I'm REALLY surprised no one has posted this! Don't jump off and buy an Intel quad-core NOW, WAIT 5 months!

From: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6488

Model - Q3'07 Pricing
QX6800 $999
Q6700 $530
Q6600 $266

THAT makes it kind of hard to get excited about buying a Q6600 TODAY for $530 when you can save your money (earn interest) and buy TWO for the same price that they are retailing ONE for today. 5 months or less.

Plus, we can also find out what price Barcelona is unveiled at AND we'll know what its performance will be.


(Between now and then I will probably build one or two ATI R600 folders for F@H.)

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Actually, why even dream of a quad-core anyway, when the buzz will soon be toward GPUs. Or are you implying GPU machines for crunching and gaming, and quad-core tech for the home PC for everything else?

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Actually, why even dream of a quad-core anyway, when the buzz will soon be toward GPUs. Or are you implying GPU machines for crunching and gaming, and quad-core tech for the home PC for everything else?

I'm only talking about crunching. Since GPUs aren't where they need to be yet for crunching, it doesn't make sense to shift all of our extra/spare dollars to GPU machines until that happens. What if I only built R600 crunchers and then Rosetta ended up going with nVidia GPUs for its crunching?

Even for Folding@Home, the GPUs can only crunch 1/8th of their total WUs, so CPU crunching is still needed. I also think that Rosetta@Home may be more valuable in the long run (my opinion) and they aren't yet using GPUs, so I will make 1-2 CPU crunchers for R@H until they get going on the GPU train, then I would probably make crunchers only for R@H and what I made would depend on what they needed.

I am "donating" 8% of my income this year to build dedicated crunching machines.

I DO want to put dollars to work every few months so I will make a couple of GPU folders while I wait for those quad-core price drops and then I will make a couple of CPU crunchers (for Rosetta, of course).

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I am "donating" 8% of my income this year to build dedicated crunching machines.

Very cool! That's what I call dedication to the cause. Thanks!

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The next step for me is to promote crunching for science to various people in my circles (and expand my circles). I've kinda been waiting for Bakerlab to formalize and release their education cirriculum, and I really shouldn't be waiting for that.

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I wonder whether those scheduled price drops give more evidence that Intel's Penryn and Wolfdale (3.5-3.7GHz quad-core and 3.5-4GHz dual-core, respectively, with both 45nm and HT) processors will launch in Q307, as opposed to Q407 or Q108.

Does anyone know possible prices for Penryn and Wolfdale?

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<bugs bunny voice> Ehhh... could be, doc </bugs bunny voice>

I wonder whether those scheduled price drops give more evidence that Intel's Penryn and Wolfdale (3.5-3.7GHz quad-core and 3.5-4GHz dual-core, respectively, with both 45nm and HT) processors will launch in Q307, as opposed to Q407 or Q108.

about GPUs i just found this on wikipedia. is it true?

ATi has teamed with Stanford University to create a GPU-based client for its Folding@Home distributed computing project that in certain circumstances yields results forty times faster than the conventional CPU's traditionally used in such applications

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about GPUs i just found this on wikipedia. is it true?

ATi has teamed with Stanford University to create a GPU-based client for its Folding@Home distributed computing project that in certain circumstances yields results forty times faster than the conventional CPU's traditionally used in such applications

They've been running for a couple of months now. They still require a CPU to do some of the work but a CPU-GPU combo seems to be a pretty impressive combination over there.

I'm not sure 40x is an accurate figure though - what CPU are they comparing to? Also, bear in mind that you need a CPU as well. I'd be interested to know how a CPU-GPU combo compares to the same CPU alone. Also, are they limited to certain tasks like the PS3 client is?

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They are comparing to a single core. It's true though. I run a dual GPU "folding" (crunching) machine at home. If you use a single ATI/AMD x1950xtx it does about 90 gigaflops. (dual folders are a little less efficient because of bandwidth limitations) A new (single GPU) machine will run you about $750. If you'd like to get one running, I can help you out. It's actually a little tricky. The most user friendly is using a AMD x1950pro (which isn't quite as powerful, but you don't have to fool with clocking the graphics card). We'd probably want to move it to the F@H GPU client forums.

Oh, you need a processor core for each GPU because DirectX currently "polls" the CPU. So if you had a dual CPU and single GPU, you could run one instance of Rosetta or Folding and one GPU instance. If you don't dedicate a core to each GPU, then the performance hit makes it not worth it to run the CPU instance. [edit: for my dual GPU folder, I dedicate a dual processor to the GPUs. It is a Pentium D 915 which was the cheapest dual when I bought it, though it isn't the most power efficient. Now an E4300 would make more cents.]

I crunch Rosetta with my CPUs and Folding with my GPUs. :)


PS. from what I've read, I don't think Intel will be quite ready for a release of their 45nm when AMD comes out with Barcelona. My guess is early 2008.

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I wonder whether those scheduled price drops give more evidence that Intel's Penryn and Wolfdale (3.5-3.7GHz quad-core and 3.5-4GHz dual-core, respectively, with both 45nm and HT) processors will launch in Q307, as opposed to Q407 or Q108.

Does anyone know possible prices for Penryn and Wolfdale?

Kind of a big error here: neither Penryn nor Wolfdale will have hyperthreading. Bloomfield, a 45nm quad-core roadmapped (http://www.mikeshardware.co.uk/Roadmap20XX.htm) for Q308, will be the first new CPU with HT. Intel's 45nm Nehalem will follow in Q408, with 8 HT cores (i.e., capable a crunching 16 workunits at a time).

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Intel’s Price Reduction on July 22

In the most updated plan, Intel Quad-Core Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4GHz/4MB L2 x2/1066MHzFSB) will be further cut to $266, a second drop within 4 months since its release on March with 68.7% accumulated price drop.

correction on the chart (?): E4400 and E4500 are not conroe cores, but rather Allendale cores (?)

Intel’s Price Reduction on July 22

In the most updated plan, Intel Quad-Core Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4GHz/4MB L2 x2/1066MHzFSB) will be further cut to $266, a second drop within 4 months since its release on March with 68.7% accumulated price drop.

correction on the chart (?): E4400 and E4500 are not conroe cores, but rather Allendale cores (?)

how do you like this?

who?

I know what I'm buying shortly after July 22nd. ;)

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Definately would make for an excellent Christmas present. <hint> <hint> @:^P

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There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

In the past couple of weeks I've sort of decided it is nearing time to upgrade again, probably before the end of summer. So, now comes the hard part. What is the best cruncher combo to buy since the prices are dropping? Is the one below the best?

Also, I don't need anything more than a standard video card since I don't crunch with the screensaver; this machine will be a cruncher made to crunch, and double as my desktop. Should I order the parts online and then give them to my computer store to assemble (this combo will not be their standard offering), or should I get someone else for that? Never tried to put together my own cruncher before, so help is definitely needed.

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Hey Gerry, I've been pricing out systems recently to get a gauge for the total cost of a new system... I didn't see your system "below", did you forget to attach. Anyhow, this is what I would do for you.

I'll make one for you since mine has a more expensive motherboard in case I decide to overclock. Mine would also have an expensive graphics card to game with and fold work units from Folding@Home...


From newegg.com:

VIDEO: EVGA 256-A8-N295-LX GeForce 6200 LE 256MB GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail $52

Case & Power Supply: Rosewill R604TBLK-N 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower Computer Case+450W Power Supply - Retail $60 (plus $15 for shipping)

MOBO: EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $109

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - (PRICE AFTER JULY 22nd) $280

RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-5400c4 - Retail $69.99

HARD DRIVE: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $42.99

+CD/DVD ROM: $50 MAX

Quad core computer for $664 +shipping +install.


If you're really nervous about the install & your local computer shop will do it for $100 or less, not to bad of an option.

Installation isn't too hard, just time consuming and sometimes instructions are not descriptive enough. If you self install, post again to this thread and I can give some tips.

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VIDEO: EVGA 256-A8-N295-LX GeForce 6200 LE 256MB GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail $52


MOBO: EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $109

how do you want to equip an AGP card on a PCIE mobo ? ^^

If you only crunch with the system, I would go for a board with onboard graphics. Saves you ~ 50$ and a little bit of power aswell ;)

Good catch Sailor. Sorry about that.

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Hey Gerry, I've been pricing out systems recently to get a gauge for the total cost of a new system... I didn't see your system "below", did you forget to attach. Anyhow, this is what I would do for you.

snip

Actually, it was the one mentioned in Who?s post a few down from here. In any case, your suggestion sounds interesting. Contact me at gerryratfloodlight.org.

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