Maximum PC

Hey there everyone, I have been away for quite some time, but never stopped folding. Good to be back.

I am doing some research to build a dedicated folder - the best PPD per watt for the lowest price. Want to lend me a hand?

In the future, I would love to find time to set up a blog with a database built into it - a blog that tracks not just what card can do what PPD, but an index of PPD per watt per dollar. There could be some real sweet price points out there that could get people aggressive folding rigs and/or upgrades without breaking the bank!

I will update this post with my findings along with info you all help me find in order to keep it useful. Thanks for reading!

K_J_V 157k PPD / 490W draw = 320PPD/W; 157k PPD / $1,520.00 = 103PPD/USD($)
Nathan_P 171k PPD / 248W draw = 689 PPD/W; 171k PPD / ~$1,895 = 90.24PPD/USD($)

Hello DaVermenator , I have just built my first dedicated folder, a 4P 6128 G34 setup.

The total cost was around $1520.00 but I think you could do it for about $150.00 less. At stock speeds and a 8101 WU which is what it mostly gets, the PPD is 157k. Since it will run none stop I gave it a platinum rated 860W power supply and it draws 490W. In comparison my 3930K with a 560 Ti at stock speeds gives roughly 52k PPD and uses 415W to run. I will give you more details if interested.

Man, the more I dug into this the more I realized how much I have missed! Looks like the real sweet spot (which you nailed) are 4p AMD Opteron rigs. I am looking at making one myself to put in my closet as a dedicated folder and then only turning on my i7-920 desktop for what I originally built it for - gaming.

Here are some resources I found:
PPD/watt measurements from the [H]orde: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1533433
Database of Folding Machines and their performance: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... DcHc#gid=0
Guides for 2P/4P/GPU folders to optimize your kit: http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=133

Lastly, a link to Sales/Trades thread that may prove useful for getting online on a budget: http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=111

I think hunting the PPD/Watt is going to be priority one, then following up with cost to get online.

Research on Opteron Mangy Cours Procs (61xx series...62xx series historically are avoided due to higher power draw and lack of overclock-ability)
6128 - $100 - 2.0 stock GHz - 8 core - 80W - 257 oc bclk - 187K PPD Stock - 245k

6168 - $299 - 1.9 stick GHz - 12 core - 80W - 230 oc blck - - 420k PPD Stock

6172 - $250 - 2.1 stock GHz - 12 core - 80W - 240 oc blck - 55deg - 475k PPD Stock - - 595W
Note: Found a 8-pack of these on "the bay" for $218 a chip...if more than one person does a 4p build at the same time, purchasing power could save us all $$$

6174 - $315 - 2.2 stock GHz - 12 core - 80W - 230 oc bclk - 60deg - 510k PPD Stock - 580k

6176SE - $289 - 2.3 stock GHz - 12 core - 105W - 231 oc bclk - 50deg - 550k PPD Stock - 680k - 665W

...just a little "light reading" in some other forums to get some best-case scenarios.

if you're going on PPD/Watt, look into the HE chips (6166 HE or 6366 HE, for example). I plan on running these in my eventual 4P build. Some folks in the [H]orde and Overclockers have used them and come up with great PPD/Watt numbers, even better than 617x numbers. They have an 85 W TDP compared with the 6172s 115 W TDP. 6166HE chips can be had for as low as $275, but generally more near $335-450.

Not to complicate things much... but true PPD per Dollar costs should include the cost of electricity into the calculation...

I.e. if you built a machine for $1500 that pulls 500 Watts & averages 250,000 ppd, and I built a machine for $1500 that pulls 550 Watts & averages 250,000 ppd, which has the better dollar to PPD ratio??? My machine would be pulling an extra 438 KWh per year if both machines were running 24/7/365 with no down-time. Even at 8 cents per KWh (I'm paying almost 13 cents), that's an extra $35 a year.

For a pure folding rig (100% folding 100% of the time)a -bigadv rig is the ONLY way to go, the PPD/$ & PPD/W cannot be beat. For a daily use rig, a -bigadv machine is NOT the way to go, as any non folding usage can have a significant impact on PPD output.

Based on my limited research I would venture to guess that a 2P Xeon system would actually have a better PPD per Watt output, but worse PPD per $ due to the higher cost of decent parts. While a 4P Xeon, especially the new 10-core / 20-thread Xeon's would bitch-slap the best Opteron 4P setup sensless in PPD per Watt (potentially 2.5 to 3x the PPD at slightly higher wattage) though 4 such Xeon processors would start at about $13,500, that's just processors, nothing else...

Based on current calculations, another way to go may be a GTX 690. Based upon current numbers, you could expect a minimum of around 260 ppd/watt, but that doesn't count the impending QRB. With that you could possibly see in the realm of 850+ ppd/watt (assuming 130k ppd per card). People were seeing in the neighborhood of 144k ppd on 680s on QRB beta units, so that is what I base that on. Keep in mind that this is merely and truly speculation on ppd w/QRB. The a actual returns could vary greatly, but even with the current numbers, 260 ppd, that is not a bad number at all, though for a higher sum of $$, you could do better.

Exactly, gents...I will need to do some spec-ing to get realistic estimates of the cost of a rig like that, then I can post where the best bang-for-the buck lies.

On a related note, do you think that now it makes sense to put a card like a GTX690 on board a dedicated folder? Would it really amp up the PPD of that machine, or just sap crucial CPU cycles?

It would sap a few CPU cycles, but the difference would be worth it. The relatively small loss of ppd on the CPU would be far more than made up by the GPU.

On a related note, I've been messing with my machine and changed it to smp6 vs smp8 with two GPUs and now my ppd is actually higher than before! Only by around 2-4k, but its amazing seeing the gain with the change. The gain is all on CPU too.

Just to throw something else into the mix.

2p E5-2665, 171k PPD and 248w from the wall = 689 PPW, cost £1200 so 142.5PPD/GBP (£)

I updated the top post with your info, Nathan...that is very impressive. Maybe it is not as clean-cut of an AMD run away as I thought!

A guy on [H]ard Forum is selling 4 6128

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039108090

$400 for folders, shipped
$450 for non folders

He said he pulls 315k PPD with them running at 2.33

Lax

That thread is from September 2012. Looks like he took them off the market, but maybe a PM would change his mind. If you had the other hardware to go with it, it seems like a good price for a ticket to BigAdv land.

I like his pricing structure, too.

you can get the same price or better on those CPUs on feebay. they currently go for right around $100 each, so if you do four, you could possibly get the seller to go lower, like maybe $95 -90 each.

I saw the sales thread on [H] also, some good deals if the hardware is still available. Also on feebay, there was a seller with 4x 6166HE CPUs for something like $1100 or so. Great deal if you can swing it all at once! beats paying ~$1600+ for four.

Sorry about not noticing the date of the thread if I got anyone's hopes up I had never heard of those procs and googled them and that led me to that post...

They do sound like some serious folders though. Someone on that same forum documented their build process of putting together a 4 proc system using those same cpus. It was a MASSIVE build with MASSIVE external radiators and what-not. Any machine that can pull 370,000 PPD is certainly kicking ass!

I've got to get a better job so I can afford some of those toys LOL

Lax

It looks like ChelseaOilman is once again folding with our team. http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... =&u=313730
Maybe he could offer some insight to the world of 4P machines.

This is all you need:

And it's for sale!

And how much would that system run the average joe?

I'm looking to get $1,600 for the SM Gi motherboard and 4 x MC ES cpus. I run them at 3GHz.

Is that the rig that is producing your current output? 'Cause, wow, just....wow!

There are at least two bigadv rigs at work, if not up to four, for ChelseaOilman.