bang-for-the-buck quadcore crunchers

[Max Dettweiler]

Hi all,

About a week or two ago I put together the parts lists for some quad-core crunchers that a friend over at mersenneforum.org was getting. I "built" two hypothetical quad-core machines: one Intel and one AMD, both using comparable processors and motherboards (all the non-CPU-specific parts are the same), designed to provide the most crunching power for the least amount of money. My friend has now ordered, built, and set up four of the AMD machines, and is quite satisfied with them--so I figured, hey, maybe some of the folks at Free-DC would like one of these babies. So, without further ado, here's the specs, and links to the respective item pages at newegg.com:

Intel (Price: $470.44)
----------------
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz http://snipurl.com/242jd
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-73VM-S2 LGA 775 Micro ATX http://snipurl.com/242je
RAM: A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 800 http://snipurl.com/242jg
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPMSATA 3.0Gb/s http://snipurl.com/242kj
Optical drive: LG Beige 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM http://snipurl.com/242os
Case: RAIDMAX xB ATX-528B Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case http://snipurl.com/242ua
Power supply: Linkworld LPJ12-400W (PSWB-400) ATX 400W Polished Chrome Power Supply http://snipurl.com/242v9
----------------------------
AMD (Price: $400.45)
----------------
CPU: AMD Phenom 9750 2.4GHz Socket AM2+ Quad-Core Processor http://snipurl.com/242t2
Motherboard: ASRock ALiveNF6P-VSTA AM2+/AM2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard http://snipurl.com/242tf
RAM: A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 800 http://snipurl.com/242jg
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPMSATA 3.0Gb/s http://snipurl.com/242kj
Optical drive: LG Beige 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM http://snipurl.com/242os
Case: RAIDMAX xB ATX-528B Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case http://snipurl.com/242ua
Power supply: Linkworld LPJ12-400W (PSWB-400) ATX 400W Polished Chrome Power Supply http://snipurl.com/242v9

Enjoy!

Max

[IronBits]

What's wrong with using the real links? if snipurl.com is offline, links don't work...

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115040
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-73VM-S2 LGA 775 Micro ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128079

CPU: AMD Phenom 9750 2.4GHz Socket AM2+ Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103250
Motherboard: ASRock ALiveNF6P-VSTA AM2+/AM2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157125

Power supply: Linkworld LPJ12-400W (PSWB-400) ATX 400W Polished Chrome Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817165007
RAM: A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211272

Were you able to get any performance comparisons?

Dedicated crunchers don't need cases, large HDDs or Optical drives, so prices would be lower.
Nice list!

[PCZ]

Crunchers dont need Video Cards or large HD's.
Also the q6600 is the farmers choice by a country mile.

The 45nm quads are good but availability is patchy at present.

[LAURENU2]

Crunchers dont need Video Cards or large HD's.
Also the q6600 is the farmers choice by a country mile..

Ya I do Cruncher combos for
Q6600 combo 223.00
Memory 2 gig.. 49.00
HD 160 Gig......52.00
PS..450W........19.00
=================
....................343.00

[Max Dettweiler]

Crunchers dont need Video Cards or large HD's.
Also the q6600 is the farmers choice by a country mile.

The 45nm quads are good but availability is patchy at present.

I didn't include a video card in them, the motherboards have integrated video. As for the hard drives, those were the cheapest I could find--anything smaller, and all you'd still save no less than a dollar. Hard drives are cheap.

As for the Q6600 vs. Q9300--the Q9300 was available when I put together the parts lists, though it appears to be listed as "deactivated item" now. I didn't know that there were availability problems with them, until now of course. The motherboard I chose will work for a Q6600 just as well as a Q9300, though, so you could easily swap one of those in and save a bunch of moola.

[Max Dettweiler]

What's wrong with using the real links? if snipurl.com is offline, links don't work...

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115040
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-73VM-S2 LGA 775 Micro ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128079

CPU: AMD Phenom 9750 2.4GHz Socket AM2+ Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103250
Motherboard: ASRock ALiveNF6P-VSTA AM2+/AM2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157125

Power supply: Linkworld LPJ12-400W (PSWB-400) ATX 400W Polished Chrome Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817165007
RAM: A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211272

Were you able to get any performance comparisons?

Dedicated crunchers don't need cases, large HDDs or Optical drives, so prices would be lower.
Nice list!

When I originally put together the list, the original links were a bit long and unwieldy in the forum PM that I sent the information to my friend in ([code] tags at mersenneforum.org display a little differently than here, so thus long links don't work so well in them). I just copied and pasted the info from the original PM in my sent folder.

As for performance comparisons, my friend just got the machines set up before he went on vacation, so he didn't really get a chance to see how they performed. I'll have to ask him about it when he gets back.

As for cases, large hard drives, and optical drives: well, you see, my friend isn't exactly ready for caseless machines just yet, in fact he isn't that terribly computer-geeky, and had a friend build the machines. As for the hard drives, those were just about the cheapest I could find--anything smaller was only pennies cheaper. And the optical drives are necessary to install the OS (that's why I just picked a bare-minimum DVD-ROM drive--you want to make sure it's DVD-ROM and not just CD-ROM since some OS discs are now DVDs), since a netboot thing is a little beyond what my friend was looking for.

[jasong]

Since summer´s coming and Intel quad-cores run a little hot, would anyone be interested in exchanging a Phenom with a board with my Q6600 and board?

I have to say that, last I checked, I was having throttling problems. Even after all the dust was blown out the problems only improved a little. Might be that I need a better heatsink, might be that I screwed up some settings and the temperature limits are too low, might be anything.

I´m waiting to see if there are any takers at all before I bother to give more information. Also, don´t expect a response in this thread for the next 15 hours or so, unless you post immediately.

Sorry if people think I´m posting off-topic, I just figured that people that would want a new cruncher would most likely come into this thread anyway.

[Helix_Von_Smelix]

Since summer´s coming and Intel quad-cores run a little hot, would anyone be interested in exchanging a Phenom with a board with my Q6600 and board?

I have to say that, last I checked, I was having throttling problems. Even after all the dust was blown out the problems only improved a little. Might be that I need a better heatsink, might be that I screwed up some settings and the temperature limits are too low, might be anything.

I´m waiting to see if there are any takers at all before I bother to give more information. Also, don´t expect a response in this thread for the next 15 hours or so, unless you post immediately.

Sorry if people think I´m posting off-topic, I just figured that people that would want a new cruncher would most likely come into this thread anyway.

why don't you put it back to standard settings for the summer?

Reset the BIOS and away you go

[jasong]

why don't you put it back to standard settings for the summer?

Reset the BIOS and away you go

Is that possible? I´ll look into it.

Edit coming in about 10-15 minutes.

Edit: I restarted it after resetting it. The way I knew it was overheating before was that I had a virtual console and overheating messages were being posted there by the computer. So, I´ll start up a console right before I go to bed and see what happens. (probably an easier way, but I´m still newbish)

[fractal]

Try http://www.svc.com/acfzp7.html . 25 bucks (plus tax, shipping and the like). That's what I run on my 3ghz q6600's. I found the retail HSF couldn't handle much above 2.66.

[PCZ]

Jasong
Spend a few dollars on a freezer 7 pro.
Stock heatsink is carp
All my quads have them and they run DC 24/7.

IMHO
Swapping a q6600 for a phenom would be a mistake.
The q6600 is faster and the Intel chipsets are much better.


BTW
Is your q6600 a G0 or B3 ?
It makes a big difference the B3 runs much hotter and doesn't overclock well at all.
Run GPUz if your not sure.