Best processor upgrade for folding?

[Speculant]

I want the best CPU upgrade for folding, I'm stuck between these two:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103886

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103887

(because both are under $100 and supported by my ancient ASUS M3A78 AM2+ motherboard)

On one hand, the triple core has (obviously) three cores, but there wouldn't be much headroom for overclocking.

On the other hand, the dual core is a BE (more overclocking potential) plus L3 cache, but it only has two cores.

Also, I just surpassed 4 million points, making me number 8 on the leaderboards! Unfortunately, it will be about 7-8 months before I pass up mccalls and geostep.

[the mekanic]

Though the Callisto has one less core, it has the better cache and more possibility as far as future upgrades go.

I would go with the Callisto, and if you ever upgrade the mobo snag an Asus with a Core Unlocker feature. You can turn a Black Edition X2, into a an X4 very easily.

As a matter of fact, I run this very same CPU. Unlocked, it is a Phenom II X4 B60 processor. I run mine at 3.8 GHz with an Asus Sabertooth mobo.

[Speculant]

Makes sense. The dual core will probably run a little cooler, too.

[lbmest]

Are you looking for max point production with 24/7 folding or just folding part time daily?

[Speculant]

24/7

[the mekanic]

If you really dig that kind of competition, I'd knock off a build and just put it "in the corner" and run a personal rig separately.

Just my two cents...

[Speculant]

My laptop is for personal stuff, the desktop is for folding 24/7, it basically sits in a corner and just folds. Don't have the cash to build a new tower, so I'm upgrading what I have.

[the mekanic]

Then my advice would be to upgrade a component at a time.

Don't hem yourself in with a Rana Athlon core, when you can update your BIOS and run a Callisto core. Eventually you can pick up an Asus board "on the cheap" which will unlock the full potential of the Callisto die. That is, it can easily become an X4 CPU with the proper micro/unicode.

It took me almost a year to put together my current build...

[lbmest]

Originally Posted by the mekanic

That is, it can easily become an X4 CPU with the proper micro/unicode.

Generally speaking, the more cores the better, even if the speed is a little lacking. That's why a few years ago the high end systems all had Intel's. The HT logical cores did the same amount of work as the physical cores.
I tried to find these AMD's in the FAH CPU comparison database and could only find 1, the Phenom II, so no PPD comparison was available.

[the mekanic]

All the benchmarks I've seen show little difference between the two, and which one is superior depends on the application.

The question is which is a more useful utilization of the CPU's attributes per the FAH software? From what I've been able to glean, FAH is a heavily threaded application, and performance would benefit more from an L3 cache, than an extra core.

[lbmest]

Originally Posted by Speculant

it basically sits in a corner and just folds.

Make sure to put a linix distro on it and you'll do probably 10% better PPD than with a Windows OS. Linux client is more efficient at folding than the Win client.