My new hardware dilemma

[DrPop]

I've been busy with the practice and life here, so haven't had much time to post; I am still here though. And now I have a major hardware dilemma - please give me some insight and help me choose the way . . . may the force be with us!

It is no secret our RAC recently took a huge hit. It's also no secret that I no longer have any crunching goals of my own per se - except that of increaseing SETI.USA's standings.
This is turning out to be an expen$ive month in the way of crunching hardware for me. Not complaining, just explaining. A member that I highly regard here had his rig crap out, so I sent him my 3rd set of AMD AM3 mobo, X6 CPU, and RAM. All good there, it is now crunching for the team at his place! Then, I just got a call from my Bro last night...let's say his wife was a little "unhappy" with us...I guess we crunched his rig a little too hard, LOL ... his mobo fried and took at least the PSU out with it, and I don't know what else yet. Very lame. That was a rig that I helped him build and have been maintaining in return for him crunching it for us.

So, as I box up yet another AM3 mobo, high end PSU, and CPU set, this got me to thinking...
Should I go ahead and make a second rig again (either Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge based), or should I just build up BikerMatt's 4 PCI-e mobo w/ the X6 CPU as my only rig for now, and spend the ca$h on some new high end GPUs? The latter option will surely get us a lot more points per day.
It would be more sexy to have 2 rigs again - heck, I've had as many as 4 at one time, and an Ivy Bridge based rig would be sweet. Thing is, I can't get this out of my head now: for the same $500 that mobo & CPU will cost me, I could get one heck of an upgrade in GPU power for the rig I'm going to run off BikerMatt's mobo. It's got the PCI-e x16 slots, I've the PSU to do it, - and I've got it in that giant case, so it has the space as well.
Not to mention if I sell off all the extra stuff I've got laying around that would be going into that 2nd rig - that could push my GPU upgrade budget to $750 or $800 even. Now that would be some killer points per day if I wait for a new Keppler. Quite a bit more than the nice Ivy Bridge rig w/ a cheap GPU anyway, even though that is very tempting "just because".
Ah, decisions...help me out, guys, I'm "in the straits" here.
Pops

[Fire$torm]

How long would it take for a newer (i.e. more energy efficient) Intel setup to pay for itself compared to BikerMatt's hardware?

If it would take more then 9~12 months then go with what you have and invest in more GPU power.

My 2%

[Beerdrinker]

+1 for F$ suggestion.


GPU´s is the way to go. It will boost credits fast - and that is what it is all about now. We are getting canned on the overall standings. Like it or not. A GPU will do more to that score than everything else (almost)

[DrPop]

Yeah, I have to agree with you both there. Sure, the AMD X6 cost more to run, but it would take a long time to make up the difference in the power bill for a new mobo and cpu. Plus, it would only give us a couple thousand more credits per day for the team. I'm thinking if I just take the money and invest in the newer GPUs when they come out - that will get us a nice chunk of credits.

[John P. Myers]

I think you might actually enjoy playing with a nice high-end GPU more than having another rig I mean...think of the bragging rights that comes with it

And as for waiting, it's a very short wait. The Kepler's are due to be released tomorrow, possibly tonight if they decide to use UTC clocks. Only concern is some retailers may try to take advantage and jack the price up a little because they know demand will be very high, but if you see one for $519 or less, i'd probably go ahead and grab it. You can always ebay it the day you get it for a nice profit, since everyone will be sold out by then.

After thinking about it a little more, if you were to build a new system, go with Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is only 3% - 7% faster, and sure, IB uses a tad less juice, but it's not enough to matter really. On the extreme end, switching from an i7-2700K to an i7-3770K would save you 1 kW/h off your electric bill every 2 days 7 hours 36 minutes. How much is that? $0.10 to $0.12? Bleh. The price drop of Sandy Bridge's CPUs and motherboards upon Ivy Bridge's release (April 8th, last i heard) will easily cover that and then some.

BTW: Use more Gigabyte boards = less frying

[John P. Myers]

Ding! Here you go http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...+680&x=24&y=14

EDIT: well that didn't last long. However, i was able to grab an image of one and confirm some specs which i posted here.

[DrPop]

Alright, I think I will go with just the one rig and get some whopping GPU power in it. That means I need to Ebay some stuff and come up with some money for the new GPU(s).

@JPM - how much do you think the top of the line Keppler will be when it comes out? Do you think AMD has anything else up their sleeve to compete or is the 7970one it? I was kind of hoping to see a dual GPU board based on the new series before I pull the trigger, but wonder how long we'll have to wait?

[John P. Myers]

AMD does plan to release a 7990, but dunno when. Price is expected to be around $800 though, and that's just for a the standard version. Also, power draw is expected to be in the 375W to 400W range, which is a bit nuts imo. As much as ppl complained about the power draw of the GTX 590, it was only at 365W.

Nvidia will also have a dual GPU 600 series card. No idea if it will be the 690 or 695 though. Depends what they do with this other Kepler chip, though it's looking like it'll be used for a 700 series. If so, then the 690 should be 2 GK104s, draw maybe 325W, and be priced at $700. No word on when that may be available either.

EDIT: i believe AMD is up to something though and i wouldn't be surprised if they release the 7990 within a week of the 680's release, just to keep their "most powerful GPU" crown. It's rumored a 690 won't be released until may.

[DrPop]

Ah, thanks for that. I appreciate the inside scoop. Well, time for me to start getting my act together and figuring out what I can part with so I can score us one of these puppies for the Hydra.
PS - if you get wind of any more scuttlebutt in the next few weeks, please let me know!

[Mike029]

I agree that fulling up on box with high end gpu's is the way to go. The one thing that caught my eye on the GTX680 was this line.

"The core clock of all cards was stated as being 1006 MHz/2012 MHz Shader as expected and all contained 1536 cores. Also confirmed was 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at an effective clock speed of 6008 MHz."


That is amazing! 1536 Cuda cores for $500.00 seems to be the way to go. Bang-for-the-buck.