DrPop
03-21-12, 12:29 PM
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$ive month in the way of crunching hardware for me. Not complaining, just explaining. ;) A member that I highly regard here had his rig crap out, so I sent him my 3rd set of AMD AM3 mobo, X6 CPU, and RAM. All good there, it is now crunching for the team at his place! Then, I just got a call from my Bro last night...let's say his wife was a little "unhappy" with us...I guess we crunched his rig a little too hard, LOL :p ... his mobo fried and took at least the PSU out with it, and I don't know what else yet. Very lame. That was a rig that I helped him build and have been maintaining in return for him crunching it for us.
So, as I box up yet another AM3 mobo, high end PSU, and CPU set, this got me to thinking...
Should I go ahead and make a second rig again (either Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge based), or should I just build up BikerMatt's 4 PCI-e mobo w/ the X6 CPU as my only rig for now, and spend the ca$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 $800 even. Now that would be some killer points per day if I wait for a new Keppler. Quite a bit more than the nice Ivy Bridge rig w/ a cheap GPU anyway, even though that is very tempting "just because".
Ah, decisions...help me out, guys, I'm "in the straits" here.
Pops
It is no secret our RAC recently took a huge hit. It's also no secret that I no longer have any crunching goals of my own per se - except that of increaseing SETI.USA's standings.
This is turning out to be an expen$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 :p ... 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