Right, I've decided to switch from BOINC to Folding. I have two P4 machines, each with a spare PCI-E slot going.

We'll assume for the moment that these are PCI-E 16x slots.

I need 2 fairly cheap GPUs to Fold (since the P4 obviously won't be up to much).

So, what can I get away with? Interim budget of £100 per card, but less if possible.

EDIT: Also, anyone know how many PPD I'll get out of my PS3? Also, on my Phenom 9950 machine should I be running GPU & SMP or just one of them?

Personally I'd go for these, they're about 6k ppd each.

The 9800GTX+ cards on the same site are good as well.

The PS3 is about 900-1000ppd. To be honest, for the 250w it draws it's not great.

On a Phenom X4 I'd run 2x VMWARE SMP notfred clients & a GPU or 2.

I assume you're folding for 35947?

NVidias are the best cards atm for foldingpoints/cost atm.

You could get away with a 9600GSO/GT, as these are about £60 in places, and if you OC the GT (from experience they are brilliant oc'ers) you can make anything from 2k a day up to about 4.5k a day if you have a good enough cooler.

I am (was?) indeed folding for 35947, under "Linux_User" funnily enough!

I've got a 4870 in this machine, so tell me what set-up is best.

Here's the guide for the notfred smp's, you can run 2 on your quad core + the gpu client.

Hm, never mind the PSUs in these stupid things is only rated at 300W. That means I'll probably sell one and give one to my gf.

OK, new plan, budget build, the best PPD I can get for £400 (for the complete tower, nothing else required).

Have you got any omponents at all (or an OS)?

Yes, worst comes to worst I have retail XP Home sat around, or there's Linux. I could probably scrounge an optical drive from somewhere, perhaps even an HDD.

For max ppd gpu folding is where it's at.

I'd say

MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard
2GB RAM
Cheap AMD x2 cpu
Artic Freezer 64
4x 8800GT/9800GT or 384MB 9600GSO's
OCZ 600w psu
Antec 300

Should come in at less that £400

or

Get a bigger psu & get 2x GTX260's (with the option for a 3rd later on)

I s'pose I could do the latter, if you think I would get more points that way? Apparently my P4 will get 400-500 PPD using the standard client.

Surely if you fold a printed circuit board it would snap.

8800GT/9800GT/9600GSO's are doing between 3-4k ppd each
GTX260's do 6-7k ppd each.

It'd be a big jump from P4's

I think I'll update the PSUs and bung some 260s in them then, that seems like a nice way forward. I guess my gf will have to miss out on a new machine. :p

I'm thinking about getting a few 260's myself (as some cards appear to be dying in my current rigs)

Any idea where to get the mobo from, Saspro? Google isn't being particularly helpful.

Also, is there any particular cheapo AMD CPU you recommend?