I'm looking to replace some of my ancient hardware and wanted to find out what people have Bought/Built for under $500 and how long it takes to crunch a D@H work unit.
Unfortunately, I can't get another for that price (actually they don't sell them anymore), but I picked up a christmas special at the local Walmart for $150. XP Home, Socket 754 Sempron 3100+, crunches a WU in 3 hours 1 minute.
What's out there that you can buy/build now, and how fast does it run a D@H WU ?
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
I'm looking to replace some of my ancient hardware and wanted to find out what people have Bought/Built for under $500 and how long it takes to crunch a D@H work unit.
Unfortunately, I can't get another for that price (actually they don't sell them anymore), but I picked up a christmas special at the local Walmart for $150. XP Home, Socket 754 Sempron 3100+, crunches a WU in 3 hours 1 minute.
What's out there that you can buy/build now, and how fast does it run a D@H WU ?
-- David
Do you mean an entirely new computer, case and all?
I think one of the least expensive things you can do is replace your Sempron 3100+ with an Athlon64 3400+. If your motherboard will do 2.4Gb, you can cut nearly 45 mins/WU. Look at my 1182. It is a 3400+ OC'd three percent. Looks like you do 10,886 WUs and I do 8,123....call it 8,367 because of OC.
The delta in CPUs is 1.8G vs 2.4G and 256K cache vs 512K.
I just looked on eBay....I see a couple of "new" 3400+s for <$100.
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
-- David
Changing CPUs and/or adding RAM won't affect your Microsoft OS activation code.
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
-- David
A real reasonably priced mobo for X2 is Biostar GeForce 6100M9....also will let you do a few percent OC. I'm running single Opterons in a couple of them.....and thinking to go to dual-core Opterons. The 165s and 170s seem to be available for a good price....(of course I'm talking about eBay). The best (most of the time) prices for CPUs are from ZipZoomFly. An Opteron 165 is the same price as an A64 X2 3800+ and you get more L2. You can run "matched pairs" of DDR -266/333/400 RAM on them.
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
-- David
Intel's URL says the 845GL chipset will run Pentium 4. I'd bet money you could run the 2.4 P4 as you suggested, but maybe you could run faster. You should ask eMachine's Tech Support what's the fastest P4 you could run on that board.
Actually, with all the horror stories, I've never even opened an account at ebay.
Does anyone here know if upgrading the CPU and adding more memory will trigger the WinXP stuff into thinking it's a new machine and having to call microsoft to get a code to get it running again. I have a couple that could use a new CPU but they're both eMachines (D2386 and W3118) that came with XP. They both have the ethernet adapter on the motherboard so XP should be able to tell it's the same motherboard but it is M$ we're talking about.
My Linux machine is a Socket A Sempron 2500+ in a Soyo motherboard. It takes a bit over 4 hours/WU. I've been thinking of trying to get an inexpensive A64X2 MB + Cpu that will use my 1 GB (2*512) of PC-3200 memory from the Soyo board.
The D2386 is a I845G based MB with 1.5 GB of PC-2100 Ram. I'm wondering if I can put a P4 2.4GHz with 400 MHz FSB in this one. That would increase L2 cache from 128KB to 512KB.
The W3188 is an FIC K8MC51G motherboard with with 1.25 GB of PC-3200 Ram.
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
SouthBridge: NVIDIA nForce 410/430 mcp
Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG dated 01/13/2006
Sempron 3100+: Palermo 90nm 1.400V
DDR memory is going up and DDR2 is coming down so if I build a completely new Linux machine, I'm thinking of going DDR2.
Since I have been researching things, I just thought I'd throw the info out there in case anyone has ideas.
-- David
Intel's URL says the 845GL chipset will run Pentium 4. I'd bet money you could run the 2.4 P4 as you suggested, but maybe you could run faster. You should ask eMachine's Tech Support what's the fastest P4 you could run on that board.
Found this on Internet for the D2386:
Intel® Northwood Up to 3.06G
Celeron up to 2.8G
Prescott 2.8G and up
A real reasonably priced mobo for X2 is Biostar GeForce 6100M9
I was thinking of a Biostar, but some of the reviews scared me off. I'm beginning to think that some of the people who write hardware reviews on sites either have too high expectations or don't know what they're doing or just had bad luck. By the time you read all the reviews for different products, you're almost to paranoid to get anything! I think a lot of them are buying the fastest, most expensive memory they can find. Then, they blame the motherboard because it doesn't work. I wonder how many people understand that the spec for things like DDR and DDR2 specify a voltage and their fancy, superfast memory wants a higher voltage. When the standard calls for 1.8v and their fancy memory wants 2.4v, it probably won't work on some boards.
BTW, I had heard that there were going to be some price cuts and new announcements in April. I noticed that some sites started listing a lot of things as out-of-stock this afternoon. I'm wondering what's up. On thing I've heard is that the Intel C2D E6300 and E6400 are being replaced by the E6325 and E6435, which will be the same speed but 4MB cache instead of 2MB. Also, there are supposed to be some more AMD price cuts, if some sites are to be believed.
We might be moving our server to an Opty 180. I wonder how that would perform? These days, you pay almost as much for a Celeron 2.4 server if you want serious connectivity. I'm beginning to think that the actual hardware is a small part of the server rental.
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
Intel's URL says the 845GL chipset will run Pentium 4. I'd bet money you could run the 2.4 P4 as you suggested, but maybe you could run faster. You should ask eMachine's Tech Support what's the fastest P4 you could run on that board.
Found this on Internet for the D2386:
Intel® Northwood Up to 3.06G
Celeron up to 2.8G
Prescott 2.8G and up
Thanks for the info!!!
IIRC, the 845GL chipset is limited to a 400 MHz FSB. I had a guy in tech support at Microcenter in Atlanta tell me a couple of years ago that a faster Northwood would downclock to a 400 MHz FSB, but he mentioned it in passing and I never followed up on it. I might get one and try it. The reason I was thinking of the 2.4 GHz CPU was that it was the fastest I could find with a 400MHz FSB. It would be nice to breath some life back in the old system. That 128KB cache really seems to be a killer on the Celeron 2.3 that's in there now.
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
I ordered a Northwood P4 2.8 for the celeron system. I had already had to replace the power supply in that machine so I'm a little hesitant to put a Prescott in it.
BTW, The Soyo Motherboard is a SY-K7VME .
Thanks for the help.
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
I ordered a Northwood P4 2.8 for the celeron system. I had already had to replace the power supply in that machine so I'm a little hesitant to put a Prescott in it.
BTW, The Soyo Motherboard is a SY-K7VME .
Thanks for the help.
-- David
The fastest AMD CPU for that mobo is XP 3000+........going for $150.
For the same $150, you can buy an AsRock 775 mobo and an Intel PD805. You can still run it with 333 memory and easily OC to 2.8Gb.
One of my PD805s (not OC'd) runs a WU in around 12,700.
For the same $150, you can buy an AsRock 775 mobo and an Intel PD805. You can still run it with 333 memory and easily OC to 2.8Gb.
One of my PD805s (not OC'd) runs a WU in around 12,700.
If you can get one (just cancel the already ordered hardware... :-P ) , I should vote for this option also.
A lot of value for your money, but I would recommend using a good CPU-cooler.
The 805 can get very hot if not cooled properly.
I've got one running on a Asrock 775Dual-880Pro Mobo, supports both DDR and DDRII and has IDE and Sata.
Both AGP and PCI-Expres slots for Video are present.
So choices enough on what to use...
The system that the CPU is for is a 3 year old Celeron 2.3 system with a 845GL (400 MHz FSB) motherboard that has the OEM version of XP Pro. I think I can get away with replacing the cpu with a Northwood P4 2.8Ghz 533 MHz fsb chip, but a motherboard replacement would make it a "new system" and M$ wouldn't let you move OEM XP licenses, the last I heard. The P4 will downclock to a 400 MHz FSB but the extra 500 MHz clocking on the CPU and going from 128kb to 512kB L2 cache should really help. The power supply is barely strong enough now, and the motherboard was made for the lower powered 130nm Northwoods, so I don't want to push my luck on the power issue.
The AsRock Motherboard would be nice for the other machine I'm upgrading (currently Socket A Sempron 2500+), but I realized that my 2 512MB DDR memory sticks aren't a matched (dual channel) set so I may keep them for spares for my other machines. Kingston 2 GB (2 x 1GB matched set) DDR2 667 (PC2-5300) memory is going for $104.99 at Newegg right now (I have the page open in another browser window). Those memory prices are opening quite a few possibilities.
Actually, Walmart has a HP sempron 3500+ system for under $450 and when I finally found the specs on the HP site, it's an Asus AM2 motherboard which will take A64 X2 chips and replacing the 512MB DDR2 Ram is so cheap, it makes it really tempting to get it and upgrade later. It comes with Vista home (yuck), but it would give me a vista platform for testing software I develop. With the price wars on CPUs, who knows what I'd be able to upgrade that AM2 Sempron 3500+ to later in the year. Currently, Athlon 64 X2 processors start as low as $ 65 at Newegg. An AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) is only $ 123.
Happy Crunching,
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
The system that the CPU is for is a 3 year old Celeron 2.3 system with a 845GL (400 MHz FSB) motherboard that has the OEM version of XP Pro. I think I can get away with replacing the cpu with a Northwood P4 2.8Ghz 533 MHz fsb chip, but a motherboard replacement would make it a "new system" and M$ wouldn't let you move OEM XP licenses, the last I heard. The P4 will downclock to a 400 MHz FSB but the extra 500 MHz clocking on the CPU and going from 128kb to 512kB L2 cache should really help. The power supply is barely strong enough now, and the motherboard was made for the lower powered 130nm Northwoods, so I don't want to push my luck on the power issue.
The AsRock Motherboard would be nice for the other machine I'm upgrading (currently Socket A Sempron 2500+), but I realized that my 2 512MB DDR memory sticks aren't a matched (dual channel) set so I may keep them for spares for my other machines. Kingston 2 GB (2 x 1GB matched set) DDR2 667 (PC2-5300) memory is going for $104.99 at Newegg right now (I have the page open in another browser window). Those memory prices are opening quite a few possibilities.
Actually, Walmart has a HP sempron 3500+ system for under $450 and when I finally found the specs on the HP site, it's an Asus AM2 motherboard which will take A64 X2 chips and replacing the 512MB DDR2 Ram is so cheap, it makes it really tempting to get it and upgrade later. It comes with Vista home (yuck), but it would give me a vista platform for testing software I develop. With the price wars on CPUs, who knows what I'd be able to upgrade that AM2 Sempron 3500+ to later in the year. Currently, Athlon 64 X2 processors start as low as $ 65 at Newegg. An AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) is only $ 123.
Happy Crunching,
-- David
Do you need to stay Microsoft...or...can you go Linux?
I would love to go all Linux but I have some legacy stuff that needs Access and has tens of thousands of lines of Visual Studio 6 C++ code that use the access database. Also, even if I use Linux for a development environment for new projects, they need to be tested on Windows.
The Socket A Sempron 2500+ machine is my Ubuntu 6.10 machine. I also SSH into a Centos VPS way up in Michigan (I'm in Alabama) that hosts my websites. It's a dual Opty, but I don't think they'd let me run BOINC on a VPS :-)
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
I would love to go all Linux but I have some legacy stuff that needs Access and has tens of thousands of lines of Visual Studio 6 C++ code that use the access database. Also, even if I use Linux for a development environment for new projects, they need to be tested on Windows.
The Socket A Sempron 2500+ machine is my Ubuntu 6.10 machine. I also SSH into a Centos VPS way up in Michigan (I'm in Alabama) that hosts my websites. It's a dual Opty, but I don't think they'd let me run BOINC on a VPS :-)
-- David
I also have some machines that must remain Windows.
Have you guys ever thought about running VM's? We have only Linux machines in our labs and most of these run Windows VM's as well for testing purposes. Most of our Linux machines have uptimes of over 200 days; try to do that on a Windows box :-) Also, that way you can run Boinc on Linux (often faster than linux) and do whatever you have to do at times on Windows. I like to say to our students that that is where Windows belongs: in a window :-)
AK
I would love to go all Linux but I have some legacy stuff that needs Access and has tens of thousands of lines of Visual Studio 6 C++ code that use the access database. Also, even if I use Linux for a development environment for new projects, they need to be tested on Windows.
The Socket A Sempron 2500+ machine is my Ubuntu 6.10 machine. I also SSH into a Centos VPS way up in Michigan (I'm in Alabama) that hosts my websites. It's a dual Opty, but I don't think they'd let me run BOINC on a VPS :-)
-- David
I also have some machines that must remain Windows.
I just upgraded all my Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04.
____________
D@H the greatest project in the world... a while from now!
Have you guys ever thought about running VM's? We have only Linux machines in our labs and most of these run Windows VM's as well for testing purposes. Most of our Linux machines have uptimes of over 200 days; try to do that on a Windows box :-) Also, that way you can run Boinc on Linux (often faster than linux) and do whatever you have to do at times on Windows. I like to say to our students that that is where Windows belongs: in a window :-)
AK
That sounds ideal. Could you tell me what versions of Linux and Windows and what VM software you're using and maybe some about how to set it up. Does it involve a lot of Downloading or can you get everything on CD (I'm stuck on Dial-up) ? You have my email address if you don't want to say in the forum.
Thanks,
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
We run several flavors of Linux:
SuSE 9.3, 10.0 and 10.1
Fedora Core 4 and 6
Kubuntu 6.10
For the VM, we use the free VMPlayer (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) from VMWare and have bought one copy of VMWare Workstation to deploy Windows images to all of our Linux machines. UTEP has a campus license for Windows, so we can legally run as many Windows images as we like. Currently we run Windows XP and Windows 2000 (we'll do Vista when the university releases it).
For the player: just download the rpm for rpm-based distros (suse, fedora) and the tar.gz for debian based distros. To install Windows you can download an evaluation version of VMWare Workstation and deploy that image with VMPlayer.
Hope that helps. This setup works great for us.
Andre
Have you guys ever thought about running VM's? We have only Linux machines in our labs and most of these run Windows VM's as well for testing purposes. Most of our Linux machines have uptimes of over 200 days; try to do that on a Windows box :-) Also, that way you can run Boinc on Linux (often faster than linux) and do whatever you have to do at times on Windows. I like to say to our students that that is where Windows belongs: in a window :-)
AK
That sounds ideal. Could you tell me what versions of Linux and Windows and what VM software you're using and maybe some about how to set it up. Does it involve a lot of Downloading or can you get everything on CD (I'm stuck on Dial-up) ? You have my email address if you don't want to say in the forum.
Thanks,
-- David
____________
D@H the greatest project in the world... a while from now!
My Northwood P4 2.8 from Newegg arrived a couple of hours ago. I've replaced the Celeron 2.3 with it and the results are confusing so far. The BOINC benchmarks show the system as slightly slower and it looks like it downclocked to 2.1 Ghz.
OTOH, The system is more responsive and it looks like it may cut the D@H WU time from about 5.6 hours to a little under 4 hours.
BTW, the cpu is running about 37 degrees C. I got a new Rosewill fan/heatsink for it and I can hardly hear the computer now. It was annoyingly loud before. I am amazed how much quieter it is. I'm also wondering why the Rosewill fan is red with a big "Z" on the spindle.
While I was at it, I got a OEM 3.5g syringe of Artic Silver for $5.99. I think it's supposed to be good for about 15 applications. I thought Arctic Silver was more expensive than that.
Happy Crunching,
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
My Northwood P4 2.8 from Newegg arrived a couple of hours ago. I've replaced the Celeron 2.3 with it and the results are confusing so far. The BOINC benchmarks show the system as slightly slower and it looks like it downclocked to 2.1 Ghz.
OTOH, The system is more responsive and it looks like it may cut the D@H WU time from about 5.6 hours to a little under 4 hours.
BTW, the cpu is running about 37 degrees C. I got a new Rosewill fan/heatsink for it and I can hardly hear the computer now. It was annoyingly loud before. I am amazed how much quieter it is. I'm also wondering why the Rosewill fan is red with a big "Z" on the spindle.
While I was at it, I got a OEM 3.5g syringe of Artic Silver for $5.99. I think it's supposed to be good for about 15 applications. I thought Arctic Silver was more expensive than that.
Happy Crunching,
-- David
Run CPU-Z or WCPUID to see what the CPU is really running at.
I checked thoroughly and none of the settings can be altered in the bios. The i845G chipset is limited to 400 MHz FSB, afaik.
It actually is a very stable system and serves it's main purpose quite well so I probably won't do anything else to it. I got a nice speed improvement out of the CPU swap. I think that WinXP and the Anti-virus software were depopulating most of the old celerons 128KB cache a lot. Having 512KB cache really makes it responsive.
This also shows the true non-value of the BOINC clients benchmarks (which D@H doesn't use anyway). The new CPU benchmarks as being a little slower than the old one but it cut the time to run a D@H work unit from about 5 hours 40 minutes to 4 hours 3 minutes. I'm saving an hour and a half per WU. Fortunately, D@H doesn't use the BOINC clients benchmarks for calculating credit granted. *grin*
Happy Crunching,
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?
To bad you can't change the bios settings, but at least you ended up with a system that's performing better.
The increase of cashe will make things much better... and cutting down the crunch time is also welcome I think... ;-)
____________
Thanks for all the help, everyone. I found a great deal at Circuit City.
BTW, Andre, Thanks for the VM info. I'll have to get some more memory on my Linux machine and try it.
Here's what I found.
eMachine T5226
CPU: PD 925 (65 nm, 3.0 GHz, 2x2MB L2 Cache)
1 GB DDR2 533 ram
HD: 250 GB SATA II
OS: Vista Home Premium
Chipset: i945G, which also appears to be the one Gateway uses in their E4300 machines so there's an upgrade path when I can afford it.
Keyboard: Multimedia. I love these keyboards because I do a lot of copying and pasting in databases and it has 3 nice big keys on the left for CUT, COPY, and PASTE..... My old eMachine has this KB as well and it really relieves that soreness in your left hand from all the control-key sequences. Since I use a KVM and a single monitor/keyboard (have to use separate mice though), this worked out great.
Price: $499 and there is a mail in rebate for $50 which brings it down to $ 449.
This single machine also gives me both a dual core and a Vista testbed for the programs I write.
BTW, While I was there I saw a fancy multimedia machine which had a new E6320 in it. The E6320 replaces the E6300 and increases shared L3 cache from 2 MB to 4 MB. From something I saw on a website, it's also about $45 cheaper than a E6300. You can buy machines with the new chip now, but can't buy the chip by itself until about the 25th. There's also an E6420 to replace the E6400. There are going to be price cuts across the Core 2 line when the new chips come available, afaik.
Happy Crunching!
-- David
____________
The views expressed are my own.
Facts are subject to memory error :-)
Have you read a good science fiction novel lately?