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JerWA
Prince
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 1497
Location: WA, USA
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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:52 am Post subject: |
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You guys are funny. 
I've been bargain shopping eBay lately, and I think I'm going to build a C2D 6420 or 6600 to "replace" the XP3k. Or maybe get a 6600 to put in this machine and build a new system around the 6400 CPU I'd be upgrading. Hmm, decisions decisions.
In the mean time, please continue squabbling. It gives me something entertaining to watch in my rear-view mirror.
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Sir Cracked of the Mind
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| Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: |
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Try here for losing at SETI http://www.kwsnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8724
Yes it is a bit slow, I think I might get another one as well just to do the shrubbing, as well as this one of course
The picture came from a google search
Looks like I might hit the top 10% soon  |
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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Uhhh, I don't get it, You're not Eaving, and I thought he had a bigger lead than that by now, anyway. You don't have to search all that hard to find someone that is smoking me in SETI. For instance, JerWA probably has about as many credits in SETI alone as I have overall. I admit to some knightly bluster versus Eaving, and he had just passed me at the time.
I know that my little server garden is far from formidable yet. Even when I can justify calling it a farm, it will still be pretty modest. We all do what we can, for the science, eh?
| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: |
Yes it is a bit slow, I think I might get another one as well just to do the shrubbing, as well as this one of course
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Whatever you say. I never said a C2D E6600 was "slow". How could I consider 600+ RAC from one box, especially running Vista, "slow?I said it's not as fast as it might be because of your OS overhead.
Anyway, if you think that box is slow, that is of course your perogative.
[edit]
Anyway, as far as your getting another shrubber just for SETI, my response is "Bring it on! The more the merrier!"
[/edit]
| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: |
The picture came from a google search
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Cool. That picture of "me and my farm" is definitely, very funky and somehow cool at the same time.
| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: |
Looks like I might hit the top 10% soon |
Great! I'll be there waiting for you, and will provide a proper, Knightly welcome. 
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: | You guys are funny.
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Like my buddies used to say "looks aren't everything" 
| JerWA wrote: |
I've been bargain shopping eBay lately, and I think I'm going to build a C2D 6420 or 6600 to "replace" the XP3k. Or maybe get a 6600 to put in this machine and build a new system around the 6400 CPU I'd be upgrading. Hmm, decisions decisions.
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I took the latter approach, and recommend it highly. In fact, when I bought the Opty from NewEgg, I got a cheapie mobo along with it as a package deal. I put the San Diego CPU in the cheapie mobo, and upgraded my good (ABIT A8N Fatal1ty SLI) with the Opty.
I gutted an old Pentium III box (that was having serious problems with locking up anyway), put in the cheapie, package deal mobo, the San Diego, a new PSU I got a screaming deal on, and some used DDR RAM I got from ebay. After a few false starts and some fooling around, I got it going with Ubuntu Linux.
BTW, in my experience, ebay is a terrible place to get CPUs. Mobos and PSUs, maybe. CPUs, no. I suggest NewEgg. I've bought a couple of brand new, retail CPUs for less that what inferior stepping, used, OEM CPUs were going for on ebay; and with free shipping to boot (well, the second one would have been free shipping if I hadn't added on the mobo. Shipping was still very reasonable). I know it might be a different situation with Intel, and I would suggest you check at least check out NewEgg.
Also, at one point, right after C2Ds came out, I quoted a price from Micro Center that was so low that some people didn't even believe it. Micro Center claims they match prices once a week with NewEgg. There's tax to consider, of course, especially if you can get free shipping (and no tax) from NewEgg.
Oh, yeah. Have a look at this page (about halfway down, on the left) for a 600W Cooler Master PSU you can get for $24.99 with instant rebate and promo code, and free shipping. I imagine that would have enough suds for either C2D
| JerWA wrote: |
In the mean time, please continue squabbling. It gives me something entertaining to watch in my rear-view mirror.
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Considering your RAC and total credit, I should think it would take a telescope, rather than a rear-view mirror, to watch.
I've started consistently exceeding what Eaving was doing last I knew, though by such a modest margin that my chances of catching him are pretty slim, particularly if he's upgraded his shrubbing capacity in the meanwhile.
Oh, well. We do what we can.
The bad news is a power outage seems to have injured my poor, old Netfinity server fairly grievously. I'm in the process of trying to put Humpty-Dumpty together again, so to speak.
While I admit that it pales in comparison to your shrubbing, it looks like I just cleared 100k total credit. BOINC Stats for the World seems to think I'm approaching top 5000 in the world for RAC. Again, nothing like what you're doing, and at least somewhat notable.
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JerWA
Prince
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 1497
Location: WA, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, all joking aside, let me first say that while chasing other people is amusing, it really shouldn't be taken personally. For me, at least, it's anything but. I'm not cackling gleefully looking for more systems to add so I can rub someones face in it, not even yours you AMD kaaaanight.
That said, I heard it from the grapevine that by next Monday Intel will be firing another salvo at AMD. If the price cuts I heard are even remotely accurate, prepare to be pissed. Here's the prices...
Q6700 (quad core 2.6 GHz 8MB cache)... new chip... $530 on 22nd.
Q6600 (quad core 2.4 GHz 8MB cache)... $530 now... $266 on the 22nd.
E6850 (dual core 3.0 GHz 4MB cache)... new chip... $266
E6750 (dual core 2.66 GHz 4MB cache)... new chip... $183
E6550 (dual core 2.33 GHz 4MB cache)... new chip... $163
E4500 (dual core 2.2 GHz 2MB cache)... new chip... $133
That means I can upgrade my system (currently a 6400) with a quad core that's faster per-core for only $266! Could be a very good time for my farm, once I'm working again hehe. Unfortunately, the xx50 family are the 1333 fsb chips so unless Dell updates my BIOS I can't play with those. But it only makes sense that existing xx00 and xx20 series prices will follow suit in the price cuts.
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: | Stats are just ghosts that drift through my world every now and then, I shrub for the good of knight kind
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| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: | Try here for losing at SETI http://www.kwsnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8724
Yes it is a bit slow, I think I might get another one as well just to do the shrubbing, as well as this one of course
Looks like I might hit the top 10% soon |
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Lloyd M.
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: | Ok, all joking aside, let me first say that while chasing other people is amusing, it really shouldn't be taken personally. For me, at least, it's anything but. I'm not cackling gleefully looking for more systems to add so I can rub someones face in it, not even yours you AMD kaaaanight.
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Oh, I don't take it personally at all. Especially as far as you're concerned - I don't think that I will ever be able to do anything that can even vaguely be characterized as "chasing" you.
As for certain other folks, I'm not doing any proper face rubbing. I am following the same plan I've always had, notwithstanding anyone "cracking wise". I'm having my ups and downs, here. I planned to do the same thing with the Sempron that I did with the San Diego, and the mobo is slightly more responsive than a paperweight. I'm thinking the most likely possibility is one or more bent CPU pins, even though I was very careful, and the CPU seemed to drop right into the socket. I haven't had the heart to pull the CPU out to check yet.
When the Sempron was in the other mobo, I found that it seemed to do very well, running as a service on Win 2K, compared to the San Diego on XP with graphics, at least as far as Rosetta goes. Einstein was another matter - it must be more processor and/or cache intensive. Or maybe the Rosetta screensaver is a resource hog, even though I have all the settings set to minimum.
The other "down" is the Netfinity server seems to somehow managed to have trashed the separate RAID array, and also the RAID 5 boot volume. I guess that's what I get for trying to run such old drives
Fortunately, I got more drives than the RAID array holds (all at once, form ebay), so I should be able to bring it back up, albeit at the cost of losing my work in progress. At least it was Primegrid and SETI WUs, and not something like climate prediction or Einstein.
Not to worry. I'm just glad that people like you and Sir Cracked are on our team.
Anyway, I still think that AMD comes out on top in terms of bang for the buck. Of course that's highly debatable. Clearly, no matter what your processor preference, this price war is benefitting you. Last time I was at Micro Center, the guy said that AMD had had to cut their prices to try to make up for the performance deficit. Clearly, Intel is returning fire, with we consumers benefitting no matter what.
As for the quad core, I think it's marvelous that you will have such a significant upgrade available for that kind of money. That's more of a relative jump than I took from the San Diego to the Opty, especially since the Opty is slower stock clock speed per core (albeit bigger cache) than the San Diego. I specifically got the 170 instead of faster ones that were available at the time, because of the price-benefit ratio (the price increment didn't seem worth the performance increment).
I'm not in a place where I'm able to justify paying even that bargain price for a CPU. The Opty was a little more than half that much, and I'm going to have to let up on buying computer hardware for a while in any case.
One idea I was frankly toying with was a Pentium D system. They're hitting the aftermarket at prices suitable to my tightwad sensibilities. That way I could at least have dual core, and it would be a Socket 775 mobo. This is the approach I took with my son's computer. Real A64's were too expensive at the time, so I built it with a Sempron 2600+ to start with. Then I eventually upgraded it to a real A64 Venice 3200+.
That reminds me. That's three CPUs I got a good deal on from NewEgg. The Venice cost a whole $40, including shipping, OEM. I already had an OEM HSF from an FX55 on the Sempron (sort of cracking walnuts with a sledgehammer!), so I just retained the HSF when I installed the Venice.
Anyway, the Pentium D setup would get me going with that socket, and I could just wait until something like a C2D E6400 is as passe' as a socket 754 Venice was a couple of months ago.
Just toying with the idea. Like I always tell my son (especially as pertains to ebay) "If you're going to be cheap, you have to be patient". I find that there's generally a "sweet spot" where what was state of the art (or close to it) not all that long ago has gotten to where even I can justify the cost of acquiring it, but the technology isn't so old as to no longer be worth getting
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JerWA
Prince
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 1497
Location: WA, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:58 am Post subject: |
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The only thing of note is that 775 isn't universal. There are lots of chipsets on the 775 boards that do not support Core 2's or quads. Just something to keep in mind when you're bargain shopping. There are really dirt cheap boards on eBay for like $20 that do support quads, so it's not necessarily a price barrier, just have to make sure it's a fairly new chipset when you're motherboard shopping.
As for prices, the Core 2 6550 is going to be $160. "Only" 2 core, but it's faster and has more cache than my 6400. I can't imagine the existing xx00 series will maintain their price, so I'd expect things like the 6400 and 6420 to drop below $150. On the right projects, a C2D 6400 can manage 900+ credits/day. They really like the optimized SETI app as well, and could probably break 1,000/day at stock clock if both cores were full time SETI.
That's not even counting the fact that they love to overclock. Without breaking the bank on super special cooling, I've read that 2.13 GHz 6400s can be pushed to 3-3.2 GHz which is a pretty significant jump. I can't test that theory unfortunately, Dell decided that the 410 systems were uber enough and only let the 710 owners overclock.
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Sir Cracked of the Mind
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:06 am Post subject: |
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Oh! look I've made the top 10%
Top 100,000 next |
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mohrorless
Mail Order Goat Bride
Joined: 09 Oct 2006
Posts: 11206
Location: NYC
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| Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:56 am Post subject: |
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Congrats!
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Sir Cracked of the Mind wrote: | Oh! look I've made the top 10%
Top 100,000 next |
You go, Sir Cracked! With the RAC you're posting, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you see top 100k within days.
Bravo!
BTW, if you're not already running the optimized SETI app that Sir JerWA mentioned, I recommend it highly, especially if you get another C2D just for SETI. I can't speak from personal experience with a C2D, and it works really well with the ancient Xeon processors in my server, even though they don't support all the instruction set enhancements that the optimized apps have available.
Since I had to reinstall everything after it crashed, SETI did another benchmark and calculated that the latest set of WUs would take between 32 and 40 hours to process. In my experience, these iintial numbers are always a bit pessimistic, but not enough to account for the fact that, last time I checked, it looked like it was going to take about 16 hours to process the WUs.
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Lloyd M.
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: | | The only thing of note is that 775 isn't universal. There are lots of chipsets on the 775 boards that do not support Core 2's or quads. |
A huge opportunity to talk some smack about chipsets for Intel, though I'd probably just come off like an ignoramus. Besides, I'm pretty sure there was a parallel situation with AMD. I think the way I've dodged this is I've pretty much steered clear of cheap mobos, with the notable exception of the one I got in the package deal for a dedicated shrubber. At least that one was a real brand name (Asus), and it's run perfectly so far.
Anyway, if I actually consider going this route, I'll either ask for recommendations, or go with something safe like the Intel version of my Fatal1ty mobo (or the newer version of the same thing)
| JerWA wrote: | As for prices, the Core 2 6550 is going to be $160. "Only" 2 core, but it's faster and has more cache than my 6400.
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That one really stuck out when I examined that little chart you published. By 4MB cache you mean 2MB per core, right? That's still a lot. That seemed to be the best bang for the buck, though the memory to take full advantage of the FSB might be a bit pricey. In any case, I'm sure the chicken app will just fly on that.
| JerWA wrote: |
I can't imagine the existing xx00 series will maintain their price, so I'd expect things like the 6400 and 6420 to drop below $150. On the right projects, a C2D 6400 can manage 900+ credits/day. They really like the optimized SETI app as well, and could probably break 1,000/day at stock clock if both cores were full time SETI. |
That would be cool. That's why I like stepping a ways back from the "bleeding edge", because there are sometimes some real bargains to be found on technology that really isn't old at all.
| JerWA wrote: | | That's not even counting the fact that they love to overclock. |
A lot of people are claiming that Opty 170s can OC about that high. I'm going to need some cooling upgrades to get much of an OC out of it at all. Of course, I'm sure it will help starting in the late Fall when the ambient temp is 20-30F cooler!
Still, the new case I got to alleviate the problem seems to have helped a bit on the CPU, but made the PWM worse, because the exhaust fan is partially blocking the air intake to the cooling fans for the PWM.
This is really great, in that pressure on C2D pricing puts pressure on A64 AM2 pricing, which puts pressure on A64 Socket 939 pricing. If there are still any Optys out there when I get a chance, they might be pretty cheap!
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JerWA
Prince
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 1497
Location: WA, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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Unfortunately, these price cuts are in response to AMDs most recent cuts, and AMD has already stated they will not cut again (basically they'd be selling at a loss at that point). So I think we're going to stay where we are for awhile, with the next biggest development (aside from the xx50 1333 fsb Core 2 stuff that's new) will be when AMD releases their new chips.
As for smack talking the 775, nah. It's just been around awhile now, it's amazing how far they've pushed without changing sockets. Hmm, who likes to change sockets every third chip release? Oh yeah, that's right, AMD. hehehe. But, as I mentioned, it's not even a price thing. You can get $20 motherboards that support Core 2s, it's just making sure it's "fairly" recent or by a company that actually does functional updates.
The memory isn't that bad, it's only DDR2 800. Not that I'd recommend using that, since it'd really kill any overclocking. You can get some pretty cheap DDR2 1066 with very nice timings.
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ohiomike
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Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 858
Location: Sometimes
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: | The only thing of note is that 775 isn't universal. There are lots of chipsets on the 775 boards that do not support Core 2's or quads.
<snip>
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What upsets me is the MB manufactures, I have one ABIT MB that should support a Core2, it has the proper chipsets for it, but ABIT won't upgrade the BIOS to support it. (Of course if I was a MB manufacture, I would want to sell a new board also). 
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Lloyd M.
Prince
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| ohiomike wrote: |
What upsets me is the MB manufactures, I have one ABIT MB that should support a Core2, it has the proper chipsets for it, but ABIT won't upgrade the BIOS to support it. (Of course if I was a MB manufacture, I would want to sell a new board also). |
What an utter drag  I've had really good luck with ABIT mobos, myself. It's a huge bummer that they won't upgrade the BIOS.
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Lloyd M.
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: |
As for smack talking the 775, nah. It's just been around awhile now, it's amazing how far they've pushed without changing sockets.
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They certainly took a different approach from AMD, which did finally pan out.
| JerWA wrote: |
Hmm, who likes to change sockets every third chip release? Oh yeah, that's right, AMD. hehehe.
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Oh, so it's time to smack talk AMD instead?
Seriously, Socket 939 is actually an adaptation of Socket 940 (e.g. original Opty), except without the requirement of registered DDR (not only cheaper, but inherently faster). They were able to speed things up quite a bit by putting the memory controller on the chip, which is a lot of how they were able to dominate the speed race for a while.
And Lord knows AMD stuck with Super Socket 7 for a long time, getting Pentium II (even approaching Pentium III) equivalent speeds out of what was originally a Pentium socket.
As for why they went to AM2, I have no earthly idea. Some of the processors are low power (and heat), and I should think they could have done that with the old socket using whatever ridiculously low nanometer process that they're up to.
On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't try to second-guess them, they seem to know what they're doing.
| JerWA wrote: |
But, as I mentioned, it's not even a price thing. You can get $20 motherboards that support Core 2s, it's just making sure it's "fairly" recent or by a company that actually does functional updates.
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Not sure how interested I would be in a $20 mobo, even for a dedicated shrubber.
| JerWA wrote: |
The memory isn't that bad, it's only DDR2 800. Not that I'd recommend using that, since it'd really kill any overclocking. You can get some pretty cheap DDR2 1066 with very nice timings. |
Memory is where I've managed to get off pretty light so far. Don't know if there's enough DDR2 in the aftermarket yet to get away with that.
I'm pretty sure I've been running DDR800. I do remember that it's PC3200
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JerWA
Prince
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Posts: 1497
Location: WA, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Lloyd M. wrote: | | Oh, so it's time to smack talk AMD instead? |
Never pass up the chance hehe.
| Lloyd M. wrote: | | Not sure how interested I would be in a $20 mobo, even for a dedicated shrubber. |
Me either, just demonstrating a point. I have no clue why some companies abandoned their existing 775 boards, other than to push their new ones.
| Lloyd M. wrote: | Memory is where I've managed to get off pretty light so far. Don't know if there's enough DDR2 in the aftermarket yet to get away with that.
I'm pretty sure I've been running DDR800. I do remember that it's PC3200 |
DDR 400 is PC3200. I don't see any DDR over 500 (PC 4000). DDR2 800 is PC2 6400, 1066 is PC2 8500, and the highest DDR2 listed at the moment on Newegg is DDR2 1300 (PC 10400).
800 is the baseline for C2D, with 1066+ being for overclocking (though I'm not sure about the new xx50 series, maybe they use a higher memory bus since the FSB is 1333). All of the speeds higher than 1066 have only 2 or 3 offerings, so 1066 is really the highest "standard" as it were.
Mushkin has some 1066 with 5-5-4-12 timing (5-5-5-15 is standard) for $159 at 2x1GB. It looks like the Patriot stuff I was looking at before is now gone, as I only see a 5-5-5-9 option (which seems a typo).
At any rate, $159 for 2 GB of overclock friendly RAM is not bad at all.
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Lloyd M.
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Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Posts: 521
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| Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| JerWA wrote: |
At any rate, $159 for 2 GB of overclock friendly RAM is not bad at all. |
Unless you're as Scots as I am.
Seriously, that sounds pretty good.
If I do get a 775 mobo, I wouldn't be putting a C2D in it at first, anyway. Not a fast one at least. The RAM might be a limiting factor as to when I do upgrade.
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