What is the best budget-friendly computer for folding?

[wolram]

If i build a computer purly for folding, what are my best options.
I do not want to spend a fortune, but i want a system that will make
a reasonable contribution.

 

[Townsend]

If i build a computer purly for folding, what are my best options.
I do not want to spend a fortune, but i want a system that will make
a reasonable contribution.

I would say to look at some good online stores like newegg and of course www.pricewatch.com is your friend. Of course ebay will sometimes have good deals. As far as folding goes, the Athlon 64 is king but keep in mind if you want to do stuff while you are folding you might consider a Pentium 4 with hyperthreading as it will likely run much smoother for you. Of course if you have the cash a dual core Athlon 64 would really do well in folding.
(by the way I am assuming you plan on building your own system)

Good luck,

Jeremy

 

[wolram]

I would say to look at some good online stores like newegg and of course www.pricewatch.com is your friend. Of course ebay will sometimes have good deals. As far as folding goes, the Athlon 64 is king but keep in mind if you want to do stuff while you are folding you might consider a Pentium 4 with hyperthreading as it will likely run much smoother for you. Of course if you have the cash a dual core Athlon 64 would really do well in folding.
(by the way I am assuming you plan on building your own system)

Good luck,

Jeremy

Yes i intend to build my second computer, with folding in mind.
What would be a good motherboard to fit the Athlon 64?

 

[Townsend]

Yes i intend to build my second computer, with folding in mind.
What would be a good motherboard to fit the Athlon 64?

It depends on what you want...

A good place to look for information is www.hardocp.com

Check the reviews they do..read through them and see which mobo suits your price/performance needs.

 

[dduardo]

What do you mean by folding? I don't think you can fold a cpu in half.

 

[Pengwuino]

If i build a computer purly for folding, what are my best options.
I do not want to spend a fortune, but i want a system that will make
a reasonable contribution.

Best of the best right now is the Pentium D dual core processor if you want to fold. Buy at newegg, nothing beats it, one stop shopping pleasure :D. The best motherboard... well, look on newegg. Find out what socket the processor you purchase is and then search for motherboards based on that socket and just sort by rating to find the most highly rated one.

 

[Townsend]

What do you mean by folding? I don't think you can fold a cpu in half.

It is a distributed computing project where you can contribute you free cpu cycles to help scientist do things like find a cure for cancer. It is becoming a sort of status symbol for people on online who have completed a lot of units. I never bothered because it always seemed to cause problems with my other programs.

http://folding.stanford.edu/

for more info...

 

[Townsend]

Best of the best right now is the Pentium D dual core processor if you want to fold. Buy at newegg, nothing beats it, one stop shopping pleasure :D. The best motherboard... well, look on newegg. Find out what socket the processor you purchase is and then search for motherboards based on that socket and just sort by rating to find the most highly rated one.

Are you sure? How does it compare to the dual core Athlon 64 systems? Most processor benchmarks put Athlon 64 processors in the lead. The exception is of course things like video encoding where the net burst really works in your favor. I have never really seen a benchmark comparing folding performance but it would be interesting to see. Know of any?

 

[Pengwuino]

Are you sure? How does it compare to the dual core Athlon 64 systems? Most processor benchmarks put Athlon 64 processors in the lead. The exception is of course things like video encoding where the net burst really works in your favor. I have never really seen a benchmark comparing folding performance but it would be interesting to see. Know of any?

AMD's have traditionally been geared towards gaming and the like. Intel processors have been geared toward office-type applications and computational programs. No program really exists to compare processors in Folding@home but I can personally say that my P4 3.0ghz runs laps around my 1.3ghz AMD and other people's Athlon64's 3000's when we compare folding points on another forum i go to.