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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Community
Forum: Hardware Chat Room
Thread: Build a monster PC or buy several cheap pc's for crunching? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 40
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I recently built a PC with ryzen 3700x. Im on a Cancer Markers high... Now I want to do more. Would I be better served to build another high end with say a threadripper, or go to Costco and buy a few pcs with decent processors?
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Bearcat
Master Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 6, 2007 Post Count: 2803 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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More computers mean more to monitor. Its nice to have a couple though. Especially a monster cruncher. Build is always better. The cheap crap you can buy doesn't last very long running 24/7. Build it if you can.
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Crunching for humanity since 2007!
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KerSamson
Master Cruncher Switzerland Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Post Count: 1664 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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If you build yourself the machine, I can recommend following configuration:
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You can consider to use Ubuntu Server 18.04, if you prefer a headless configuration. In this case, you can manage and monitor your machines using BoincTasks. In all cases, such a configuration is much cheaper (price/performance) than a Threadripper based config. Cheers, Yves |
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thunder7
Senior Cruncher Netherlands Joined: Mar 6, 2013 Post Count: 217 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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My alternative would be a pair of V3/V4 engineering sample xeons from ebay. A high number of threads is what you want. I think my 80-thread dual V4 xeon was built for less than $2000.
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OldChap
Veteran Cruncher UK Joined: Jun 5, 2009 Post Count: 978 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Once upon a time I moved from 4c/8t to a 16c/32t dual cpu set up using ES cpu's and all watercooled for a bit over £2000
----------------------------------------Keeping track was so much easier on the bigger rig and the theory was I was only buying 1 case, 1 psu etc. It turned out to be cheaper to run too and still running 9 years later. These days it is more costly than more modern rigs when calculating ppd Based on the premise that the latest top of the line 2*64core AMD dual cpu offering is likely to cost £27,000 in the same format as my build above using retail cpu's , the question is: How many smaller ryzen 3900x rigs could you build for the money and how many cores would that give you? Then, just to throw a cat among the pidgeons, would your target work benefit from running Intel? Are you concerned with value for money? then there is a bunch of research on single socket server style kit EPYC 7551p for example. Don't have a bottomless wallet? that could be a problem  [Edit 1 times, last edit by OldChap at Aug 24, 2019 12:41:48 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
A little late to the party but... I would keep in mind whether or not the machine(s) might potentially be put to other uses simultaneously.
For example, my primary machine is a gaming rig that runs WCG whenever I'm not using it to play games. As I run into the need to upgrade my gaming rig I move the "retired" machine to a different room with a TV and turn it into a media center PC that runs WCG primarily but can be used for media center functionality as needed. |
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Chooka
Cruncher Australia Joined: Jan 25, 2017 Post Count: 48 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I think the 16gig of memory is a minimum. There's some real RAM hungry projects if you crunch them.
----------------------------------------32gig would be utilized imo. For WGC though, well I'm crunching 100% now on Mapping Cancer work, 1950X (16/32) with 32gig of ram. Only using 9.8gig. This project ISN'T a RAM hog :)   |
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VietOZ
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Apr 8, 2007 Post Count: 205 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Noctua NH L9x65-SE or equivalent for the 3900X that cooler won't hold up to the 3900X for 24/7 WCG crunching and most of other projects as well. For normal operations and gaming, that should be enough. But why get that when the stock cooler can do just about as good? For 24/7 crunching, if you plan to use air cooler, you're gonna need something with at least 6 heatpipes. I am using Noctua NH-U12A (7 heatpipes) and it can barely kept my 3900X in the mid 70s running SCC, but that is with a hefty undervolt (1.225 vcore). These 7nm can dump out so much heat so quickly that one thing we can not go cheap is the cooler. Just my honest opinion after observing it for a while. While I'm excited for the new TR, but what worries me is how am I gonna cool that beast :D |
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KerSamson
Master Cruncher Switzerland Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Post Count: 1664 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Noctua NH L9x65-SE or equivalent for the 3900X This statement is probably not precise enough. For a 2700, the Noctua L9x65-SE is completely OK (unfortunately the stock cooler was not fitting well in my computer case: 5 mm missing) "or equivalent for the 3900X" means a similar but more powerful cooler for the 3900X. It is clear that the mentioned Noctua is not adapted for the 3900X's TDP. Nevertheless, I like how quiet Noctua coolers are. Cheers, Yves |
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VietOZ
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Apr 8, 2007 Post Count: 205 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I'm with you Yves. Love the Noctua coolers myself. My apologies for misunderstood your statement. Shoulda read carefully :)
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