Folding Machine

[Krazy K]

I'm going to build a machine dedicated to folding. Problem is, the K9A2 Platinum, a steal at $94 online, has 4 pcie slots and most cases have only 7 expansions slots. There is the abs canyon($600) and the lian-li pc-08r($600). I love science and I love racking up RAC with gpus but I'm not going to spend that much on a case. The ati 4830 is a low power, low cost card that averages 60k points/day and has the best cost/point ratio. Being that it is under 100 watts a 500-600 watt psu will do just fine. I do need a case to hold all this together, the uglier and cheaper the better. The skeleton says it has 8, and this would alleviate the airflow issue. Anyone have experience with this case and can it really fit 4 double-wide cards?

I stated folding because most of you know what it is, however I will be running a BOINC project, Milkyway, that has an optimizer to run on ati cards.

 

[Merlin]

My i7 920 machine and Q9450 are both running Folding@home, that's actually 12 processors folding.
I really can't tell it's running

Anyone want to join the Atlantis_One ( team ) 161101

 

[Kougar]

The MSI K9A2 works in a standard board, it only has 7 slots. If you used dual-slot GPUs you wouldn't have room for any add in cards either. The 4830 is a 2-slot card. Any standard case would fit four dual-slot GPUs in the K9A2's setup.

 

[Rob Williams]

Kudos on the desire to get a Folding rig set up... I wish I was that dedicated sometimes. Merlin, you really want to look into GPU Folding, because it's FAR more efficient than CPU Folding, even on something like the Core i7. A single GPU would likely crunch more in a day than both of your PCs together. Running Folding off of CPUs to me is just a huge waste of power. The GPU Folding is so much more effective.

 

[Merlin]

Kudos on the desire to get a Folding rig set up... I wish I was that dedicated sometimes. Merlin, you really want to look into GPU Folding, because it's FAR more efficient than CPU Folding, even on something like the Core i7. A single GPU would likely crunch more in a day than both of your PCs together. Running Folding off of CPUs to me is just a huge waste of power. The GPU Folding is so much more effective.

I didnt see anything at folding @ home for GPU's
Any info on that?

 

[Krazy K]

@Merlin

Here's a link that should answer some of your questions. There's a lot more just search for it and it's a very simple setup. It might take me 2 hours or 90 minutes to complete a SETI workunit on the CPU, but on a GPU it takes about 8-9 minutes. You can see why this is a huge improvement. Disable SLI and a 9800GX2 can now do 2 workunits in parallel.

@Kougar
It's going to be a dedicated machine. It will not be used for anything else so it isn't important that I block all other slots. I just needed to know if there are any other cases out there that have 8 expansion slots other than a $600 monster or the skeleton.

 

[Merlin]

ooops

My i7 920 machine and Q9450 are both running Folding@home, that's actually 12 processors folding.
I really can't tell it's running

Anyone want to join the Atlantis_One ( team ) 161101

Correction

Atlantis One
161010
And... ( Krazy )
That link did not show a download for GPU2 Folding @ Home

 

[Kougar]

Ah, I understand now. You want to run a dual-slot card in the last PCIe slot... so you need 8 expansion slots.

You might start looking for EATX (Extended) motherboard compatible cases. I looked over Newegg (There is no search option for expansion slots) and here's a shortlist:


Thermaltake ArmorPlus
Thermaltake Xaser VI (About a dozen assorted listings of this one)
LIAN LI PC-P80 (or LIAN LI PC-P80R)
IKONIK Ra X10
ABS Canyon 695

 

[Krazy K]

There is the abs canyon($600) and the lian-li pc-08r($600).

Yes, found those. Haven't heard of the Ikonic and someone said the Tt Armor cases have 10 slots. I would have looked but you beat me to the punch. I don't think any one of those are going to be the basement bargain case I'm looking for. Mobo wont be here for a few days and the pickings are slim for 4830s on the net and even more so on craisglist and ebay, so there isn't a tremendous sense of urgency. I do think the skeleton is a viable option though.

 

[Kougar]

All the cases I listed were cheaper than the ABS Canyon and had 8 or more slots. The cheapest cases are the Xaser IV and ArmorPLus, both of which cost $194, which while a bit on the high side is at least far more palatable than $600!

I have not looked at open air test benches, but the Antec Skeleton does have 8 expansion slots. It also costs $150.

Keep in mind the 4830 is a discontinued part that will be replaced by the HD 4770 if I recall correctly. It might simply be better to buy a single-slot GPU for the last PCIe 16x slot and then you can use any standard case you wish.

 

[Krazy K]

Keep in mind the 4830 is a discontinued part that will be replaced by the HD 4770 if I recall correctly. It might simply be better to buy a single-slot GPU for the last PCIe 16x slot and then you can use any standard case you wish.

I could also cut half of the back plate off if I was so inclined, but that's a lot of work. I did not know that the 4770 is replacing the 4830. The optimizer app says 46/48 series only. Wouldn't that be better for price, if they are discontinued that would help the vendors move them out the door.
The plan later down the road when the next version of the app comes out is to phase in the x2 cards. Still I could leave leave a single slot in there and not really care. But then I'll have a case too when I dump my 9800GX2s out of my gamer into a folder as well.

 

[Kougar]

Those blackplates are usually made out of mm thick chrome, I'd hate to imagine trying to cut one! It might be possible to unscrew the backplate, its an option on many cards.

Hmm, apparently the 4750 and 4770 offer the same number of shaders as the 4830. However both cards are clocked higher than the 4830 and are built on a smaller process... They are single slot cards by default but some of them will have dual-slot aftermarket coolers. Performance is close to that of the 4850. MSRP pegs the 4750 at $99. I see that the 4830 can be had for $72-75 after rebates, so that's probably a good ballpark figure. I don't remember when the 4700 series launches, however...