Idea: Anandtech Cluster

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
I'd be willing to coordinate a cluster. If everyone PMed me with what parts they had or what money they could spare, I could probably have up to 20 computers. The first round of monetary donations would go to buying rack-mount cases for my rails (that have nothing on them) but I could still fit about 4-6 towers if someone had extra cases. As long as people wouldn't mind sending $5 here or there for electricity, I think we could accomplish this.

Otherwise, I'd be willing to donate some parts if someone else has a better situation.

EDIT: I believe the minimum part should be at least a P4 1.4GHz or higher.

I would say the minimum part should be an x2 from amd or a pentium d from intel. those are more "modern" cpus that can accomplish decent amounts of work, plus they'll prevent this from just becoming a dumping ground for old crap that nobody wants anymore.

 

[petrusbroder]

Yeah, I agree. The more powerful a cluster the longer it will live and the longer we will have fun ...

 

[Philippart]

but will we ever get stuff from that range?

 

[BlackMountainCow]

I doubt it, at least not as a hardware donation. I guess most of us still use CPUs the like of an X2 or Pentium D. I mean, I wouldn't want to give away my trusty X2; it's been doing good work ever since I bought it. In my opinion, this project will only fly if we decide on monetary donations towards a couple of either newly self made or of the shelf crunchers, that'll be housed at one of our places. But piecing together crunchers from random parts won't lead to what we want to achieve. (My 2 cents)

 

[Lord Demios]

Originally posted by: Orange Kid
It was LD and bphantom that ran the warp core (dnet), yes it was shut down due to electric costs after it had to be removed from the lab at the college they were attending ended their stay by actually giving them a diploma.
Russ bought some of the crunchers and ran them for a while as well as JonB I think. A few others may have bought and run crunchers also. I think DanC and Russ may have had their own cluster of crunchers running
Lanman was the last to have a 'Team' cluster that ran seti. It may still be running but was a hog-podge of older parts and never really had a great impact.
All I can say is good luck in this endever. Been down this road b4. I do have an old slot- dual p3-850 set-up that could be donated.

Hehehe close. Bphantom and I ran the TMR, or The Mad Rifter. We then later moved this project to use spare cycles at the University of Utah's CADE lab. Both Bphantom and I were involved with DanC and Russ, but only Bphantom ended up buying a node with the warp core was sold. It was quite a bit of fun. IIRC BPhantom might still have that original node. He never throws anything away.

-LD

 

[RaySun2Be]

Originally posted by: Lord Demios/TMR

Originally posted by: Orange Kid
It was LD and bphantom that ran the warp core (dnet), yes it was shut down due to electric costs after it had to be removed from the lab at the college they were attending ended their stay by actually giving them a diploma.
Russ bought some of the crunchers and ran them for a while as well as JonB I think. A few others may have bought and run crunchers also. I think DanC and Russ may have had their own cluster of crunchers running
Lanman was the last to have a 'Team' cluster that ran seti. It may still be running but was a hog-podge of older parts and never really had a great impact.
All I can say is good luck in this endever. Been down this road b4. I do have an old slot- dual p3-850 set-up that could be donated.

Hehehe close. Bphantom and I ran the TMR, or The Mad Rifter. We then later moved this project to use spare cycles at the University of Utah's CADE lab. Both Bphantom and I were involved with DanC and Russ, but only Bphantom ended up buying a node with the warp core was sold. It was quite a bit of fun. IIRC BPhantom might still have that original node. He never throws anything away.

-LD

IIRC, I donated some parts to TMR.

Ah, the good old days! Hehe.

 

[VirtualLarry]

dumbest.idea.evar.

I have a better idea. How about I set up some state-of-the-art crunchers (Q6600s OCed), and AT'ers can pay me for the electricity to run them, plus a small fee for my time.
I think that the price/performance as far as electricity costs goes would be much better for a newer-generation rig, than for a hodgepodge of old antiquated parts.

Edit: I could probably do it for $75/mo per Q6600, for a dedicated headless quad-core cruncher.

 

[RaySun2Be]

dumbest.idea.evar.

The TeAm has done this before. So I guess we like dumb ideas.

Edit: I could probably do it for $75/mo per Q6600, for a dedicated headless quad-core cruncher.

Holy cow. There's a big difference in donating equipment that we have already laying around, to be setup at a place that provides electricity, than paying an ongoing amount to have someone run them.

I'd rather save my $$ and build my own Q6600.

BTW, is that $75 per Q600 a monthly figure or yearly figure?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: RaySun2Be
BTW, is that $75 per Q600 a monthly figure or yearly figure?

I figure $800 for the PC, divided by 24 months to pay for it, so $33.33/mo to just pay for the PC. $30/mo for electricity. $5/mo for my time for maintaining the boxes. So I guess closer to $70/mo.

 

[bryanW1995]

I just paid $286 to upgrade my mom's old athlon xp 2500+ to a q6600 that I promptly oc'd to 3.5. $201 for the q6600 shipped, $57 for an open box ip35e, and $28 for a used tuniq. You can figure an extra $100 of stuff that I had already given her over the years (xp home retail that is 5 years old now and has, um, been around the block, plus an earthwatts 430, random case with 3 case fans, old-skool 17in crt, numerous cables etc etc), but that's still only $386.

I think that the fun of this project is working together as a team. We should nominate somebody who's in high school or college to run the cluster at his/her school (with permission of course) and maybe write up a paper for school on DC or something. That would accomplish many things:

1. negate electricity costs
2. negate computer item costs unless specific parts can't be obtained
3. label said individual as a "go-getter". this would make great resume material.


I wish I'd been this orgainized when I was in school!

 

[Wolfie]

Wow, the ol TMR machine.... Hell, even I think I remember donating something. But good lord, that was what? Almost 8 years ago?

But who's still got the video of them firing the thing up? Or was that a different machine. I forget. I think I got the Ray cane disease....