Advice on a folding machine

[Jaydu]

I have just recently thought of building a folding/downloading and I got a sweet deal on a Intel DX58so. but I would like to do this cheaply, so far what I have

Case: thermaltake spedo
mobo: intel dx58so
cpu: looks like a i7 920 for 150
gpus: not sure yet any ideas?
hard drive: 40g ssd agility2 already had it.
ram: this is where I am confused abit how much do I need because I was looking at kingston 3x4g t1 for 100, then I as a set of 3x2g from mushkin for 50 but i could get a used set of 3x1g for around 30 dollars
I have 300 dollars left in my budget and the chip has eating up alot of that unless I can get my hands on a cheaper chip that would do.

but My real question is what should I cheap out on ram or cpu or gpu?

[chubaka]

only started to fold end of last year but AFAIK, GPU folding is the only way to go if you want to get substantial PPD's per day without running 24/7. The other option is to get an intel 2600k for big WUs but thats out of the question considering you are sticking with 1156...

I would suggest a used gtx 460..

[3.0charlie]

It depends what you want to fold with, CPU or GPU? I'd find a used 950, and some GTX460s / GTX550s / GTX560s.
As for ram, 3x2Gb is more than enough.

[chrisk]

Yeah most energy efficient way of folding is the CPU, and more points if you can clock that i7 920 high enough (~4GHZ). Otherwise, you shoulod jump on one of the suggestions made by 3.0Charlie and fold mostly GPU, with some regular SMP folding.

Either way, good to see another folder!!!!

[frontier204]

An overclocked Core i7 920 on its own is a fairly good folding chip. With $300 and that kind of rig I'd get 3x2GB cheap RAM and perhaps a GTX 560 Ti.
I'm not sure how well 3x1GB would do if you want to fold bigadv units, but if it's just regular SMP, 3GB would be fine.

I wouldn't recommend lower than a GTX 550 Ti for Folding because low-end GPUs will rob some CPU performance from you and will not be worth their power consumption. Note if you can net a really cheap GPU which consumes very little power (<10W), you could just get components to OC your CPU as high as it can go and not fold on the GPU. I kinda do that with my home server which has no graphics at all and is accessible through SSH only.

[Jaydu]

Thanks so much for your input and keep it coming, I will grab the 3x2g kit from muskin for 50 dollars I do have one GTX460 cyclone I could use. that now leaves me with 250 left for the cpu and one GTX460

I have never sli anything in my life so what I would think is a truly newbie question do the cards need to be the same brand and everything or will another GTX460 1g ddr5 card work in sli with my msi cyclone?

[supaflyx3]

Don't SLI them, use them individually. And if you can OC them high enough, you can expected 11-13,000 PPD depending on the WU.

But to answer your sli question, any brand will work, but if you buy a lower clocked one, your current card will downclock it self to the other cards speeds if running in SLI, and vice versa.

[Jaydu]

so would I be better off in just using one gtx460 and getting a i7 950 or using two gtx460 but not in sli which means just don't bridge them I'm guessing.

[_dangtx_]

the gpu client can take as much as 10-20 percent off the cpu.

[supaflyx3]

Originally Posted by Jaydu

so would I be better off in just using one gtx460 and getting a i7 950 or using two gtx460 but not in sli which means just don't bridge them I'm guessing.

correct, and not enabling SLI in the drivers.