[Herts] Another dead distributed processing project, maybe, and advice sought on an upgrade.

[Steve Clark]

Just read this

http://n0cgi.distributed.net/cgi/dnet-finger.cgi?user=bovine

Basically, RSA Labs are abandoning their challenges, so there will be no
more prizes or even confirmation of solutions. The distributed.net
people are canvassing for opinions on whether to continue the RC5-72
challenge anyway. I'm running that as well as their OGR project and I
know at least one other LUGger runs it too.

This follows on from Grid.org shutting down their public project

http://www.grid.org/

I intend to concentrate on Folding at home, but I was having some issues
with it on my current PC. I may take it up again when I upgrade.

My upgrade plan is to build a new PC and use my current drives in it as
they are good enough. I was thinking of the following parts:

* AMD Athlon X2 4600+ or faster, depending on current prices
* Asus M2npv-vm motherboard. I'm having second thoughts about this as I
don't really need it to be micro-ATX and may need more than 2 PCI slots
* Probably 2GB of DDR2. I gather it's best to run a matched pair for
maximum speed
* Antec NSK4400 case. Looks to be good quality and reasonably quiet

I don't play games, but I want more processing power for things like
audio and video processing. On-board graphics would probably be adequate
and nVidia seems to be the best supported. I would consider a reasonably
priced ATX board with a cheap PCI-E nvidia card if anyone wants to
suggest one. If I go that path then I could go for an Intel chip (4300?)
as the motherboard chipset will be less important.

Budget is around 250 quid. I've paid around that for a stick of RAM in
the distant past!

I'm currently running a Duron 1200 with 786MB and on-board GeForce2
graphics, so this is a big step up. This PC will only be running Linux
(Kubuntu), so Vista/XP compatibility is irrelevant.

Any suggestions folk would care to share?

-- 
Steve