Cheap and Easy 9000:

[McRat]

This an update on the Cheap & Easy 2000 in this forum.

I took a second HP Slimline Business computer (these can be had for under $130 at TigerDirect, look under refurbished) with a PCI-E slot, and put an nVidia GT430 in it. These can now be had for $65 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187121&cm_re=GT430-_-14-187-121-_-Product). That Sparkle in the link is the one I'm using, and it's generating ~9500 PPD by running it at 800 mhz. At the factory settings, it's just about 9000 even. It comes with the Low Profile bracket. Just like the GT220, very simple to install.

This is a little louder, and you can notice that it is running, but it's not bad. Given the low price difference, and still "mild" behavior, this will even be a better fit for our needs. I was stunned by the large PPD difference in similar priced cards.

The reason I tested the GT220 was simply because it was in the machine before I learned of FAH.

 

[C.C.Reed]

I ordered one of these Thursday to put in a machine at work. We use the HP Compaq 6000 Pro Small Form Factor (VS825UT). It has the Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E7600 (3.06 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz FSB). We currently have 10 that just run at idle around the clock. They are only really heavily used to a point that the F@H client would need to be closed maybe 3-4 hours/day.

I was going to put it in and let it run to see what it would do. Glad someone tried before me and it worked. I was a little worried with the small case and heat being an issue. I even considered a SMP job with it but it is only a 3.06 Dual Core and with both running, the 240w power supply will be working hard to keep cool.

 

[McRat]

This computer is probably very similar. 240w max, CPU fan blows out front, and PS fan blows out back. While I have no way of reading power use yet, my reading indicates about 50-60w on this card at full tilt, so heat should not be a big issue. Temps were about 60°C.

 

[C.C.Reed]

That's it. Ours' all have the empty 5.25 slot so I may get a bay fan to put there. I used a Bidirectional IDE to SATA Converter so I could use an old DVDRom to put all the software on my station last week. I just need the Graphics Card to come in.

 

[C.C.Reed]

Bringing this one back up. . .

What PPD is it seeing with these 6800 units? Mine is ~4000 running at 800 on most units yet up to 4500 or so on others.

 

[Poltergeist]

My 450 is down in the 4900 with these 6800.

 

[C.C.Reed]

Probably about right then. My 460 is around 11000 if I can keep it going. It has to be watched constantly. It'll get done with one WU, not like the next WU, and fall to 5000. I can just restart the client and it will jump back up to 10000.

Had a 9800GX2 only running around 45% on each core for the 4 day weekend. Forgot to "Extend my Monitor" but it's running 5500 per core now. Also, had to run the GPU2 client on each of its cores as the GPU3 client didn't like my 9800.

 

[McRat]

The new WU's generate less PPD than the older ones, which kinda sucks. My 460 generated over 16K PPD before they changed the WU. I haven't checked the PPD of the 430 with the new WU's yet.

Your nVidia Fermi cards will sometimes kick down to 50% clockspeed. Nobody is sure yet why. Running Google Chrome in the background will usually fix it.