Part-time Crunchers

[Kryja]

I got thinking while staring out the window at work waiting for some reports to run.

How would be the best way to upgrade my dad's part-time machine? He's got an am3 compatible board so the choice should be simple enough - swap his athlon x2 for a phenom. A quick look on the net and a hexa can be had for around £150.00. But then I thought hang on a minute, for that I could get a black edition x2 and either a high end air cooler or one of those all in one water kits for about the same price.

It then got me thinking; what's more important for a part time machine, more cores or faster clocks?

I thought that faster clocks would be more beneficial for a machine that’s not 24/7 as it would mean wu's are completed quicker. No point having six on the go if they won't finish in time.

Bearing in mind this is purely hypothetical - I don't have the money either way

[slaveondope]

2 cores at 4ghz will out put the same points per run time as 4 cores at 2ghz.
So 6 cores at say 3.5ghz will net the same as 2 cores at 10.5ghz

AMD's are 1 wcg point per mhz per core.
4ghz 2 core=8000ppd / 333.3 points/hour
3.5ghz 6 core=21000ppd / 875 points/hour

[ggdh]

OK, but it's a case of part-time cruncher. I would go for X2 BE with hopes to unblock two additional cores (will the MB support that?). It will nicely OC and you will have a decent quad for a price of x2.

[artemm]

more cores > more threads > slightly higher clocks (pushing OC limits)

Overclocking and fast clocked chips are great, but the returns are not linear. With more cores, I'm pretty sure the returns are linear.

I built a comp for my family and got lucky with an X2 that unlocked to an X4, but I went that route because it was really cheap and the machine runs part-time (like yours.) If you have a decent budget, you should definitely get a chip with as many cores as you can comfortably afford. Then again, it's a part-time machine, so you may want to save your cash for a hex monster for 24/7 use

[Kryja]

Interesting, thanks guys. I did think to peruse Vapors ppd thread but pictures don't show at work = /

I think my way of thinking was, faster fewer cores = few wu's completed quickly and many "slower" cores = lots of wu's completed slowly.

Safe to say then that you should buy as many cores as you can afford as you can always overclock at a later date, right?

...you may want to save your cash for a hex monster for 24/7 use

Yeah a 980x
Some point next year hopefully

The thought did cross my mind, "it's part-time - what's the point in upgrading it?" I might keep an eye out for one on the cheap once bulldozer arrives.

[Snow Crash]

Even a "slow" CPU by today's standards running part time will finish the WUs long before the 10 day deadline. Any half decent CPU won't likely take more than 6 hours of CPU time to complete so even if it is only on for a couple of hours a day it would be done in 3 days. That is just slightly over the average turn around time on WCG anyway. Now as for fiscal responsibility, I would rather put money into a machine that is runing 24/7 but in the end we can only do what we can do and only you know what is right for you and if you can convince your dad how cool WCG is

[Kryja]

Believe me I've tried. He's not very technically minded and just gets grumpy with things he doesn't understand

Don't worry my next machine will be 24/7

Again this thread was just curious thoughts while at work, though I'm glad I asked as now if I do upgrade I'll make the right decision.

[Kingcarcas]

Same thing i did with the family PC, X4 620.

[Biker]

My 1055T pumps out roughly 25k WCG per day so that would get my vote...