Since I've been away the Technology has changed.

[dragongoddess]

I've been away for awhile and quite frankly the technology bus has left me behind. What do I need in a computer today? Keep in mind I want to play some games so info on graphic cards is needed.

[Flying Fox]

What kind of games? Budget?

You can use this and this to help us help you.

[farmpuma]

Are you lookin' to add some points to that beautiful sig?

Did you trade away all your old hardware for shootin' irons?
If you still have that dual AXP machine the SMP client could be a good source of energy efficent points.

[Hotdog]

The dual AXP won't be able to run the SMP client, until/unless they launch a 32bit one ='(.

Depending on how long you've been gone, here's a run down of what's changed:

Pentium is dead, long live Core2.
A64 is old, A64 X2 is now cheap. Long live cheap X2!
939 is dead, AM2 replaced it. AM2 brings amazing things, like... like... DDR2? Yeah.
ATI was purchased by AMD. ATI beat Nvidia to the punch with Vista drivers, which is amusing. The R600 will launch by the time Jesus returns, until then, the 8800GTS/GTX are the only DX10 cards.

And that's the gist of it. If you're looking for a new "power workstation", you'll want to go with a Core2. If you want a cheaper dual core box, you'll go with an X2 or a Pentium D, depending on your needs. If you game, an X2 or Core2 over a Pentium D.

Video card wise, wait until the R600 comes out from ATI, to see its performance, as well as allow the market to adjust to the price.

[flip-mode]

The dual AXP won't be able to run the SMP client, until/unless they launch a 32bit one ='(.

Depending on how long you've been gone, here's a run down of what's changed:

Pentium is dead, long live Core2.
A64 is old, A64 X2 is now cheap. Long live cheap X2!
939 is dead, AM2 replaced it. AM2 brings amazing things, like... like... DDR2? Yeah.
ATI was purchased by AMD. ATI beat Nvidia to the punch with Vista drivers, which is amusing. The R600 will launch by the time Jesus returns, until then, the 8800GTS/GTX are the only DX10 cards.

And that's the gist of it. If you're looking for a new "power workstation", you'll want to go with a Core2. If you want a cheaper dual core box, you'll go with an X2 or a Pentium D, depending on your needs. If you game, an X2 or Core2 over a Pentium D.

Video card wise, wait until the R600 comes out from ATI, to see its performance, as well as allow the market to adjust to the price.

Good post. Quoted for truth. Also worthy of mention: DDR3 arrives before the end of 2007, so depending on how long you can wait and how often you upgrade it may be worth it... DX-10 should trickle to the mid and low range video cards before the end of the year. AMD's next gen CPU's will arrive before the end of the year. Intel's 45-nano chips (is there anything next-gen about them?) will arrive before the end of the year. And just when you thought it was safe to wait till the end of the year, 2008 will probably bring just as much change

[Hotdog]

Yeah. If you can wait, wait. The Pentium line is relaunching here fairly soon, and will use a gimped version of the Core2 core, and should be very, very cheap, and decent performers.

As for GPUs, as flip said: DX10 will trickle into the main stream by the end of the year, which will be interesting.

[Heiwashin]

but i wonder, how much are ddr3 setups going to cost?

[Ragnar Dan]

Because we really need another waste of money for a short-term memory standard.

Ugh.

The main points for someone wanting to fold is that Intel is king right now, both in terms of performance and lower power usage.

And there's a thread here somewhere, which hopefully is going to be mentioned on the front page this week in a Forum Tidings post, about Folding using ATI GPUs and how power-efficient that is compared to using CPUs. But as mentioned above, we'll have to wait for new graphics cards and (in the case of nVidia) maybe drivers to know whether ATI's next generation performs better than the recent nVidia one, and whether nVidia can finally be used for Folding. And then we'll have to find out how the makers' mid-range cards perform.

[farmpuma]

The dual AXP won't be able to run the SMP client, until/unless they launch a 32bit one ='(.

Oops, I knew that .. I'm gonna claim frozen brain as I awoke in a very cold house. Which remained that way for quite a while even after I refilled the stove and lit it.

Or maybe it's just an obsession with your dual AXPs. As a budget option you might consider GPU folding with them. The CPU loading caused by the GPU client is discussed in this thread. For ~$200 (after rebate) this AGP X1950 Pro should provide good GPU folding production and good FPS gaming in the 1024x768 to 1280x1024 range. And the CPU not handling the GPU folding could fold with the regular client. I would recommend a case with a blowhole fan or nekkid on the bench for 'cool' running.

[Ragnar Dan]

But let's not forget the current situation with 64-bit dual core CPUs: I went from somewhere in the 800 ppd range to over 1100 ppd just by changing to running the Linux SMP client through VMware, which is slower than it would be if I just booted Linux. I'm still running the Windows clients, too. And I'm using an old S939 AMD CPU, which runs SSE instructions at half the speed Intel C2Ds run them. Until the SMP client quits working, it is a huge gain. When it quits working, which according to their FAQ will be in 2 months (assumedly from the January 22 date in the FAQ), then the extra points may disappear, or perhaps they'll finally get a Windows SMP client released and the advantage of Linux will disappear.

If I wanted to start fresh right now, I'd get a 6300 C2D and a motherboard which allowed it to overclock (along with appropriate RAM), and if I wanted to game on the machine maybe an ATI 1950Pro or whatever it is, which would do reasonably well, is reasonably priced and can help with folding, accepting that soon a new bunch of GPUs will be released and probably make the resale value of the 1950 decline significantly.

[Hotdog]

The bigger issue is whether or not Stanford can keep the SMP work/result server up for more than 4 days at a time. Came home from work today to find 2 of my 4 SMP boxes w/o work, idle. Made me cry just a little.

[Ragnar Dan]

Mine got a new one this morning, so . It would be nice if I could get a WU other than a 3025, though. I got one, once, and never again. Hm... I think that's right. Maybe I got 2. Whatever, I haven't had a new one in more than a week, and it's irking me. Especially considering the 3027 takes only a fraction longer per frame and in total less than an extra hour per WU, but gives an extra 129 points.

It does take them a while to get ready to send you a new WU, though. I upload a completed WU, and sit there waiting for a few minutes, and finally a new one comes. But in the larger scheme of things, it's a small consideration.

[Hotdog]

I think my two faster machines finished their WU just before the servers went (back?) down, and were able to get something to work on; 45% and 55% done, respectively. Sadly, the Pentium Ds lagged behind a few minutes, and got stuck, unable to send, or get new work ='(

And yeah, the awkward delay between normal finishing and sending/getting new work is disconcerting.

[dragongoddess]

Are you lookin' to add some points to that beautiful sig?

Did you trade away all your old hardware for shootin' irons?
If you still have that dual AXP machine the SMP client could be a good source of energy efficent points.

No I haven't traded anything away for more shootin irons but that may happen soon. I've run out of space for gun safes, fish tanks, computer racks,ammo closets and dog food.


BTW the nearby gun shop has a nickle S&W model 14-3 with 8 inch barrel in 38 special for $560.

[Tarx]

Until the SMP client quits working, it is a huge gain. When it quits working, which according to their FAQ will be in 2 months (assumed from the January 22 date in the FAQ), then the extra points may disappear, or perhaps they'll finally get a Windows SMP client released and the advantage of Linux will disappear.

The SMP client (and GPU client) betas have all run time of 2 months. This has been renewed a few times.
From Dr Pande: "Once the PS3 client goes final and we finish some key issues with the GPU, finalize the SMP, a new Tinker core, release v6 (finally!), and roll out 2 new surprises (more info on those in the coming months), we'll be done with infrastructure for a while. It will be a busy year." http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?p=163637&highlight=#163637
PS3 client is rumoured to be final around late March.

As I mentioned in another post, 0.0.0.0 means no WUs available. If running the SMP client, consider also running a regular console client (takes advantage of SMP downtime, and that SMP runs at 80% cpu use plus doesn't seem to affect the SMP performance much)