Building cheap BOINC PC - Is the RAM important?
2 Jan 2012 14:31:23 UTC
Topic 196120
(moderation:
I plan to build very cheap 24/7 system for BOINC.
I am thinking about Intel G530/G540 Sandy Bridge CPU with the built-in graphics.
I will buy second hand RAM. My question is the RAM memory important for BOINC, is there a noticeable difference between 1GB, 2GB, DDR2, DDR3, 667x, 800x...?
About the OS I am thinking for Linux.
I have a narrow budget, later I will add CUDA GPU, NVIDIA 9600 or something..
Greetings, Nikola
Building cheap BOINC PC - Is the RAM important?
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I am using 8 GB DDR2 memory on my Linux box, but I am running two Virtual Machines. One, BOINC_VM is using only 256 kB, the other, Solaris, is using 1.5 GB. BOINC programs don't use much memory. Mine is mostly used as disk cache, diminishing disk writes and reads. My 32-bit Linux is pae.
Tullio
In what projects you want to
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In what projects you want to participate?
If you want participate in CPU-only projects, you can buy a cheap motherboard like MSI 760GM P23 (FX) and AMD Phenom II 1065T | 1055T | 1035T | CPU or AMD FX 8100 (motherboards of this class supports only up to 95 Watts CPUs).
Hi, DDR3-1600 is sufficient
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Hi, DDR3-1600 is sufficient for the high end i7 Sandy Bridge CPUs. So you just need DDR3 1333 which is quite cheap nowadays. Latency doesn´t play an important role so CL9 is fine. SB is DDR3 only.
The einstein@home cpu app usses arround 250MB. While your cpu only has 2 cores so 1GB is ok. I would go with 2 modules to get(?) the dual channel boost. 2x1GB is arround 10€.
But you have to keep in mind, that you can´t overclock these cpus. So for maximum credits you should get as fast as you can a decent gpu.
RAM is too cheap. You can buy
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RAM is too cheap. You can buy 2 x 4 Gb Samsung 1333 for $40.
Thank you for the replies. I
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Thank you for the replies.
I found ECS H67H2-M3 MB + Intel G530 + 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 for €120 http://bit.ly/rviLVl May be I'll buy it.
I found Ultra-ATA 40GB HDD for €10.
There are plenty of second hand Power Supplies too.
Second hand NVIDIA 9600 or similar is around €25-40 but may be I will buy one next month. This week I am buying laptop for my mom's office so the budget for this month is almost full.
The machine will start working this month and the gpu upgrade is easy after that.
Blog: http://nikolaovcharski.com/blog/
As long as you have enough to
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As long as you have enough to populate all your memory channels and not hit the swap file at full load it doesn't matter. With only two threads, the celeron will probably be fine with 1GB or ram. However, it's cheap enough that 2 or 4GB might not be a bad idea. It'll save you ougrade worries in a few years when standard desktop linuxes assume you have 32 or 64GB of ram in your box and that using 1GB isn't a problem. (There will be light weight varients, but if you're a casual user mainstream is much easier.)
Here's what top says about
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Here's what top says about the current boinc tasks runnin under Ubutuntu 11.10
[pre]
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
3370 boinc 39 19 263m 259m 2496 R 98 1.6 85:26.10 hsgamma_FGRP1_0
3268 boinc 39 19 104m 98m 1348 R 90 0.6 87:06.09 einstein_S6Buck
5259 boinc 39 19 104m 98m 1348 R 89 0.6 47:55.69 einstein_S6Buck
5105 boinc 39 19 263m 259m 2496 R 88 1.6 51:27.98 hsgamma_FGRP1_0
30370 boinc 39 19 104m 98m 1348 R 86 0.6 184:04.16 einstein_S6Buck
31459 boinc 39 19 18340 13m 2496 R 85 0.1 161:44.59 hsgamma_FGRP1_0
944 boinc 39 19 263m 259m 2496 R 79 1.6 125:12.07 hsgamma_FGRP1_0
[/pre]
Joe
RE: As long as you have
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That nails it.
However, due to the extremly low price and due to the fact that DDR3 is still current (not many people selling, unless something's wrong), you don't gain much by going 2nd hand or by skimping on the amount of memory.
However, I wouldn't skimp on the CPU or GPU.
Let me elaborate. The G530 costs 35€ and gets you 2 modern cores at 2.4 GHz. The i5 2400 gets you 4 cores of the same kind at 3.1 GHz. That's 2.6 times the crunching performance for 4.6 times as much money - OK for the small CPU.
However, you're writing you've spotted board + CPU + RAM for 120€. That's 85€ for board + RAM. And there's an HDD for 10€ involved and a 2nd hand power supply, let's say for 15€. That's 110€ for the system without CPU. Factoring in the system cost the high performance CPU is only (160+110) / (35+110) = 1.9 times more expensive than the budget solution. It actually gives you more crunching power for the money. If you step up to an i5 2500 for 180€ it's 2.75 times the performance for 2.0 times the price. That's actually a slightly better price per performance ratio.
This is not yet facturing Turbo in, which almost always speeds the i5s up by another 100 MHz at full load. And you could overclock them by up to 400 MHz (not allowed on the Celeron), while still lowering voltage below stock to keep excellent power efficiency. And the Quads will be more power efficient, as you've got a certain baseline power consumption (the system idle power) of 30 - 40 W, which is needed just to run the mainboard and stuff. For the Celeron this will be approximately half of the entire system power consumption, whereas for the Quads a larger percentage of the power is actually used for crunching.
It's similar for the GPU: sure, a 9600GT was nice some time ago and is cheap now. But it's only got 64 Shaders of an old design, in an old process technology. For about the same money you could get a GT430 with 96 shaders in a modern 40 nm process. In the worst case it should be as fast as the old card, in the best case about 50% faster. It's more energy efficient (i.e. costs less to run) and probably has more memory. Which matters, if you want to run several WUs cocurrently to improve GPU utilization (and thus efficiency) in certain projects. Step up to a GTS450 and you'll get about twice the performance for ~50% higher cost (and similar efficiency).
I wouldn't skimp on the power supply either, if it's going to be a 24/7 cruncher: you'll want it to be at least 80+ Bronze certified (i.e. Be Quiet for 30 - 35€, 300 or 350 W is plenty for your cruncher). This saves you money in the long term.. quite a lot, actually, depending on where you live and what the alternative choice would be.
I know you're on a strict budget, so I'm certainly not saying you should go out and buy these higher priced items. However, I want you to know your options and to make an educated decision. Personally I wouldn't buy any of the systems discussed here for the sole purpose of running BOINC on them - even though I could easily afford them. It's not worth it. And if I could hardly afford it - well, I guess I shouldn't.
If you'd have to get a machine anyway - that's a different story. In that case I'd make sure it fulfills it's purpose and is an efficient cruncher, in terms of "crunching power per €". Which includes initial purchase cost as well as running costs for electricity.
MrS
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002
If you've got a hard limit on
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If you've got a hard limit on your CPU cost you might get better crunch per dollar with an AMD quad core Phenom2. These will overclock to 3.8+ GHz or so without any drama. The AMD cores are slower, but you'll be getting twice as many for the same $ On the Intel side one of the hyper-threading dual i3 chips, like the i3-540, sounds good. It might, depending on OC success, even wind up being faster than the x4 AMD. (Guys, which would win?) Here's a glowing review: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i3_540_530/1.html
Or, if you want to go AMD,
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Or, if you want to go AMD, the Athlon 2 X4 CPUs provide some serious bang for the buck. They're a lot less power efficient than current Intels, though.
MrS
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002