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Tommyn1979

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  1. Thank you for your comments Gorgon, most of that is quite helpful. You make a good point re: heat. Perhaps a closet is not the best place.. lol Unfortunately if I buy a proper NAS enclosure like the synology I won't have enough budget left for a folding rig, that was why I was thinking of combining the two together. Perhaps I'll just forget about the NAS for now, I don't really need one, I just thought it'd be good to get the 4 HDD's out of my daily driver case.
  2. Just found this: https://forums.evga.com/HARDWARE-GUIDE-Folding-at-Home-what-hardware-should-I-get-m2927907.aspx excellent guide for anyone thinking of building a folding rig. Basically GPU power is way more important than CPU; core count or speed. From what I've gathered hunting the internets, the best thing to do is go with a 4 core cpu minimum, something like a i3, i5 or i7. extra cores won't net much more PPD, and as many GPU's you can afford in the case on your MB. They don't even want to be in SLi, F@H assigns one WU to each card anyway. RAM quantity doesn't seem to matter. 16GB is more than sufficient. In addition F@H is designed for use with consumer grade GPU's, so a GTX is better than a Quadro. Here's a useful GPU comparison based on F@H PPD: https://www.overclock.net/forum/55-overclock-net-folding-home-team/475163-gpu-projects-ppd-database.html This changes my plans... Thinking of something along the lines of a seriously cheap used i5 rig with a couple of used GTX1080's. Should be able to get that within budget - just..
  3. So, I'm a carpenter, movie buff and casual armchair gamer. I'm not into sitting at a desk, using a kb and mouse to competitively game. I use a controller.. As a result my rig is more of a media centre than anything else. I hate the inevitable mess of cables and boxes everywhere, so I thought I'd build myself a little something. See the photos! It's still a work in progress. The plywood tops will be replaced by oak when I get some more, the PC drawer (yes, I said drawer!) will have a tempered glass panel on the side (hence the hole that's there atm), the AV receiver will have speaker mesh covering it as soon as I find some that matches my speakers, and the existing speaker mesh needs a clean.. Features: Solid oak construction, this one is made entirely out of off-cuts from my workshop and an old ATX case I I pulled out of skip and butchered for the MB mounting. The left cupboard is a drawer! housing the PC, making it easy pull out for maintenance and cleaning etc.. This area has a though-flow air flow system, pulling air up from floor level and ejecting it out of the back of the case. The centre shelf is obviously for my fantastic Denon AVR receiver, with two 40mm fan at the rear, pulling cool air over the receiver. The bit below is actually a magnetically held removable panel covering up the cable management area. The right side cupboard houses my sub-woofer and router. This cupboard has no base, so the down-firing sub can still work properly. (Amazingly it seems to amplify the sub somehow!) The monitor is held in place by a single-pole vesa mount from behind the centre speaker. All of the hinges and drawer runners are soft close! I'll upload some more photos as I complete it. I take commissions, so if anyone wants a similar or more bespoke cabinet, with or without a PC pre-installed, feel free to contact me. I live and work in the UK, so bear that in mind re: shipping.. www.indigenousoak.com For anyone interested in the specs of everything: MSI MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON Intel Motherboard Intel Core i9 9900KF 3.6GHz 8 Core CPU Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x 16GB) 3200MHz DDR4 Noctua NH-D15 Dual Radiator Quiet CPU Cooler MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER GAMING X TRIO 8GB BeQuiet Straight Power 700W PSU Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2-2280 NVMe PCIe SSD 3TB of HDD storage across various drives A heap of Corsairs' mag-lev fans Logitech K800 and performance MX wireless keyboard and mouse. Acer EB490QK 48.5" 4K HDR IPS monitor Denon AVR-X2500H AV receiver - I cannot recommend this enough if you're looking to buy an AV receiver.. Mission M3C2 centre speaker Mordaunt-Short MS906 main floor standing speakers Scott rear speakers (they're bolted in place so I can't check model no. Jamo Sub210 subwoofer A comfy sofa and a wireless xbox 360 controller..
  4. I have an Acer EB490QK monitor. It's a 48.5" 4K HDR LED-backlit IPS monitor that is seriously affordable. I paid a measly £500 ($600) for it new. Apart from the minor issue of some manufacturing corner-cutting ( small amounts of backlight leak through along the bottom edge that is only visible when that area of the screen is black), it is a fantastic screen for the money. The HDR is fantastic, despite being unlisted and unverified, but I've tested it and think it comes in somewhere around the HDR1000 spec - it looks beautiful anyway. I don't actually think you could get a better large format 4K HDR monitor for the price. Btw I also use the 43" version in my office and I think they also do a 55" version. Obviously it depends on what you are using it for, but monitors are better than TV's mainly for response rate. Not many TV's have a response rate below 7-8ms, whereas monitors tend to be in the 1-2ms range, meaning snappier response on-screen and less lag. Also they tend not to be crammed full of useless extra crap that TV manufacturers feel they need to include so they can claim it's got 'lots of features'... I used to use a TV as my monitor, but since moving back to a proper monitor, I'm not using a TV again.. I realise that's got nothing to do with the original post, so here's my response to that: I actually find gaming on a larger screen results in less eye strain as you actually have to move you head around to take everything in properly, meaning you're actually using your muscles. The whole 'bad for your eyes' thing from years ago was from the days of CRT TV's where the screens used to leak electrons around the screen, which could cause damage to any organic matter that's close for a seriously extended period of time. LCD's do not have this problem, so sit as close as you want!
  5. So you think something like this might do the job? https://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/hp-proliant-dl165-g7-4x-3-5-lff-configure-to-order?c_b=13203 I just threw this together whilst eating breakfast so I appreciate it might require some refinement. It does give me 32 cores for folding work, and leaves about £250 of budget for a GPU, which is not too shabby.
  6. I'm not expecting to have a small supercomputer in my closet, I was just thinking it'd be nice to have a server/NAS that could do something else when I'm not using it. Thank you very much for your assistance, that video is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. I've watched a lot of LTT videos but that one escaped me.. Also your comments have been very useful. cheers!
  7. I was thinking of spending up to £500ish total (approx $600US). I may buy mostly used parts though, so the money goes further.
  8. Hello everybody! I started a new topic for this since I think the info we glean might be useful for anyone else in a similar boat. I am currently running folding@home on a spare gaming pc that I was, prior to the pandemic, planning on selling. I've now reached 1/2 million points and would like to continue folding for the foreseeable future, even once the pandemic is over. I have now begun to contemplate the idea of having a server-style rig that I could put in a closet somewhere that could double both as a folding rig and NAS. I don't really have need for a server but It seems like a good way to have a folding rig that is also useful to me. As a result I have some questions that need answering in order to decide how to go ahead with the plan: 1. CPU: What is more important for folding, cpu speed or core count? 2. Server MB or any old MB? Does it make any difference? 3. Does RAM quantity have any effect on folding? 4. What's the best remote-access software that could be used to access the server from my daily driver PC? atm I'm using TeamViewer, but I have to acquire a password from the server first, meaning I need a monitor connected to the server, rendering the whole point of remote access pointless. 5. Comment on GPU's for the community if you wish, but the GPU I get will be purely a matter of leftover budget after the essentials. If anyone would like to suggest a budget setup that would happily fold at a decent rate, please do!
  9. Circeseye That's what I'm thinking is the best idea atm. I was mainly wondering if there was a better way that didn't waste gpu power on running a non existent second display.
  10. Actually, I've just realised, my receiver doesn't have RCA connections for surround sound, it's designed to work with HDMI unless you're only using stereo. This brings me back to finding a way to use hdmi as the sound source. I'm not keen on the idea of using optical, as Derkoli says, it's compressed and loses quality.
  11. Thank you @Derkoli, that's useful answer. I haven't bought a soundcard for many years, are there any currently available that you recommend?
  12. Thanks for your replies guys. TempestCatto my mobo doesn't have a TOSlink output Homeap5 the classic minijack to rca solution doesn't get me the HD audio standards on pass-through direct to my amp and results in audio quality degredation since the pc is doing the decoding and doesn't do it as well as the AVR. I'm something of an audiophile and like getting dolby true-HD or DTS master HD etc. direct to my amp rather than decoded to individual signals by the computer.
  13. I'm not sure whether to put this topic in audio, display or graphics cards, so I've put it here. Admins feel free to move it if you know! I currently have my 1080p TV plugged into my msi GTX970 via a Denon AVR-x2500h AV receiver using HDMI. This gets me fantastic HD audio. I want to change my TV to a 4K gaming monitor and use Displayport. Unfortunately this means the signal can't go via my AVR and as such I need to find another way of getting HD audio to the AVR via HDMI. Anyone got any bright ideas of how to do this? I am considering upgrading the graphics card to a RTX2080 if it helps. The only idea I've had so far is to plug an HDMI cable into the second monitor output of my graphics card and set nvidia to clone displays. Obviously this results in the GPU doing more work and I believe results in refresh rate issues since both outputs have to have the same resolution (my AVR only supports 60Hz at 4K). Anyone got a better idea?
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