Folding@Home is totally depends on raw clockspeed, the more Ghz, the faster it folds. SSE and SSE2 also affected the folding time, but I think now most of the CPU has both. But to some point base on experience, arj's 2.7Ghz Opty's beat my P4 3.8Ghz with the same protein!

Relatively, it's hard to benchmark with a total different specs, plus u gotta fold the same protein, class gen etc etc. And again, to some point, Tinker folds faster on AMD, because AMD has a better FPU than Intels. Whereas, QMD only folds on Intels due to compiler restriction, and more point given for the massive RAM usage when folding a QMD.

Well, I don't really know the requirement needed to setup a hardcore Folding@Home crunching machine, and I'm sort of noob with these technical specs that helps it to calculate faster (multiplier, fsb and etc). Anyway, nowadays, I'm more into low power consumptions machine as I have many rigs at home, and it's now becoming a pain in the arse just to pay the bills. And for that, I'm eyeing for a Yonah or Conroe (Preschot is a electricity hogging beast). Why don't you head to folding forum (at folding-community.org), they discuss alot about computing power and stuffs. And I'm sure some sifus are able to answer you.

P/s: Perhaps, should move this to Folding@Malaysia forum, so that we can create a database or something. Or share some thoughts on building the most leet folding beast. By the way, I think in HenryLow's thread there's a database made by him, with a few CPUs (Xeons, P4, Dual-P3 etc etc). Just check that out!

This post has been edited by c9: Jul 24 2006, 02:28 PM

Well, I have like 5PCs currently at home. Every single PC folding 24/7, 2X Preschot, 1xAMD, 1xNorthwood and 1xAMDX2.

And soon to come, a Yonah or a Conroe system.

Is that what we call a waste? I have 2 more P3s collecting dust, and used to run 8PCs before. Haha!

This post has been edited by c9: Jul 24 2006, 06:34 PM

Well, GPU doesn't affect much on Folding@Home, unless client for GPU is out. But then, how it gonna perform (though, some has tested the BETA client, and it's like triple faster than current P4. And that was on a X800 or sumting if I'm not mistaken) or is it able to run in Xfire, the stability, we are not really sure..

Still, they're in the process of making a GPU folding client. The developer team at Stanford only consider what really IN and decide based on majority, when the demand is there, definitely there will a client for it. And I'd suggest you, get a Conroe and single XTX is enough already. All and all, it is still CPU that really makes the difference..

For me, I'd consider what the best for Folding@Home, my daily use and of course budget wise too.

This post has been edited by c9: Jul 27 2006, 03:45 PM

You need to sort of register with Stanford to be a BETA tester.

x64 client? I don't there's one now. As far as I'm concerned, client released was based on their benchmark rig, which is P4 2.8Ghz. And I think they haven't update their CPU ID just yet, where PM Dothan is detected as P3 and AMD64 as normal K7. But then, in the near future there will be a 64bit client to go with Vista and stuffs and as everything is now moving forward to 64Bit.

The latest client released for general use is the 5.04. In addition to what uzairi has pointed out, with CPU the only one stressing and do the calculation, you'll have a lower power consumption where you GPU will be idle most of the time, thus lower power consumption.

Fast enough? For games YES, but not for F@H because there's no client that can utilize F@H for that hardwares at the moment. So I don't see why that kind of hardware would make your folding folds faster. Let's just wait for the client, or perhaps you can make a proposal to the developer team at Stanford, I'm sure they'll look into that. And again, they need demand, if the demand is low there's no point on building a client for that particular hardware.

YES Conroe can't easily get to 5Ghz, but have you seen how fast it folds? Well, it have been a long time since I checked the folding community forum, I think I should now. Anyway, I think Conroe folds real fast. Oh and I'm in the process of getting a Conroe, that should be around this weekend or next week.

This post has been edited by c9: Jul 27 2006, 08:58 PM

I think they're already on the final stage of the client, let's just wait for the release..