Upgrading vs "Buy a new Computer!"

[Dirk Broer]

When you are working with a system that's getting too old/slow/inefficient to get you enough BOINC credits or do (other) meaningful work with it you are left with two choices: Upgrading or "Buy a new Computer!". Lets first choose the latter approach, and see what the prices are for a decent system.
As I live in Europe Newegg is out of the question, and so is a host of other US and Australian companies as I do not like to pay more for postage and packing than for the system itself.

Fortunately for me there is a company like Alternate (BTW: our local Dutch branch has BOINCStats Willy working there somewhere) to look for prices. A quick look there shows me that a new Bulldozer-based system will cost me around 800 Euro's. This in a µATX Sharkoon MS140 casing with a PSU of 450 Watt, being fitted with a FX-8150 CPU, 8Gb of DDR3-1333 Memory, 120Gb SSD, 2Tb HDD and a 2Gb GT 640 video card on a MSI 760GM-P23 (FX) motherboard.

Strange, I have always thought that BUlldozer support only came with the AMD-900 series of chipsets (plus the AMD 890GX), but this is actually good news because it allows for the use of µATX casings for the Bulldozer. The 900 series is only to be seen on full ATX boards. It also means lots of people can upgrade their system to Bulldozer/Piledriver (make sure to read up from which BIOS up on the site of your mobo manufacturer).

Now we know what a new configuration costs, let's re-consider upgrading.
As an example I give you my Siemens-Fujitsu Scaleo P2,
fitted with an ECS AMD690VM-FMH motherboard, for now fitted with 4 Gb DDR2 and a GT 315 video card (was originally a GT 8400) and a AMD Athlon X2 5000 CPU.
Upgrading it to take as much memory as the Alternate sytem has costs me at least 100 Euro's. A new 2Gb GT 640 costs around 80 Euro's. A new 450 Watt PSU (the 350 Watt PSU that comes with the Siemens-Fujitsu is hopelessy short on cables/connectors) can be found for prices ranging from a mere 23 (MS-N450-VAL) to an astounding 168 Euro's (be quiet! Straight Power E8 450W). A 120Gb SSD costs at least 70 Euro's, a 2Tb HDD 85 Euro's. If I do not upgrade CPU and motherboard, the components so far cost me 335 Euro's plus what I want to spend on a PSU. So let's say I could be ready for 400 Euro's, but I would still be having the old AM2 mobo with it's limitations plus a mere dual-core CPU. That's hardly an increased BOINC performance, apart from the video card (But no more complaints from The Lattice Project about too little memory, or stalled projects because FreeHAL has eaten all RAM and refuses to release it). One could argue that the new disks are not needed and that I could better buy the best CPU that will fit in the mobo, but here the age of the AM2 socket gives trouble.
What if a AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE will be fitted (costs as much as the 2Tb HDD), but the system fails to start up?

An extra FX-8150 would cost me some 165 Euro, a µATX MSI 760GM-P23 (FX) -really the cheapest solution- can be found for as little as 40 Euro's. Fitting it with 8Gb DDR3 costs as little as a few cents more than 30 Euro. So when I replace the innards as well I lose 205 Euro more on components, but I earn 70 of them back in memory requirements, so it is an extra 135 euro for an 8-core system as compared to a dual-core. Total upgrade thus 535 Euro's, giving some room for extra's as compared to the 800 Euro system.
Of course this form of upgrading is actually building a new computer, the only thing left is the casing of the old one. But it shows it still pays off to self-build your system.

[NeoGen]

Very good analysis Dirk!

I am with you on the upgrading, it's always more cost effective and satisfying to do it yourself than to buy a pre-built machine, which most of the times comes with hardware you would not want it to. But for people who don't know how or don't like to tinker with the insides of computers a good rule of thumb is to get a new one every 5/6 years. And for people who don't know much about hardware specs another good rule of thumb is, if it's good for gaming it's good for crunching too.

[Terry1953]

I totally agree that there is nothing to compare with building your own machines. I do have a problem with upgrading and that is the left overs. Parts that are just to good and have a small amount of value left. I just can't bring myself to just toss them and I don't have the patience to sell them on Ebay or somewhere. My answer came from my son, he suggested that I purchase as dirt cheap of case w/power supply as I could get and install the leftovers in them. These systems can be given to someone with a need for something such as a word processor or just a minimal web browser. I find that churches, nursing homes, schools, and juvenile probation officers have many people that can use them. In some instances, if you care to, you can even receive tax credit for them. Since according to the Doctors I am now totally and forever retired I plan on building about a system every 60 days to support this hobby that I got away from a couple of years ago. So most of the systems that I am running now are going this route in the foreseeable future. A few of the cases that I will be keeping and the others will be replaced with top of the line Cooler Master and Thermaltake (not much of a Lian fan) like my Thermaltake Tsunami. As these boxes just make the build more fun and swapping parts is easier later. I still have that old walkin freezer in the shed and next summer I might have to finally put that together as a computerroom. It's 14x20 so that should give me plenty of space. Now it's just getting back up to speed on what systems I want to build.

[Dirk Broer]

I know the part of not wanting to toss something that still works. Guess that's why I still have a working Harris 286-20 stuck away around here.
I give away systems too, upgrade other people's systems with leftovers from me, exchange complete systems, CPUs, memory, videocards, etc.

Casings come and go too, my last new one was a Corsair Carbide 300R. Local hardware store only stocks A-Open, Antec, Coolermaster, Corsair and -since a few weeks- Fractal Design,
but some kilometers down south (Berkel en Rodenrijs, Ridderkerk) there's a whole world to choose from. The only problem is money...

[vaughan]

I have a few Fractal Design XL cases, they are quite good. Also several Antec 300 (too small), 900 and 901(?) and a 1200 but they are all having a rest until I can find a permanent home for them.
I like Fractal Design.
I always build computers (except laptops of course) as my son and I enjoy selecting the parts. The research is fun Its a good father/son bonding session to find what we want, get the best price, place the order, hit my bank account (fun? Not!), pickup the order and of course do "the build". I go for Windows 7 and he goes for Linux (usually Gentoo) so he can spend endless hours fine-tuning the Operating System. For me, I spend endless hours installing BOINC and adding all the projects.

BOINC really needs an option "Join all projects" or to have a check list/box system. Its tedious having to enter your password for each project. At least on reasonably recent iterations of BOINC they have made it remember your user id (email addy).

[Terry1953]

Vaughan what you describe is what Ryan (my son) and I have been doing to the letter. I remember when you brought your son to the states a few years ago for that Math comp. and mentioned that one of your stops was a Fry's (I think it was the one near Chicago) and I was wishing then Ryan was a little older. We plan to build 2 next month and are researching just what they will be now. After that we have set a budget each month to set aside for later builds. He's headed to University of Tennessee in May but he plans to come home some weekends and he wants to see how much free electricity he can suck out of the dorm room this year since freshmen have to live in the dorms. Dirk it's a real shame that Newegg don't open a branch somewhere over there. I'm sure they would meet with a huge success. I know that lately we spend almost as much time on their site as all others combined. This is a great hobby for a Father and Son due to the fact that you don't have to always be physically in the same room to be doing something together.

[AMDave]

There is a solution, apparently:
Newegg international orders. Buy from Newegg - ship through MyUS.com and save up to 80% on shipping to 200 Countries.
"If Newegg does not accept your international billing address or your preferred payment method, select the merchandise you want and then use our Personal Shopper service and we will buy the merchandise for you. "
I have never done this. Just reporting back what I found

[Dirk Broer]

BOINC really needs an option "Join all projects" or to have a check list/box system. Its tedious having to enter your password for each project.

Isn't that what the BAM! part of BOINCStats is supposed to take care off for you?
via
http://boincstats.com/en/bam/signup/
and
http://boincstats.com/en/bam/projects/

[Terry1953]

Isn't that what the BAM! part of BOINCStats is supposed to take care off for you?
via
http://boincstats.com/en/bam/signup/
and
http://boincstats.com/en/bam/projects/

I really like the drop down box idea and it should be fairly easy to do. I would also like to have an app to find and consolidate all of my cpid's lol

[Dirk Broer]

I would also like to have an app to find and consolidate all of my cpid's lol

Ah, you are like MiHost?

It helps to run all your projects on at least one machine -or to combine them as much as possible on different PCs- AND to use the same email address for each project.