Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, farmpuma, just brew it!

 
Khali
Gerbil XP
Topic Author
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2012 5:31 pm

Folding system suggestions

Sat Nov 16, 2013 4:08 pm

I posted this over on the F@H forums and thought I would get the TR teams take on the subject.

I have been folding for over three months now on a gaming system I built back in January 2013. In several discussion with family and friends it came to light that most of them are running older PC's and are due for a upgrade. Since I got them curious about folding they are all asking what kind of system they should get. There have been a lot of new hardware rolled out since I built my system in January so I figured I would ask here on what hardware to be looking at for new builds.

I am looking at three different types of systems to offer as examples. Please include CPU, MB, Ram, GPU, PSU, and anything else you would suggest.

First off would be a system for web browsing, video watching, and maybe some basic games. I would normally suggest this group of people to look at a laptop or tablet. But, they want to fold so a desktop would be the more cost effective solution at around $500 to $700. The goal here is a 10k to 20k PPD.

Next up would be the Gamers. A good gaming system at around $1000 to $1500 that can fold 40k to 60k PPD.

Then we are looking at the killer gamer/folding system at $5000 or less. The sky is the limit for the PPD. I have two reasons for asking for this type of system. First is its going to be the road map for my next system build. Second, I want something over the top to make the cost of the other two systems to seem reasonably priced to my tight wad relatives.


I can probably take the TR systems guide and use the The Econobox and The Sweet Spot suggestions for the first two. I was wondering what kind of changes you would make to those systems for folding.

However The Double Stuff Workstation only goes about half way to what I had in mind. The killer gaming/folding system is similar to what BIF was considering not long ago but with a stricter budget. So I really need ideas for this option.
 
JustAnEngineer
Gerbil God
Posts: 19673
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: The Heart of Dixie

Re: Folding system suggestions

Sat Nov 16, 2013 5:41 pm

For your tight-wad relatives...
Group 1: Refurbished Inspiron 660.
Group 2: Refurbished XPS 8700 with a decent graphics card added.
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
BIF
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2458
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:41 pm

Re: Folding system suggestions

Sun Nov 17, 2013 1:05 am

Hello!

For tightwad relatives who might want to do folding, I would suggest that just about any i5 or i7 (or AMD equivalent) can do a good job folding. You'll get your biggest bang by putting one or two good graphic cards in (but they should be more current). If the relatives don't want to run while using their PCs, then they could set the folding client to either the "Idle", "Light", or "Medium" settings, and set the PC to go to "monitor off" after 15 or 30 minutes of non use. No sleep, no hibernation.

On my system, Medium causes the GPU slot to pause whenever the computer is in use, then activate when the screensaver or "monitor off" threshold is reached. The CPU slot seems to run unaffected by the "medium" setting.

On my system, I'm not sure what "Light" does. Behavior is not readily apparent.

Idle shuts off GPU and CPU slots until the screensaver/monitor off threshold is reached, then they run (but I don't know if they run at full strength).

I run in "full" 24/7. If I want to play a game, then I'll set it to "Medium". If I want to play a game that is a heavy user of CPU, I'll set it to Idle. These settings are good in case I get a phone call or fall asleep or something. Then at least I haven't lost any time folding.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On