In the couple of months since the last folding@home performance post, my priorities have shifted somewhat. I am now after maximum stability, lifespan and minimum power usage. I’m still using the Q9300 with the linux SMP folding client, but I have now dropped its speed back to stock and even undervolted the chip a little. As a result, as I am typing this, the power draw of the system, monitor, modem and router fluctuates between 73 and 80 Watts, even with folding using all cores. That’s pretty impressive. Power bills were just getting a bit too high for my liking, especially since I am paying a bit extra for wind power. The other power usage drop has been the switch from electric to gas hot water - that made for a big difference in off-peak usage, which has now dropped to zero.

The RAM in both PCs is now 4GB as well, mainly because it is so damn cheap. I dropped the other PC back to stock speed as well, and stopped the notfred linux folding client that was running in a VM. I tried experimenting with having the machine sleep after a certain period, but with no success. I couldn’t wake the machine back up without holding the power switch in to shut it right off, then switching it on again. It took a while to come back up, too, especially if it was reading 4GB of RAM contents back off the drive. So I gave up - it’s set to spin down the disk, and that’s about it. It’ll do. Even with just my Quad core PC running at stock, it still gets ~4400 points per day in F@H, not too shabby.

While on the subject of the second machine, the Windows 7 RC is looking unlikely to stay on there very long. I had two choices for when the Release Candidate expires: buy a full version of Windows 7, or put XP back on. Well, there is the third choice of Ubuntu, but I can’t seem to get approval from the Mrs on that one. Might have to dual boot…

With the price of Win 7 looking to be a couple of hundred dollars, I thought I’d rather spend that money on a hardware upgrade that will actually make a difference in performance. So I’ll probably pick up a Solid State Disk drive in the next month or two, with possibly a dual boot, XP/Ubuntu setup. It should fly. And it means I’m not giving any of my money to Microsoft.