# Dedicated budget cruncher



## Radical_Edward (Jul 2, 2010)

So, I got tried of seeing spare parts sitting around and decided I wanted a full time cruncher. 

Parts list...

MSI PT880 Neo V2.0 (Socket 478)

Geil DDR 2x1 GB 400Mhz (Provided by FIH the Don)

FX5200 AGP (Provided by FIH the Don)

Currently has a Celeron 2.0Ghz Socket 478. (Soon to be replaced by a 3.0Ghz P4 with Hyper Threading.)

Zalman 9500A CPU cooler. 

40GB Hitachi Deskstar HDD. 

To be purchased list...

Rosewill FB-01 case

Cooler Master Elite 460W PSU

Rosewill KVM switch.

Photos to be added after I take them...


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## twilyth (Jul 2, 2010)

You should take a look at this chart.  It gives you ppd in Boinc and WCG by CPU type and speed.

Even that P4 will produce less than 200 Boinc ppd.  I don't know how much electricity it uses especially if you oc it, but I think those chips use a fair amount of juice.

It's great that you're thinking of new ways to contribute, but sometimes the cost out weighs the benefit.

Just some food for thought.


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## Radical_Edward (Jul 2, 2010)

I don't pay for my power bill, so I don't care.  

One of many photos to come.


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## Rakesh95 (Jul 2, 2010)

Radical_Edward said:


> I don't pay for my power bill, so I don't care.



Go for it then!!
haha, good on you!


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## (FIH) The Don (Jul 2, 2010)

you have a good base imo

its a start and it will evolve i hope 

you have a psu, harddrive, dvd case etc, so next time you only have to upgrade the mb, cpu and memory if you want to

i mean, you can find a used 775 board for cheaps or similar along the road, and then save up for a cpu for it

so go hard bro. looking forward to the result no matter how many ppd's it spits out


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 2, 2010)

I've been wanting to do the same thing since all I need is a CPU, mobo, and some memory to go with my spare parts in the closet. From the list that Twilyth linked to earlier, I wonder which of those <$75 chips gives the best bang for the buck, too bad it doesn't have current prices on there. Anyways good job on the build Ed, goes to show that you don't have to be a big spender to help out the cause.


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## CJCerny (Jul 2, 2010)

Rakesh95 said:


> Go for it then!!
> haha, good on you!



We all pay for your power bill. That's a bit shortsighted. Do the math for us and be kind to the Earth.


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## (FIH) The Don (Jul 2, 2010)

CJCerny said:


> We all pay for your power bill. That's a bit shortsighted. Do the math for us and be kind to the Earth.



geez go plant a tree or something  
and nuff with the OT,


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## Radical_Edward (Jul 2, 2010)

CJCerny, take that hippie crap and get outta my thread. 

In all seriousness, this planet is screwed as is. My little P4 crunching isn't going to do nearly as much damage as say BP oil has done. Let alone the rest of the damn human race.


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## Rakesh95 (Jul 3, 2010)

Radical_Edward said:


> CJCerny, take that hippie crap and get outta my thread.
> 
> In all seriousness, this planet is screwed as is. My little P4 crunching isn't going to do nearly as much damage as say BP oil has done. Let alone the rest of the damn human race.



We are helping a worthy cause as well, we should keep that in mind. I should just hook up a 800w Solar panel to power my computer and all is well haha.

I just run WCG when my computers on, when i play racing games or most games for that matter , they hardly stress my computer so i dont notice any lag, i play LFS btw. Also gigabyte motherboards have DES or DES2, that halfs my idle power usage on the CPU and reduces my full load by at least 10 watts sometimes.


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## Geofrancis (Jul 11, 2010)

If I was goin to make a budget cruncher I would go with a couple of nvidea graphics cards. Even the cheapest 8400gs would probibly score higher than a p4 hyperthreading or not.

Best 2 folding cards for the money are the 9600gso and the gts240 both will have the folding power of about a dozen p4s


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## theonedub (Jul 11, 2010)

Geofrancis said:


> If I was goin to make a budget cruncher I would go with a couple of nvidea graphics cards. Even the cheapest 8400gs would probibly score higher than a p4 hyperthreading or not.
> 
> Best 2 folding cards for the money are the 9600gso and the gts240 both will have the folding power of about a dozen p4s



I think RadEd does WCG Crunching, not Folding. If it were folding I would agree with you, but for WCG Projects that do not support GPUs (not to be confused with other BOINC projects that have GPU support) the P4 wins.


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## Radical_Edward (Jul 11, 2010)

I don't fold. Plus I'm not looking to spend too much cash on this at the moment. If I was this would have at least a X2/C2D in it and some completely different components.


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## Chicken Patty (Jul 11, 2010)

subbed.


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## Geofrancis (Jul 12, 2010)

if you are making a dedicated cruncher then i would look into a stripped down version of xp with as many system processes disabled as you can get away with to reduce overhead on the computer since you are running a relitivly slow cpu every bit will help


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