The Scottish Boinc Team

Having just made a comeback I am interested in peoples thoughts on best way to go?

Stick with an older Q6600 and get some monster GPU hardware? Or upgrade to I7? Is GPU the way to go for most projects?

In terms of GPU ATI is usually killing NVidia in gaming front. But how does the likes of a GTX465/470/480 do in terms of BOINC GPU? Still best to go for HD 5830/5850/5870? Or if can handle power bills what about Dual GTX 260? Can get two for about £260 these days.

Currently I am on Q6600 + 2x8800GTS 512Mb, would like to keep and get new PC but more likely be an upgrade for again 1 single PC.

P.S. I work from home now so sit next to PC to it can't sound like a hand dryer! The heating will be nice in the winter.

I am no expert on GPUs but I would avoid the Nividia GTX 4xx series with the Fermi GF100 architecture - from what I have seen and heard it's hot, slow (relative to the competition) and expensive to manufacture which means it is likely to have a short lifespan... until Nvidia comes up with something better... maybe in 2011.

Right now I would choose an ATI HD 5xxx card. Looks like the design has been better tested at production and may last longer on the market. The only problem is that they do tend to limit you to Collatz, Milkyway or DNETC at the moment (not sure if there are any others with ATI apps out). Current ATI CAL drivers (v10.6) should work with all these projects but I think other members can be more help on this as I have only set this up on other people's machines for MW and Collatz. The one's I have set up weren't noisy on the tests I ran but I don't know what they're like to live with....

.... by the way, I was creeping up on you nicely until you decided to wake up... coises, foiled again !

Yes, Pink I noticed that, you must have woke me up, Need to sneak up even quiter next time!

Cheers for the opinion, just wasnt sure if anyone had experience of GTX 4xx for BOINC.