Flying Fox wrote:For now though, I think the bonus and the -bigadv only apply to 7/8 threads/cores that you can assign on your CPUs so this pretty much just applies to the i7 users? I know the bonus scheme is supposed to be coming for the rest of the WUs in an upcoming client but not yet. Can you confirm? If yes, then for now those who are still using 2-4 core CPUs should still be better off running Linux VMs if they can spring it.
The bonus system was beta tested on the -bigadv units. Now all the A3 units qualify for bonus points (after you do you 10 prequalifying units and have an 80%+ return ratio). I'm running the non-BIGADV and getting the bonus points. Actually, I'm not going to bother with the BIGADV units as there is a huge risk of zero points if you kakk one, you will have wasted 3 days of folding. It's safer IMO to churn through multiple smaller units. Plus all your bonus points are gone on a BIGADV if there is a processing, upload or collection server failure. It's just less risky running the regular A3 units, and you still get great bonuses. Plus you don't need 6GB RAM to run the regular A3 units.
The base line processor is a Q6600 so, you've got to run something faster if you want to qualify for early completion bonus. Here are some sample stats on WinSMP.
Q9450 3.4Ghz: 8-9000PPD on WINSMP.
Q9550 3.5Ghz: 8-9000PPD on WINSMP
Q6600 2.7: Currently down but I'm guessing 5000PPD
i7 920 3.8Ghz: 25-35,000PPD depending on WU
I currently don't see a reason to run Linux, we'll see. You can always turn it back on if you need to. Plus Win A3 uses hardly any RAM rather than requiring 600Mb for a VM.
- JP