said by rfhar :

i7

said by srr2 :

If you don't mind a contrarian opinion -- IMO, you're excessively concerned with this distributed computing business. You're proposing to spend an extra $50 to $100 on a video card you don't need, and possibly even more on processor capacity similarly in excess. Then there's the matter of the electricity that you're going to burn by loading up something like a quad processor during periods where it would be otherwise in a greatly-reduced power state. That electricity is not inconsequential and not free. Taking my Q9550 system as an example, the difference between idle and all cores at 100% is nearly 60W. Do you have any idea what 60W is going to cost you? Let's see....

60W @ 24/7 for a year = 526KWH in a year. I don't know what electric rates are in MI, but let's assume about $0.13/KWH, so that electricity is costing you slightly more than $68/year.

You're looking at spending maybe $100 or more non-recurring and nearly $70/year recurring expense. You would be doing them a much greater favor sending them a check! They could use the money directly to buy some supercomputer time that's 1000X more cost-effective (flops/$ I mean) than wasting resources on these so-called "free" small-computer clock cycles.

Distributed computing might have made some sense during the early days of the P4, but with the developments in power-reducing technology, it no longer does. Those "free" clock cycles now have real consequences, real costs, and real WASTE associated with them, regardless of the social nobility of the project. Send the organization a check. Really. They'll get FAR more from the money directly. Make your life easier by buying a nice ready-to-go Dell system that will sit there quietly, consuming only 30-40W while you're not using it.

On edit: Come to think of it, when you're not using it, put it on standby and send them a check for $120/year.

said by Somnambul33t :

the premium for the i5 over core 2 quad is negligible. also, the i7 and i5 are different sockets and will not fit in the same motherboards. the i7 uses x58 chipset while i5 uses P55. x58 is much more expensive due to some additional hardware and licensing.

i think it was anandtech that did a nice benchmark of i7-920 vs i7-870 vs i5-750. also theres another recent article directly comparing the benefit of hyperthreading. their conclusion was HT added 10-12% speed on average over intensive applications like gaming and media production.

the i5 does not have HT, HOWEVER, it does have turbo. Turbo is a new Core i feature that turns off unused CPU cores and overclocks the taxed ones to increase performance on minimallythreaded apps. the i5 is very close to the speed of the i7-860, both of which are often faster than the 920.

i think it really comes down to how serious, and how much money youre willing to spend, you are about Folding. you could add a newer graphics card to your current system and out-Fold a new i7 system without gfx card, but it wouldnt be very practical or give you the best overall computer experience.

said by Somnambul33t :

the 9800GTX+ had a die shrink which allowed for lower power consumption and high clock speeds. thats why you see the discrepancy, you werent looking at the revised 9800gtx

said by pnjunction :

Interesting, you're right it is G92-based. Still power consumption is reduced compared to the 9800gtx by 35W Link, apparently because of improvements in the board design(?). For the money I would say to make the jump to a GTX 260 but his vendor doesn't have it.

said by Somnambul33t :

i agree with the above as well but i need to call out nvidia on one thing mentioned...the GTS250 is not a newer card than the 9800GT. it is a little faster, but not by too much. GTS250 is a renamed 9800GTX+. nvidia's gone through a few naming schemas in the last few years and it only confuses people thinking they might be getting significantly faster cards

said by rfhar :

... I have had them rebuilt in the same case.

said by asdfdfdfdfdf :

"I will be running Folding at home on tis computer so do want a little speed."

It is important to understand that hyperthreading isn't like having twice the number of cores. It enhances efficient use of the core under certain circumstances but it isn't going to do anything like what one might assume based on the doubling of reported cores in the operating system. You still only have 4 cores. In fact, although there is a lot of debate about this, the official pande group stance is still that enabling hyperthreading slows the return of work units and therefore is discouraged as the science wants units returned as quickly as possible. With HT enabled more units are worked on but frame times increase significantly so each work unit takes longer. It used to be that disabling hyperthreading was suggested. The faq still suggests disabling hyperthreading on quad cores.