Good motherboard for cruchers

[VirtualLarry]

I just came across this mobo in another thread, it seems like the cheapest decent mobo for a C2D/C2Q, with onboard video and various slots. It's micro-atx. LINK

Please post any other good mobos for building crunch racks.

I'm still waiting for someone like SVC.com to carry ATX 20-pin and 4-pin power splitters. Those would allow you to run multiple rigs off of a single PSU. (Found! link , link)

Somewhere, I found a guide to installing XP onto a USB flash drive, I think I posted about it here too. If anyone can remember that thread, I'd appreciate it, as I think I lost my link to it. (Edit: link)

I was thinking of buying a 4GB Kingston USB flash drive to boot off of. They have a 5-year warranty, and are only $19.99 at NewEgg. link

I figure that if you wear out the flash drive in five years, they should just send you another one.

I think that those components would make an ideal crunch rack. I would buy several. In fact, assuming I can find a supply of cheap PSUs or those splitters, I probably will.

Edit: Crunch rack prices:

E2200 - $95 NewEgg
GA-73VM-S2 - $63 NewEgg
HP DDR2-667 - $23 or $4 AR CostCentral
CAT 5 cable - $1 Mit Flea
Network switch port - $10
Kingston 4GB USB - $24
Power supply - $40 / 2
ATX20pin splitter - $7 / 2
molex to ATX4pin - $5

total:
$245 ea cruncher - 10M cems/sec
You would need a monitor + USB keyboard + USB mouse for setup/installation too.

Any ideas on good power supplies, or the necessary requirements to split them? I was thinking the Antec Earthwatts 380 that's on sale for $30 AR at NewEgg might be a good candidate to power two systems with.

 

[Michielhaisma]

What about this... i think it's better, a E4500 runs a bit faster i think, this all is in euros,, so i think this is around 400 dollars... i dont have any idea about american prices and btw, those dual sticks are for linux i think... im not sure it can run from a usb-stick, but its alot cheaper than 2x windows license (unless you have some spare copies or can get them from the office for 10 dollars)
And you will need the spitters from that other site ofcourse, to split power.. or might consider 2x this power set, or split a high quality one..


Intel Core 2 Duo,Boxed, E4500, Socket 775 ? 106,67 2x ? 213,34

MSI P4M900M-L,Retail ? 40,15 2x ? 80,30

G.Skill F2-5400PHU1-512LA,512MB, DDR2, PC5400, 667MHz, 1x ? 32,45 2x ? 64,90

Kingston DataTraveler, 2048 MB ? 9,26 2x ? 18,52

Kingston DataTraveler, 1024 MB ? 5,53 2x ? 11,06

Spire Jewel, 380 Watt, Retail ? 23,41 ? 23,41

OEM UTP-cable, Cat. 5e, 1 m, white ? 2,08 2x ? 4,16

Sweex 5 Port Switch ? 12,23 ? 12,23

Sitecom UTP cable, Cat. 5e, 15 m, Blue ? 22,21 2x ? 22,21

total 450 euros... so that fair.. i'm no expert but this might just be something.. i think you shouldn't spend alot on a MoBo unless you're planning on an OC. and also, theres fast memory in this rig.. fast memory increases your crushing.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I haven't seen that the E4xxx chips are any faster in crunching SB than the E2xxx chips. In fact, the single-core Celeron 440 is pretty good at SB too. Good idea on using Linux though.

Instead of splitting the PSU, I might go with this: link

That would bring the price down below $240.

 

[Michielhaisma]

Nice, and you're building the rack out of some MDF (we call it that, its brown compressed wood-trash)? that would add some 10-20 dollars..., dont forget the screws or maybe some extra fans...

 

[Liberator21]

I've been coming up with ideas similar to yours as well. Thanks for the link to the splitters! That was really driving my cost up. At first I was trying to go super low profile and low power consumption, like the Intel BLKD201GLYL. It's micro-itx and only $70 ($60 on sale alot) for the motherboard and cpu. Unfortunately it's a single core celeron 215/220, at like 1.2ghz or something.

I figure I could use dynebolic to link them together as a cluster farm (with one 'master' unit), needing only a hard disk in the master. It's all an interesting concept, although seemingly not for the faint-hearted.

Anyhow the cost per unit is somewhere in the neighborhood of $115, not including the master. That sounds great at first but say I built 4 of these. That's $460. For that much money I could build a cheap Q6600 that would blow all this away. That's always something to think about. The Q6600 seems to be THE processor right now for crunching.

I just wanted to add my 2 cents. Thanks for the link on the splitters though! I have two Am2 systems that I can run on my Antec 380 I picked up from newegg for $20AR.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I found a slightly cheaper mobo, and it also supports dual-channel RAM,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813157119 $50

Edit: This mobo sucks for overclocking. No vcore adjustment, and it will only overclock the FSB 66Mhz over the base FSB. So for a 200FSB CPU, it will only go to 266FSB, not 333. (Unless you do the BSEL mod to 266 first, and then OC up to 333.)

So this board is equivalent to a cheap crap ECS 945GC-M/1333 board, essentially.

 

[her209]

Look into PXE booting the OS.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I found a better mobo. It's a G31 chipset, for $67. Has OC options, not sure about Vcore adjustment, couldn't discern from NewEgg reviews. I think it does though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128078