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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 06:07:03 AM
Last edit: November 03, 2013, 03:46:34 AM by bytemaster |
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I am offering a 0.5 BTC bounty to the individual who can spec out the cheapest possible Quad Core x86 system for mining momentum proof of work.
1) Must have 2+ GB of RAM
2) Must have 4+ cores
3) Must run Linux and have at least 32 GB of storage.
4) Must have a case.
5) Must have ethernet.
Everything else is optional, smaller is better.
If the system is put together from parts, add $50 to the price for labor.
The spec must include links where such a system can be sourced in quantity. IE: ebay and other second-hand sources do not count.
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dewdeded
Legendary
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Activity: 1232
Merit: 1011
Monero Evangelist
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October 30, 2013, 06:24:50 AM |
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 06:30:42 AM |
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This is for the Momentum proof of work which is bottlenecked at memory bandwidth.
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favdesu
Legendary
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Activity: 1764
Merit: 1000
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October 30, 2013, 06:49:01 AM |
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jantenner81
Full Member
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Activity: 228
Merit: 100
CIYAM - UI/UX design
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October 30, 2013, 06:50:22 AM |
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The spec must include links where such a system can be sourced in quantity. IE: ebay and other second-hand sources do not count. no ebay |
AT - Automated Transactions
CIYAM | Developer
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favdesu
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1000
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October 30, 2013, 06:51:11 AM |
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 06:56:04 AM |
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This ends on November 5th.
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 06:56:30 AM |
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You can provide specs via PM if you don't want to reveal your best sources.
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 06:57:23 AM |
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Quantity: 4 Refurbished... sorry that is second hand as far as I am concerned. |
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ZirconiumX
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October 30, 2013, 09:01:07 AM |
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I am offering a 0.5 BTC bounty to the individual who can spec out the cheapest possible Quad Core x86 system for mining momentum proof of work.
1) Must have 2+ GB of RAM
2) Must have 4+ cores
3) Must run Linux and have at least 32 GB of storage.
4) Must have a case.
5) Must have ethernet.
Everything else is optional, smaller is better.
If the system is put together from parts, add $50 to the price for labor.
The spec must include links where such a system can be sourced in quantity. IE: ebay and other second-hand sources do not count.
Does this have to be explicitly a Core i7 machine? What about Hyperthreading - is a dual core with HT considered a quad-core? Matthew:out |
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 30, 2013, 09:07:28 AM |
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I am offering a 0.5 BTC bounty to the individual who can spec out the cheapest possible Quad Core x86 system for mining momentum proof of work.
1) Must have 2+ GB of RAM
2) Must have 4+ cores
3) Must run Linux and have at least 32 GB of storage.
4) Must have a case.
5) Must have ethernet.
Everything else is optional, smaller is better.
If the system is put together from parts, add $50 to the price for labor.
The spec must include links where such a system can be sourced in quantity. IE: ebay and other second-hand sources do not count.
Does this have to be explicitly a Core i7 machine? What about Hyperthreading - is a dual core with HT considered a quad-core? Matthew:out Hyper threading counts as 50% of a core. I will attempt to normalize CPU performance when comparing prices. |
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ZirconiumX
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October 30, 2013, 09:31:30 AM |
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I have sent you - what I think is - a pretty good deal via PM.
Matthew:out
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 31, 2013, 07:58:28 PM |
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I was able to build the following:AMD FX-6300 BULLDOZER SIX CORE 3.5GHz Biostar A960D+ 2GB DDR3 500GB HDD for $367 shipped. http://www.ebay.com/itm/291007635830 Unfortunately it comes with an unnecessary DVD drive which I suspect could save another $10 if someone can source it elsewhere. And the best response I have gotten thus far is: Or Build it Ourself Intel system: Power Supply: $30 Case: $29 Mother Board: $65 3.2 Ghz Quad Core i5: $190 2 GB DDR3 RAM: $20 250 GB 7200 Disk $50 Assembly: $50 ------------------------------------------- Total: $434 So the question is, for momentum what is the difference in performance for a Quad Core i5 at 3.2 vs a Six Core AMD at 3.5 Ghz? Benchmarks show memory throughput is about even. |
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ZirconiumX
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October 31, 2013, 09:07:06 PM |
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I was able to build the following:AMD FX-6300 BULLDOZER SIX CORE 3.5GHz Biostar A960D+ 2GB DDR3 500GB HDD for $367 shipped. http://www.ebay.com/itm/291007635830 Unfortunately it comes with an unnecessary DVD drive which I suspect could save another $10 if someone can source it elsewhere. And the best response I have gotten thus far is: Or Build it Ourself Intel system: Power Supply: $30 Case: $29 Mother Board: $65 3.2 Ghz Quad Core i5: $190 2 GB DDR3 RAM: $20 250 GB 7200 Disk $50 Assembly: $50 ------------------------------------------- Total: $434 So the question is, for momentum what is the difference in performance for a Quad Core i5 at 3.2 vs a Six Core AMD at 3.5 Ghz? Benchmarks show memory throughput is about even. You'll find that that is because the memory is bottlenecked on both machines. You could put a dual-core in there and if you pump it hard enough, bottleneck the memory. This seems to be less of a "who can build the cheapest computer" and more of a "who can bottleneck the memory for the least amount of money". DDR3-2133 anyone? Matthew:out |
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bytemaster (OP)
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October 31, 2013, 10:02:20 PM |
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I was able to build the following:AMD FX-6300 BULLDOZER SIX CORE 3.5GHz Biostar A960D+ 2GB DDR3 500GB HDD for $367 shipped. http://www.ebay.com/itm/291007635830 Unfortunately it comes with an unnecessary DVD drive which I suspect could save another $10 if someone can source it elsewhere. And the best response I have gotten thus far is: Or Build it Ourself Intel system: Power Supply: $30 Case: $29 Mother Board: $65 3.2 Ghz Quad Core i5: $190 2 GB DDR3 RAM: $20 250 GB 7200 Disk $50 Assembly: $50 ------------------------------------------- Total: $434 So the question is, for momentum what is the difference in performance for a Quad Core i5 at 3.2 vs a Six Core AMD at 3.5 Ghz? Benchmarks show memory throughput is about even. You'll find that that is because the memory is bottlenecked on both machines. You could put a dual-core in there and if you pump it hard enough, bottleneck the memory. This seems to be less of a "who can build the cheapest computer" and more of a "who can bottleneck the memory for the least amount of money". DDR3-2133 anyone? Matthew:out Well, it is all about throughput per dollar. I know that a 3.4 Ghz Core i7 with 8 threads going has a hard time hitting the theoretical memory bus limits because speed increases linearly as I add cores to the problem. My estimates show that an i7 can saturate about 50% of the memory bus running 1600 Mhz DDR3 RAM (using SHA512 to fill RAM). So the processor matters a lot. There are a lot of memory delays so hyper threading helps a lot. That said, memory is accessed in a random manner and so the bus is unable to operate at max efficiency. All of that said, a CPU that was 100x faster would clearly hit the memory bus limit and thus hinder use of custom ASIC to replace CPU alone. |
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azwccc
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November 01, 2013, 01:53:19 AM |
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Does this means for the I7 with DDR3-1600 combination, cpu is the bottleneck?
If three or more I7/equivalent work with DDR3-1600, memory speed will become the bottleneck?
Does the memory size matters? I suppose it will increase the speed also. Or 2GB is enough?
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Bitrated user: azwccc.
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bytemaster (OP)
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November 01, 2013, 02:33:52 AM |
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1 GB is enough ram to do the proof of work and adding additional RAM will not accelerate the process by more than .05% with almost no gains beyond 2 GB... make sure there is room for OS and wallet app.
The proof of work is structured so that by the time you use 768 MB of ram (entire nonce search space) there is a 99% chance of finding 1-2 potential hashes.
Once you exhaust the nonce search space you clear the RAM and start over.
Increasing CPU speed helps until the bottleneck is the memory bus and is worthless beyond that point.
If you have less than 768 MB of ram your performance falls exponentially such that 512MB of RAM cuts your performance down to 10% (SWAG) of what it would be with the full amount of RAM.
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