Best CPU for number crunching

[elektrotek1]

Thanks alot guys. With price vs. performance, I think I'll go with two P4 computers. I imagine we will put some form of linux on the machines, becasue my buddy is a linux fan and I know it's alot more stable than Windows. He is currently writing a program for client-server distributed computing. We are going to gather a bunch of old computers (600mhz) and share the tasks between them and the new ones I will build. I'm also going to try to put out the word on the internet, so if anyone wants to help out, just e-mail me! joel@elektrotek.biz

We are going to prime factor a huge number. (100+ digits) If it goes well, we might try other math problems. My friend is a computer science and math major, so he is trying to write/find an alogrithm that will really speed things up.

 

[elektrotek1]

Another thing I forgot to ask....

How important is FSB? I know the P4 offers 400mhz, 533mhz, and 800mhz...

Is a 400mhz FSB and 800mhz FSB going to make that much of a difference in the long run?

 

[sithspawn]

god damn man. thats gonna take more than a few months me thinks. There is a program called Prime95 that is searching for the BIG prime numbers. That uses hundreds of thousands of computers world wide and has been running for a LONG time.

 

[Apokalipse]

case: Raidmax ATX-847WTP descent good looking case, lots of fans - $49

PSU: Thermaltake Slent Purepower 480W silver a very reliable power supply, with plenty of wattage - $56

motherboard: MSI K8T Master2 dual socket 940 - $205.86

CPU/s: 2x AMD opteron 64-bit 2GHZ you'll get a lot of power, even more than a dual Xeon, and can process 64-bit - $258.98*2=$517.96

video card: Radeon 9600 Pro 128mb descent but not too expensive video card - you don't need a powerful video card for number crunching - $131.95

RAM: Corsair Micro 2x512MB the fastest RAM ever with 2-2-2-5 latencies, and a gig of the stuff too - $359

CD drives: LG 52x32x52 CDR/RW $23.95

HDD: Seagate 120GB SATA Seagate drives are very reliable, one of the fastest, and are the quietest ever 7200RPM drives. also, Seagate are one of very few companies which make drives that run purely on SATA rather than using ATA133 and emulating SATA, which is slower and less reliable - $90.95

Monitor: KTC 17" nothing special, but it doesn't affect number crunching power - $99

CPU coolers: Thermaltake Venus 12 you'll need descent fans to keep your CPU temps down so you'll get the most performance out of your opterons - $28.99*2 = $57.98

and no computer would be complete without a
Mouse and Keyboard: Logitech Black Optical Desktop what can I say, nothing special but it's not something cheap - $20

-- total $1621.65 --

changed it to not include Sound or the Windows 2000 OS (if you're going Linux)
also included is the fastest RAM currently available - a gig (2x512) of Corsair Micro XL with 2-2-2-5 timings
basically, this system has really low latencies, really powerful processors and all the memory you need (HDD and RAM)