What Hardware Should I Buy? - Sept 2009

Folding Rig

Since we've recently educated you all in what makes the perfect folding farm, we've folded James's arm and got the in-house guru's help to spec this month's dedicated folding rig.

It's not the GeForce GTX 295 ppd behemoth that some of you have, we admit, but its price-for-ppd output is excellent and perfect for either getting started or adding to a farm that needs to grow.

Starting off with MSI's multi-PCI-Express-slotted K9A2 Platinum and throwing in a cheap and cheerful Athlon II X2 200 series CPU saves a bundle of money and power. Add in 4GB of DDR2-800 and that's plenty to keep it all going while the four GPUs take the strain.

However, this folder's dream of a motherboard looks like it's gradually going end of life, so if you do want to build a PC just for folding, snap it up quick before it's gone. While the Cooler Master Scout has tonnes of fan placements and handles to help you move it about, we're going to cheap-out a little this month and suggest the Antec Three Hundred as the case. You'll still need to add a few fans to keep the four GPUs happy though.


UK Price: MSI K9A2 Platinum
UK Price | US Price: MSI 790FX-GD70

As mentioned above the table, the MSI K9A2 Platinum is on its way out. There still seems to be stock in the UK, but our friends over the pond have had it whisked away from under them. Perhaps it'll return, perhaps not, but in the mean time there is an alternative. MSI's 790FX-GD70 is a great board, and has those all-important four 16x PIC-E slots to house four graphics cards. It's a bit more money than the K9A2 Platinum, but there's more quality to the design and construction too.

UK Price | US Price: AMD Athlon X2 240
UK Price: 4GB (2x2GB) 800MHz DDR2 CL5
UK Price | US Price: 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1,333MHz DDR3 CL8

We've used a cheap dual-core Athlon II X2 240 to give the system enough processing power to keep the graphics cards loaded with work units while also keeping the system price down. If you're lucky enough to grab a K9A2 Platinum, you can use DDR2 memory, if not, you might have to fork out a little extra for the DDR3 required on the 790FX-GD70.

UK Price | US Price: 4 x GeForce GTS 250

Now for the core of your farm: Nvidia GPUs. Previously the GeForce 9600 GSO GDDR3 was the king of ppd output per pound, with its 96 shaders and GDDR3 memory, all for very little money.

Finding a 9800 GSO is nigh-on impossible now though, so we've had to move up to GeForce GTS 250 cards. These have shifted down in price though, so grabbing four isn't as eye-watering as it might sound. Each cards costs £78 in the UK and $110 in the US. As you can see from the folding graphs, a GTS 250 can churn out the ppd.

UK Price | US Price: Seasonic M12D 750W PSU

To power four graphics cards, you're going to need a weighty and reliable PSU - we've chosen a 750W Seasonic M12D. While this might be the most expensive single component on the list, you need a quality PSU to power four hungry GPUs that are going to be under 100 per cent load 24/7. Any power flake-out will cost you ppd. The M12D has plenty of PCI-E power connectors too, which also a factor to consider when installing so many graphics cards.

UK Price: Akasa AK-876
US Price: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro

The Akasa AK-876 is certainly able to cool the Athlon II X2, especially as we won't need to overclock this CPU for a folding rig. Furthermore, the Akasa cooler isn't so big that it impedes the use of memory slots either. For our US readers who aren't able to buy Akasa products, there's the similar Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 which does pretty much the same job. Finally, there's the case and hard disk to consider.

UK Price | US Price: Seagate 7200.12 250GB SATA Hard Disk

Any old hard disk will do really, so we've gone for the cheapest 250GB model we could find which is actually luckily a single platter Seagate 7200.12 that keeps down the power consumption and excess heat ever so slightly more.

UK Price | US Price: Antec Three Hundred (add two 120mm fans, listed above)

You need to show a little more care with your case choice though, as you'll need good airflow and cooling. The Antec Three Hundred is great for this, but you need to add at least two 120mm fans to beef up the basic cooling that comes as standard. We'd also recommend adding a couple of Scythe Gentle Typhoon D1225 C12B4AP-14 1,450rpm 120mm fans.

We tested these in Issue 73 of Custom PC and found them shift loads of air for not too much noise. They cost £11.73 each. If you can't wait for Quiet PC to get its stock in, the Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 shifts almost as much air but is far quieter, and is in stock at Scan for only £9.17 each.

That's all for this month. As always, your feedback in the comments is very much appreciated!