# Interested in Folding. 2 questions:



## xbonez (Dec 9, 2010)

I have been intending to Fold for a while now but somehow never got around to doing it. I will start today for sure, once I get back from work. I have two questions though:

1. Can I simultaneously fold using my CPU and my GPU?

2. If I were to put together a PC dedicated to folding 24x7, what components would I concentrate at? I'm a college student (read: constantly broke), so it won't be anything high end. For such a system, I would only fold using either the CPU or the GPU. which of the two gives higher returns? I would accordingly invest more money into that. Apart from that, it'll have a cheap motherboard, possibly no case. No monitor, keyboard etc (I'll VNC into it). is RAM important?


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## Feänor (Dec 9, 2010)

Hi.

1.Yes.

2.One of the cheapest setup is a dual-core, a decent motherboard with as many as possible pci-e slot and some nvidia gt 240 or gt 430 gpu. They're the best ppd/$/watt cards for folding. The psu must be powerful enough to feed the card, so do your homework if you pick a card with pci-e connector(s). On the ram side, a cpu folding with the -smp flag require around 100meg of ram. So i'd say that 512 mb per core is enough for a dedicated rig.

The best folding part is a core i7 overclocked to around 4 ghz. It produce around 28000 ppd for a 200-300w of power consumption. But it's the most expensive setup also. A bonus is 3 pci-e slot on any 1366 motherboard. If you can't afford the setup, the next option is many gpu.

Fold on!


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## mstenholm (Dec 9, 2010)

Welcome xbonez

You can fold on your GPU or your CPU or both at the same time. You have a very nice GPU for folding (GTX 470 for the lazy ones that don't look in SS). GPU folding and gaming at the same time or OC GPU folding and watching Youtube is not recommended. Other then that there are no limitations.

A good dedicated folding system spans from

GTX460 768 GB card*s* in any rig (20-22 kPPD) to
4 CPU systems folding on the CPUs (>160 kPPD)

The later is a more enegy efficient but will not the on a college student budget.

In the middle we have a 30-33 kPPD 1156 (1155) i870 (4 core/8 treads) systems doing the large work unit (WU)

Have fun with your new addiction


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## xbonez (Dec 9, 2010)

Thanks for the replies guys. How about this setup:

AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache 
A socket AM3 motherboard
2GB RAM
GTX 460

New, this would add up to about 250. Used, I could get cheaper. Eventually, I could add another 460, or get my main system another card, and push my 470 to this system.

EDIT
Actually, I could get an Athlon II x3, and try my luck unlocking the fourth core.


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## Josh154 (Dec 9, 2010)

xbonez said:


> Thanks for the replies guys. How about this setup:
> 
> AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache
> A socket AM3 motherboard
> ...



That would be a perfect rig for folding! X3 and trying to unlock to quad wouldn't be a bad choice either


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## brandonwh64 (Dec 9, 2010)

If your getting a Athlon II, i would just get the Phenom II 555BE


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## TeXBill (Dec 9, 2010)

TPU's F@H Team - Page 454
go to this thread and ask questions there. Most of us on that thread fold 24/7 and will know a lot better on the equipment to use.


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