Folding Forum

What would be the best but cheapest set up to fah on with a GPU. As we know GPU Folding is best other than CPU. So what would be the best set up to buy for just a GPU Power House as in cutting back on everything. Going for the cheapest parts like absolute budget but putting a GPU in what would destroy most systems in regards to power.

I'll give an example. If I bought the cheapest budget Celron Duel Core or Sempron Duel Core and a budget £40 Main board, two GIG of Ram, and a half decent PSU with recycled parts for everything else but put something like a 980 in to the Machine what would be best to build a GPU power house left sitting and only used to fold on with no interaction such as Games or even web browsing for example.

Can anyone shed any light on the matter. I don't have much to spend but looking for a GPU to Fold on.

You can certainly use a slower CPU and less memory. But don't go too low. Simple even with GPU folding you still need CPU to drive the GPU. Plus if you want to have a bit future proof go with at least 8GB RAM. There is a tendency of more main RAM is required even for GPU folding. Then I would suggest a 970; good ratio of PPD to power. Talking about power: don't underestimate the electrical cost and potentially cooling.

Bare bones PC plus a high end GPU is common for folding.

Quad core doesn't cost that much more, and means you can CPU fold as well, plus have room to add a 2nd GPU at some future time. Don't skimp on the PSU, higher efficiency pays for itself over time.

750 Ti is probably the winner for price, performance, and power usage combined. 970 is probably the bang for buck winner at the moment.

I'd look at low end lga1150 with a dual core Celeron, a mobo with 1 or 2 pcie x16 slots -if you will only ever run 1 gpu you can halve the cost of the mobo and just go for 1 PCIe x16 slot, 4gb of cheap DDR3, reuse an old HDD or buy the cheapest you can find, that should run you about £120-130. Thats the cheap bits, As 7im says, get a decent psu from a name brand with a good warranty (5 years or more) and at least 80+ gold efficiency, if you are looking at only 1 gpu you can get away with about 400-500watts - if you think you may add a 2nd gpu later go for 650-750w. I always use seasonic or corsair and never have a problem running 24/7. that will be about £90 - there are other brands out there, do some research before you buy.

GPU wise, 980 if you can afford, best bang for buck is the 970, then 960 then 750ti - 750ti doesn't need an extra power connector but make sure if you get this one you get a Ti version, straight 750's use the older kepler uarch and are a lot slower for folding.

OS wise Linux is free but can be a hassle installing the drivers correctly - windows is pain free but not free and slower when folding

Perhaps the best basic rig for what you describe is a 2nd hand machine with a pcie slot that you just need to add a good power supply and the most powerful GPU you can afford. It is currently not required to have that much RAM but this may change, so something that you can upgrade RAM wise a good idea if only 2G's included.
No need to buy a big gaming box, take off the sides and run horizontally if the card won't fit. The GTX 970 and 980 mentioned above might be about to become cheaper with the release of the GTX 980ti (which is not cheap). Don't forget that included in the overall cost is the running cost for electricity.

It also depends on how many GPUs you intend to put into the machine...

A single- or dual-core AMD or Celeron and 4 GB RAM would be adequate for a single 750 Ti or similar. You can save $$ on the MoBo as well as the CPU. A dual-core AMD or Celeron would be adequate for a dual 750 Ti setup, but be sure the MoBo has 2 PCIe x16 slots that will support simultaneous x8 GPU use.

For higher-end GPUs or dual-dual-GPU setups, a quad-core CPU would be a better idea. Even then, you can use a relatively "slow" or low-power CPU.