i currently have a core 2 quad Q8300 overclocked to 3.20Ghz with an asus P5Q SE PLUS Mobo. Luckily my dad bought me a GTX 460 cyclone, cuz i was using my crappy 7800 GT that doesnt fold. My mobo only has one PCI-E x16 slot. i thinking of upgrading to a ASUS P5Q Deluxe mobo as it has 3 PCI-E. I know that not all of then have the full 16 lanes. I was thinking that i could put in my GTX 460 in and but two GTS 250's in to get more points. Will this work???
it would probibly work, however I would consider going for a low end i7+Mobo instead of getting a different 775 board and a couple of 250's (though you may be able to find a x48board fairly cheap).
the GTS 250 will take up 2 slots the same as A GTX 460 and is a much less efficient folder than the GTX 460. Under folding conditions the GTX 460 produces approximately 50% more points for only an extra 13W. You may need to upgrade your power supply also ( you will need 4 PCI-E power connectors for those 3 cards). A good quality case/fans would be needed to get rid of all the extra heat. For folding duties, as long as the slot is a PCI-E X16 it doesn't matter whether it has 16 lanes or 4. Personally, if you are interested in the GTS 250 I would wait a few more weeks as Nvidia are bringing out a new Fermi chip which will replace it. Good luck!
@ One Box. Im upgrading my PSU to a corsair 650W will this have enough power to power all of that hardware??
Idon't know if this is the right place to ask but if you had a motherboard with multiple PCI-E X16 slots could you run nvidia and Ati cards in the same mobo, i just wondered if the drivers would get really messed up or something like that
It has been done but the drivers can get messy, im not sure about linix but I beleve if your using windows you would need to be running Windows7 and modified drivers if I recall. For a folding machine generally not worth the trouble. You will get much better output from the nvidia cards.
Thank you for the quick reply, i just had free slots on my mobo and thought why not use them kinda thing. Could you tell me what would give me best ppd in the price range of about £40-70? Thanks for your help
A second hand 8800gt for about 4500-5500ppd or maybe a GT240 for about 3600ppd+ both depending on which work units they run.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...Hz-GDDR3-GPU-600MHz-112-Cores-2xDL-DVI-I-HDTV This was something that i thought of getting, would this be better than a 240+it's single slot. Thanks for the help
It will probably perform better than the 240 because of the increased shader clock but unfortunately it is not single slot! Please look again at the depth of the cooler.....
O yeah, sorry i didn't notice before, thank you. i could go searching in the forums for a while but which is the most important thing for folding is it the shader+ core clock speed? am guessing not the memory at all
Point wise it would be better than the 240. A 9800 is just a repackaged 8800 isn't it? If you don't need the slot the fan overhangs it'll be fine. I think shaders are more important for folding.
Thanks cdb and i don't know about the rebranding, just the 9800 is available from scan where you can get free shipping so thought that i would go with that
Personally I would be looking at a 750W PSU if I was trying to run 3 graphics cards to give myself some headroom for the future. Make sure you check the PSU has enough PCI-E power leads for your needs prior to purchase.
