F@H rig

[UpTheDons]

Just started folding and really getting into the whole idea. My main question would be- if i got really serious about it and wanted to build a dedicated rig just for folding what would that look like? I guess what im saying is i wouldn't want a massive all out mining pc with loads of GPUs and stuff like that but more of a smaller scale build which would allow me to do a lot at a time but not spend vast amounts of money. I've heard relativity low end cpus and a few higher end gpus would work well for this sort of thing. the electric bill would not worry me as i have other ways of covering the cost for it but i was wondering what this would look like. thanks for any input. 

(im also quite new to all this so sorry if there are gaps in my knowledge) 

[dizmo]

IIRC the Vega56 is your best value card.

[UpTheDons]

24 minutes ago, dizmo said:

IIRC the Vega56 is your best value card.

i've heard dual  2060 supers is quite good value for this? what cpu would you pair it with?

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, Ed-petit said:

i've heard dual  2060 supers is quite good value for this? what cpu would you pair it with?

They're considerably more expensive. Depends how much you want to invest in it.

[UpTheDons]

32 minutes ago, dizmo said:

They're considerably more expensive. Depends how much you want to invest in it.

i would probably invest around 1000 pounds in it as i think i could pull off a charity based fundraiser sort of thing to make it worth the while. I was thinking a 3600 which is 140 pounds here and a 2070 super, paired with a mobo with sli support. which would take me to something like 1.1k

[chaozbandit]

Unless youre set on tying up cash in a second card that gets little use, a single more powerful card may be the way to go. Though two of a less powerful card may sometimes yield higher ppd at the expense of higher power draw, at roughly the same price if you can score a deal.

 

[dizmo]

28 minutes ago, Ed-petit said:

i would probably invest around 1000 pounds in it as i think i could pull off a charity based fundraiser sort of thing to make it worth the while. I was thinking a 3600 which is 140 pounds here and a 2070 super, paired with a mobo with sli support. which would take me to something like 1.1k

That's massively overkill. Unless you plan on using the CPU to fold as well, but IIRC you get next to nothing for it.
You don't need SLI or CF support, the cards don't operate that way for folding.
If you want an idea of which cards would be best to get, you can use this as a rough baseline:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1vcVoSVtamcoGj5sFfvKF_XlvuviWWveJIg_iZ8U2bf0/pub?output=html

 

As you can see, the Vega56 gets ~950k, whereas the 2070S gets ~1.3m.

Higher, yes, but you can buy 2 Vega56 cards easily for the same prices as a 2070S.

[UpTheDons]

11 minutes ago, dizmo said:

That's massively overkill. Unless you plan on using the CPU to fold as well, but IIRC you get next to nothing for it.
You don't need SLI or CF support, the cards don't operate that way for folding.
If you want an idea of which cards would be best to get, you can use this as a rough baseline:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1vcVoSVtamcoGj5sFfvKF_XlvuviWWveJIg_iZ8U2bf0/pub?output=html

 

As you can see, the Vega56 gets ~950k, whereas the 2070S gets ~1.3m.

Higher, yes, but you can buy 2 Vega56 cards easily for the same prices as a 2070S.

ah ok that makes alot more sense. Thanks for explaining it. what cpu would you suggest?

[marknd59]

16 hours ago, Ed-petit said:

i would probably invest around 1000 pounds in it as i think i could pull off a charity based fundraiser sort of thing to make it worth the while. I was thinking a 3600 which is 140 pounds here and a 2070 super, paired with a mobo with sli support. which would take me to something like 1.1k

For a £1000.00 system get 2 X RTX2060's they will cost you around £600 and give you around 2.2M PPD.

 

My Folding system is around that price point -

 

Ryzen 7 2700X stock Wraith Prism cooler
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4) DDR4-2400
250GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2  NVMe
2 x EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SC ULTRA GAMING 6GB
Corsair 750W TX750M 80Plus Gold
GameMax F15M Mesh

 

 

[UpTheDons]

5 minutes ago, marknd59 said:

For a £1000.00 system get 2 X RTX2060's they will cost you around £600 and give you around 2.2M PPD.

 

My Folding system is around that price point -

 

Ryzen 7 2700X stock Wraith Prism cooler
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4) DDR4-2400
250GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2  NVMe
2 x EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SC ULTRA GAMING 6GB
Corsair 750W TX750M 80Plus Gold
GameMax F15M Mesh

 

 

thanks! this is pretty much what i was thinking.

[UpTheDons]

5 hours ago, marknd59 said:

For a £1000.00 system get 2 X RTX2060's they will cost you around £600 and give you around 2.2M PPD.

 

My Folding system is around that price point -

 

Ryzen 7 2700X stock Wraith Prism cooler
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4) DDR4-2400
250GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2  NVMe
2 x EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SC ULTRA GAMING 6GB
Corsair 750W TX750M 80Plus Gold
GameMax F15M Mesh

 

 

what would you say for 2k? is it worth going for a 3900x and a 2080 super or a 3700x and a 2080ti? 

[dizmo]

21 hours ago, Ed-petit said:

ah ok that makes alot more sense. Thanks for explaining it. what cpu would you suggest?

Pretty much anything works. Something like the 3100/3300x would work if you're looking at new CPUs.

Don't bother buying GPUs right now. Wait for next gen if you're buying new.

[marknd59]

59 minutes ago, Ed-petit said:

what would you say for 2k? is it worth going for a 3900x and a 2080 super or a 3700x and a 2080ti? 

If this system is just going to be for folding put as much of your money into GPU power as you can. It's not really worth it to fold with CPU so you can cheap out on the CPU and put the savings into GPU. And don't forget you may be better off with 2 lower price GPUs thn 1 higher price.

 

Edited to add-

 

and don't forget about power usage if you are running 24/7  power costs add up quick.

 

[UpTheDons]

11 minutes ago, marknd59 said:

If this system is just going to be for folding put as much of your money into GPU power as you can. It's not really worth it to fold with CPU so you can cheap out on the CPU and put the savings into GPU. And don't forget you may be better off with 2 lower price GPUs thn 1 higher price.

 

Edited to add-

 

and don't forget about power usage if you are running 24/7  power costs add up quick.

 

so i have got a place to run it were power consumption is not a worry (its free power) and what im thinking is dual 2070 supers and something along the lines of a 3330x or a 3600 (the 3600 is 130 here so actually its pretty much the same price) I am also considering a single 2080ti tho as i think it would be better value for money. everything else would be pretty much standard (good psu- around 150, 8gb of ram and a small ssd-around 40) In terms of case and cooling i think imma go for a meshify c with 4 or 5 fans to keep it cool. 

[UpTheDons]

45 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Pretty much anything works. Something like the 3100/3300x would work if you're looking at new CPUs.

Don't bother buying GPUs right now. Wait for next gen if you're buying new.

Thats my plan if i wait. Just assuming if i wanted to build now. Most likely gonna build past next gen if i do.

[marknd59]

6 minutes ago, Ed-petit said:

so i have got a place to run it were power consumption is not a worry (its free power) and what im thinking is dual 2070 supers and something along the lines of a 3330x or a 3600 (the 3600 is 130 here so actually its pretty much the same price) I am also considering a single 2080ti tho as i think it would be better value for money. everything else would be pretty much standard (good psu- around 150, 8gb of ram and a small ssd-around 40) In terms of case and cooling i think imma go for a meshify c with 4 or 5 fans to keep it cool. 

2x 2070 supers will give you about 3.2M PPD with a power draw of around 430 watts . 1x 2080Ti will get you about 3.5M PPD with a power draw of 250watts. If the budget allows it I'd get 1 2080 Ti. Your only looking at a cost difference of around £150 for the 2080 Ti

[UpTheDons]

5 minutes ago, marknd59 said:

2x 2070 supers will give you about 3.2M PPD with a power draw of around 430 watts . 1x 2080Ti will get you about 3.5M PPD with a power draw of 250watts. If the budget allows it I'd get 1 2080 Ti. Your only looking at a cost difference of around £150 for the 2080 Ti

i think if i can a 2080ti is the way to go.I should have enough for it and its worth the extra 150 plus i wont have to deal with two gpus.

[UpTheDons]

2 hours ago, marknd59 said:

2x 2070 supers will give you about 3.2M PPD with a power draw of around 430 watts . 1x 2080Ti will get you about 3.5M PPD with a power draw of 250watts. If the budget allows it I'd get 1 2080 Ti. Your only looking at a cost difference of around £150 for the 2080 Ti

could you run two separate GPUs? 

[RollinLower]

On 7/3/2020 at 10:06 PM, Ed-petit said:

could you run two separate GPUs? 

you can mix an match pretty much every GPU that's supported for F@H into the same machine. my server runs a 2080Ti and a 750Ti for example.

you could also mix Nvidia and AMD cards, tough i'd recommend sticking with Nvidia for now for F@H.

[UpTheDons]

8 hours ago, RollinLower said:

you can mix an match pretty much every GPU that's supported for F@H into the same machine. my server runs a 2080Ti and a 750Ti for example.

you could also mix Nvidia and AMD cards, tough i'd recommend sticking with Nvidia for now for F@H.

Thanks! this helps as now i can be bit more flexible with choice.

[rkv_2401]

If you’re going to be only running Folding@home, and only GPU folding, then a R3 3300x would work just fine. However, since you can get a 3600 for such a low price, why not just go for that? It makes the machine much more well rounded. And an O/Ced 3600 can get you as much as ~150k PPD running Folding projects that aren’t efficient to run on the GPU(yes, there’s a reason they send those CPU WUs out). You mentioned that electricity is free anyway. 
 

Also, down the road, if you decide to throw some cores at any BOINC project(Rosetta@home also does protein simulations, World Community Grid has a bunch of community projects, etc.) you’d be in a much better position with a 3600. 

[UpTheDons]

So decided that im gonna go forward with something along these lines. From what i have gauged in my budget i can fit this

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/zyLnDx

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£149.65 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (£72.97 @ CCL Computers) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£179.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2400 CL16 Memory  (£32.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£27.62 @ MyMemory) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB WINDFORCE Video Card  (£1062.95 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case  (£89.99 @ Currys PC World) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£104.97 @ Laptops Direct) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Case Fan: be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan  (£19.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £1860.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-10 12:16 BST+0100

 

2080 ti is the best price to performance here in the UK and lowers the power consumption. I was going for the 3300x but decided that £30 more for the 3600 was a no brainier as i still have alot of headroom on this build (around £80 ) One thing that im struggling with is the case. I will most likely add another GPU when new releases come (cant afford to get 2 3080 tis for example so buying one now and one then) so need a decent sized case- this is where i need advice. I have just gone with the meshify c as its a decent airflow option and is really good value here too. I think the Lian Li 011 air is a good option as it has room and good airflow (according the Gamers nexus) but wondering if it has any other real gain over the meshify.  max budget is £1950. Would Over clocking the 3600 be worth it? Just wondering about what @rkv_2401 said. 

[UpTheDons]

On 7/2/2020 at 7:03 PM, dizmo said:

 

 

On 7/5/2020 at 11:46 AM, RollinLower said:

 

bump

[rkv_2401]

So I got my current build to run BOINC and Folding@home. Overclocking it would increase performance, but the voltage scales pretty drastically with clocks above 3.6-3.7Ghz and because of that the power consumption + thermals go a lot higher for not a whole lot of performance. I run mine at 3.7Ghz on all cores, with an undervolt. Some forum users have mentioned that they keep theirs running at 4.2-4.35Ghz(you can go check the Folding Community board, we were speaking about it recently) and that seems to boost their PPDs drastically. Newer chips seemingly tend to overclock better than older ones, as the silicon quality improves over time. With your cooler and motherboard, overclocking would definitely be worth it. PBO + AutoOC works well for a variety of different situations, but if you're only running one task(Folding, BOINC or whatever it may be), I feel that it'd be better to manually overclock and keep a 'static' core clock and voltage.

 

If you have a lot of headroom, maybe getting 2 sticks of RAM would be helpful as well. I've heard that running dual-channel helps with CPU work units, and it definitely would with BOINC. Can't hurt, particularly if you're going to get top end graphics cards to support the cause.