggestions.

If you're suggesting a complete build, try to use this form as a template and modify/add/remove as you see fit:
Motherboard:
Case:
CPU:
GPU:
RAM:
PSU:
HDD:
UPS:

Quality is always a concern, as it affects durability.

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Something that might be good to include would be price range categories.
Perhaps separated by 500 increments.
$/£/€ 499.99 & under
$/£/€ 999.99 - 500.00
$/£/€ 1499.99 - 1000.00
$/£/€ 1999.99 - 1500.00
$/£/€ 2499.99 - 2000.00
$/£/€ 2999.99 - 2500.00
Then larger values as the amount increases
$/£/€ 3999.99 - 3000.00
$/£/€ 4999.99 - 4000.00
$/£/€ 5999.99 - 5000.00
$/£/€ 14999.99 - 10000.00
$/£/€ 19999.99 - 15000.00
$/£/€ 24999.99 - 20000.00

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

That's a good idea, we can have different builds depending on the budget. Which is known to work better for SETI, Nvidia or AMD? taking into consideration price, heat and power consumption?

After some quick research, the 750Ti seems to be a preferable card. It's less than $200, requires 60W. I am still looking into motherboards, there are some out there that can support up to 6 but quality depends on your lock. is there any limitations in BOINC for having 6 GPU's? Will 1 cpu be able to handle 6 750Ti's?

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The GTX750Ti is a dual slot wide card, right?
Then the max is 4 cards/mobo.
Or low profile cards are available?

Instead of two GTX750Ti one e.g. GTX780 / maybe ~ same RAC output.

AFAIK, BOINC can manage up to 8 GPU chips (4x dual, or 8 separate cards).

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Instead of two GTX750Ti one e.g. GTX780 / maybe ~ same RAC output.

GTX 750Ti, 60W
GTX 780, 250W
GTX 970, 145W

4 GTX 750Tis for less power than one GTX 780. Or a couple of GTX 970s for slightly more power than one GTX 780.

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Grant
Darwin NT

I just went to http://www.alternate.at and tried to build a cruncher for ~€1000. My goals were good performance, low power consumption, low noise.


Motherboard: MSI H87-G41 PC Mate (€69.9)
Case: Cooler Master CM690II Advanced (€79.9)
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4770T (€264)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (€29.99)
GPU: 2x MSI GTX750 Ti OC Twin Frozr (€289,8)
RAM: Corsair DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1333 Kit (2x4GB) (€79.9)
PSU: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER 10 400W (€69.9)
HDD: ADATA Premier Pro SP900 2,5" SSD 128 GB (€59.9)
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (€79.9)

Total: €1023.19

Max. power consumption should be <200 watts.

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... Will 1 cpu be able to handle 6 750Ti's?

My 4770K (ID: 7265951) has 4 GTX750Ti cards running 2 MB each, and runs all of them with one CPU with about 2% to spare. I doubt that a single CPU could run 6 of them and keep them busy.

The GTX750Ti is a dual slot wide card, right?
Then the max is 4 cards/mobo.
Or low profile cards are available?

Instead of two GTX750Ti one e.g. GTX780 / maybe ~ same RAC output.

AFAIK, BOINC can manage up to 8 GPU chips (4x dual, or 8 separate cards).

You could use 14/20 slot chassis or use PCIe extensions to have the cards further apart. The main issue would be having enough PCIe lanes for all the cards. So a multi-socket MB would be a good start.
I think BOINC has always supported more than 8 GPUs. However scheduler wouldn't believe the client if it reported more 8. It would only give it # of tasks for 8 GPUs. I seem to recall that this limit was increased to a higher value. I want to say 40, but that may not be correct.

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

I just went to http://www.alternate.at and tried to build a cruncher for ~€1000. My goals were good performance, low power consumption, low noise.


Motherboard: MSI H87-G41 PC Mate (€69.9)
Case: Cooler Master CM690II Advanced (€79.9)
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4770T (€264)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (€29.99)
GPU: 2x MSI GTX750 Ti OC Twin Frozr (€289,8)
RAM: Corsair DIMM 8 GB DDR3-1333 Kit (2x4GB) (€79.9)
PSU: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER 10 400W (€69.9)
HDD: ADATA Premier Pro SP900 2,5" SSD 128 GB (€59.9)
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (€79.9)

Total: €1023.19

Max. power consumption should be <200 watts.

You forgot the UPS.

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Personally I'd go with a slightly bigger single 12v rail PSU myself (low wattage multi-rail PSU's are usually not worth the headaches associated with them). ;-)

I'd also go with a HDD to run SETI from and have my documents stored on.

Cheers.

I used the list price for this build. The instant savings and rebates are not included in this build. The extra savings vary constantly so build costs will vary. I used http://tigerdirect.com for this build.

Motherboard • $79.99 Asus A55BM-E Motherboard AMD Socket FM2+, AMD A55 FCH, MicroATX
Case • $54.99 Thermaltake VM30001W2Z V4 Black Edition Mid Tower Gaming Case - ATX/MicroATX, USB, Audio, Blue LED fan
Cpu • $129.99 AMD A8-Series AD560KWOHJBOX Quad-Core A8-5600K Black Edition APU - 4MB L2 Cache, 3.6GHz, Socket FM2, Radeon HD 7560D (256 Cores), Dual Graphics Ready, DirectX 11, Fan
GPU • onboard
Memory • $59.99 ADATA XPG V1 4GB Desktop Memory Module - DDR3 1600, PC3-12800, Blue - AX3U1600C4G11-SD
PSU • $59.99 Thermaltake TR-500 TR2 ATX Power Supply - 500W, 120mm Fan, Active PFC
HDD • $69.99 Seagate Barracuda 500GB Internal Hard Drive - 3.5in, SATA-6Gb/s, 7200RPM, 16MB - ST500DM002
Optical drive • $24.99 Asus DRW-24B1ST 24X Internal DVD Burner
OS • $119.99 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32BIT Operating System Software - OEM DVD, English

This is what I use for protection. You may use other units as you wish.
UPS • $199.99 APC BX1300G Back-UPS XS Battery Backup - 10-Outlet, 1300 VA, 780 Watt, 120 V, 355 Joules, USB, LED Indicators

Optional equipment:
Keyboard, mouse combo • $19.99 Logitech 920-002565 MK120 Keyboard and Mouse Combo - USB, Optical Mouse, 1000 DPI, Spill Resistant Design, Black
Monitor • You are on your own.

Basic CPU build cost Total: $599.92 usd / 472.77 euro / 369.08 gbp
USD/EURO/GBP for the period ending Sep 28, 2014 22:00 UTC @ +/- 0%
You can use a different UPS if you want. Purchase the best you can. It will give you extra time to shut down your system in a power failure.

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May i give you two sugestions?

First the 750Ti is a clear winner on SETI and uses very few power to do it magic, they should be your first choice, but if you could spend a little more go for a single 970 soon with the newer apps their true potential will be unleashed.

Second, spend a little more on a few watts more PSU who could drive 2 GPus with a safe margin if you intend to run your host 24/7. There are some good PSU in the range of 600W, be sure to buy a single rail GPU as posted by Wiggo.

My 2 cents.

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I was focusing on efficient and low noise for this configuration. Here is what I came up with & a selection of alternative parts that for a slightly higher cost would be used to add more performance.

Mobo:		$77.99	GIGABYTE GA-H97M-HD3
Case:		$39.99	NZXT Source 210
CPU:		$139.99	i3-4350
Cooler:		$19.98	NZXT Respire T20
GPU 1:		$148.99	EVGA 750Ti Superclock 2GB 02G-P4-3753-KR (running MB)
GPU 2:		$104.99	SAPPHIRE R7 260X 2GB 100366-2L (running AP)
RAM:		$49.99	G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC3 12800 v1.35 F3-12800CL9D-4GBECOF3-12800CL9D-8GBXM 
PSU:		$79.99	Rosewill CAPSTONE-550-M 550W, modular, single rail, 80Plus Gold
HDD:		$38.00	Western Digital Blue 500GB, 2.5" WD5000LPVX

Total:		$699.91

Alt CPU:	$189.99	i5-4460
Alt Cooler:	$72.95	NZXT Kraken X31
Alt RAM:	$82.99	G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2x4GB) PC3 12800 v1.35 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXM
Alt PSU:	$109.99	Rosewill TACHYON-650 650W, modular, single rail, 80Plus Platinum
Alt HDD:	$64.99	SanDisk 128GB SSD, 2.5" SDSSDHP-128G-G25

Total w/ alt:	$892.87

UPS:		$99.99	APC BR1000G 1000va 600w
Alt UPS:	$139.06	APC BR1300G 1300va 780w

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

okay this is expensive but this is something that I would actually consider building for myself:

$129.99 Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Single Unit Version Internal Solid State Drive MZ-7TE250BW
$449.99 Corsair AX1500i 1500 Watts ATX 12V/EPS 12V Power Supply with Titanium Efficiency CP-9020057-NA
$85.29 Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1866MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - Black (HX318C10FB/8)
$163.99 GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
$99.99 AMD FD6300WMHKBOX FX-6300 6-Core Processor Black Edition
$1,012.36 Sapphire Radeon R9 295X2 8GB GDDR5 DVI-D Quad Mini DP PCI-Express Graphics Card 21234-00-40G
$229.00 Silverstone Extended-ATX Tek Aluminum Full Tower Computer Case, Black FT04B-W by Silverstone Tek
$2,170.61

I would give the stock cooler a chance since I'm not currently doing any CPU work
I left out the UPS on purpose as that in particular is not very important to me

Hey guys or girls. Just a thought. How are you going to install drivers and software to your hdd or sdd❓❓❓

I know from personal experience that bits and bytes do not magically transfer from that round bit of shiny plastic. You do need a(n) optical drive of some kind. And a big stumbling block. What operating system are you going to use?

Look at building a new computer from scratch. If it is not on your parts list you do not have it.

Thank you for your dedication on this thread.

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I usually build stuff at the office and there's an external portable USB optical drive if I need it. I'd install Windows 8.1 but without the installation key so there's a watermark that I just ignore. If you really want to be detailed you would also need to include a monitor, keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, surge protector, etc. For some there will always be too much information and for others there will never be enough. Not my intention to mislead anyone.

Hey guys or girls. Just a thought. How are you going to install drivers and software to your hdd or sdd❓❓❓

I know from personal experience that bits and bytes do not magically transfer from that round bit of shiny plastic. You do need a(n) optical drive of some kind. And a big stumbling block. What operating system are you going to use?

Look at building a new computer from scratch. If it is not on your parts list you do not have it.

Thank you for your dedication on this thread.

I have been building most of my home systems without an optical drive for more than 10 years now. In the old days I would just slave a 2nd HDD with the OS and drivers to get the system up. Then do the rest over the network.
The days of booting from USB devices has made things much easier. I keep an old USB flash drive with Windows PE on it. Boot from it and then install Windows 7 over the network. Sometimes PE will not have a network driver. Then I will have to resort to either using a larger flash drive that can store the OS installation or just use a USB HDD.
If you really want to use an ODD you can get a USB one or spend the $20 to put one in the machine.

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

I usually build stuff at the office and there's an external portable USB optical drive if I need it. I'd install Windows 8.1 but without the installation key so there's a watermark that I just ignore. If you really want to be detailed you would also need to include a monitor, keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, surge protector, etc. For some there will always be too much information and for others there will never be enough. Not my intention to mislead anyone.

It is nice to have the extra equipment and software. Not everybody knows what all you need to get a complete working computer.

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i forgot the screwdriver

NOW you blew the budget.