I am about to purchase a new desktop machine. While it will have a hyper threaded six core CPU and plenty of DRAM, I am interested in having the ability for GPU crunching.

I am talking to a very high end computer builder. He said that for GPU crunching I really need water cooling which is quite expensive.

Can anybody fill me in with the received wisdom from experience in this area?

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Man, you are all over the place!!

Thanks, I saved out your text as a document so as to have the right questions and requests.

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Regrets, I am not headed in that direction.

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So, here is another question: the future of GPU crunching. I checked the video card on a new machine that I spec'd in the list and it is fine. The BOINC Wiki lists the projects that use nVidia and ATI.I must say, I am not impressed with how many or which projects actually have CPU processing as part of the project.

Do you all see more projects coming to GPU processing in the near future? Should I ask in the message boards of the projects on which I work?

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Thanks again for your good counsel.

So, really, on your last statement, it is a chicken or egg thing. The decision to go this route is not easy or cheap. My colleague suggested going to liquid cooling because fans make rooms hot and noisy. I already have a heat problem, six machines in this one room. Liquid cooling at Maingear, who will build my new beast, *starts* at US$1155. That's big bucks.

So, for me, I want to buy equipment that can be relevant for at least five years (sorry, MSFT, I do not yet see Win8 as relevant).

If I was in this work for credits, why, I would just buy the thing ($3675) and on it attach to nothing but GPU enabled projects. But, I am not in the work for credits.

So, another option for me is a new machine is to go for a hyper threaded six core machine. That's twelve threads in a desktop that I can run at 100% instead of the 60% for laptops. That is not exactly chopped liver.

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The price of the computer ($3675) is ridiculous. There is no way I would pay that much. I went to my local computer store and bought all the components off the shelf at retail price, assembled the thing and ended up with a nice i7 2600 @ 3.4 GHz (Sandybridge) with NVIDIA GTX 570, 500 GB disk, 8 MB RAM system, 850 watt power supply, all stock air cooled. The side of the case id offand always will be because I cut it up for a sheet metal project. The GPU and CPU run around 60 to 65 Celsius, maybe 70 on a real hot day (no air conditioning here) which is very acceptable. Put Linux on it of course. Cost $1200 CDN, no BS. You can do it too, no BS, and have 2 for less than the price your buddy is talking for 1. There is help available if you want it.

Umh. You have 8 Mb RAM system. I wonder if you can run any boinc project.

Or...do you mean 8 Gb RAM? (1 Gb =1024 Mb ram)

Umh. You have 8 Mb RAM system. I wonder if you can run any boinc project.

Or...do you mean 8 Gb RAM? (1 Gb =1024 Mb ram)

In case Dagorath is otherwise occupied, let me jump in and tell you, it was an obvious mistake on Dagorath's part. He is among the most experienced and most respected people here.

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