[Turnpike]

Here's the deal:

A few friends and I will be rooming together next year at university. Two of us will be CS majors. We had already planned on possibly building a Linux box (or BSD, or something else along those lines....) to use as a small web/file server for personal use (I checked the school's network policy, this is okay with them).

I was thinking that if this computer is just going to sit there most of the time (except possibly running a few test programs on or something...), I might as well have it fold. As far as computer component prices go these days, you can either get crap for cheap or mid-low stuff for nearly as cheap, with mid-range stuff still being highly affordable. Thus, the computer was already pretty much destined to have a decent mid-range CPU on it... nothing to cheer about, but still a solid folder. However, I had planned to scrimp horribly on the RAM, graphics card, and sound.

I would assume that the graphics card is unnecessary (I would be running cli versions, naturally... most of the time this computer probably won't even have a monitor attached). What about RAM? Could I get by with 128-256 megs, or is that going to hamstring the folding effort? How about CPU? Would a 2000+ be a good price/performance ratio, or would I gain a huge boost by going to a Barton or something else? Should I worry about the motherboard at all?

In a nutshell, what specs are the most important for folding (or other DC projects) and will low RAM/CPU bottleneck if the other is high?

[OneMacGuy]

Originally posted by Turnpike:
Here's the deal:

A few friends and I will be rooming together next year at university. Two of us will be CS majors. We had already planned on possibly building a Linux box (or BSD, or something else along those lines....) to use as a small web/file server for personal use (I checked the school's network policy, this is okay with them).

I was thinking that if this computer is just going to sit there most of the time (except possibly running a few test programs on or something...), I might as well have it fold. As far as computer component prices go these days, you can either get crap for cheap or mid-low stuff for nearly as cheap, with mid-range stuff still being highly affordable. Thus, the computer was already pretty much destined to have a decent mid-range CPU on it... nothing to cheer about, but still a solid folder. However, I had planned to scrimp horribly on the RAM, graphics card, and sound.

I would assume that the graphics card is unnecessary (I would be running cli versions, naturally... most of the time this computer probably won't even have a monitor attached). What about RAM? Could I get by with 128-256 megs, or is that going to hamstring the folding effort? How about CPU? Would a 2000+ be a good price/performance ratio, or would I gain a huge boost by going to a Barton or something else? Should I worry about the motherboard at all?

In a nutshell, what specs are the most important for folding (or other DC projects) and will low RAM/CPU bottleneck if the other is high?

I would recommend at least a Barton 2500 processor, that is only about a $24 premium over an XP2000. Pricewatch has the XP2000 at $48 and the XP2500 at $64.
As long as your OS and you folding client have enough ram not to be constantly using VM, you are probably OK. I would recommend 256 MB. If you use a Barton processor, you will need at least PC2700 DDR Ram. Pricewatch has this for as low $20, delivered.
For a farm machine, I would not spend big bucks on a Mobo. I would stay away from SIS chipsets and get either an nvidia or via chipset board that supports your Barton processor.
Disk space and speed requirements are really determined by the other uses for the computer. If you have enough ram, the folding process runs in memory. Your uses for your web server might benefit most from a larger faster drive, but not much benefit for your CLI client.
You can certainly run it headless and no audio with no problem, or you can do a little research and find a mobo with video on board.
You do need good cooling though. The folding CLI will run your CPU at 100% utilization constantly and will heat your CPU to the max.

[[APi]TheMan]

I just built a nice little Barton 2500+ PC with 512 megs of PC2700 for about $300. I went for nicer RAM and a pretty nice 80 gig 7200 rpm drive with an 8 meg cache. The price will come down to around $250 or so when my mail-in rebate for my barebones kit comes in. The machine is pretty fast for what I paid, but it does run hot.