Electricity. Ah, yes, that wonderful modern convenience that we ever so very much take for granted most every second of our lives! It gives life, it takes life away, it lives within us. And to our lives it brings comfort, and if wearing socks on carpet in a dry room, discomfort. It provides light, heat, cooling, communications, locomotion/travel, electronics, but there is a COST...
Yeah alright, I'm done with the silly introduction. This is primarily a thread on the consumption of energy in relation to distributed computing.
1st, the Kill-a-Watt. Everyone who uses electricity needs one or one like it. I haven't yet found one for 240v, most likely due to the seemingly endless types and sizes of receptacles and plugs for 240v appliances.
2nd, rates (cost). With a little bit of effort, your electrically powered fingers can type on your electrically powered keyboard and upon your electrically powered monitor you can see search results for the cost of electricity per kilowatt/hour that you pay to your provider, plus a monthly 'customer charge.'
I miss the rates inside the city limits... only $0.085 per KW/hr. The county is higher at $0.101, but that's still cheap I suppose, compared to other areas and countries.
Last is your monthly bill. Because now you know how much juice your fancy rig is drinking when it's crunching, and you know your rates. Now it's time to figure up how much of that electric bill is going towards distributed computing. Yep, it's MATH TIME!!!
Using one (1) [yes only ONE] of my workstations running 23 Core i7 threads plus a Radeon 280X GPU pulls 550 watts at the plug. So here's the formula: 550 watts per hour divided by 1000 is .55KW/hr times 24 hours a day times 30 days a month gives the total KW/hrs used, times the $rate$ of .101 (10.1 cents) equals= uhm, carry the one...substract the...uh..ah, here we go, $40.56 a month.
Okay, okay, okay, calm down, you can skip all the math. Here's a calculator for you.
$1.34 per day doesn't sound too bad does it? $40.56 a month. $486.67 a year. Hmm. Now let's say I actually had 4 of these, plus a newer primary system all running. $2433.35 per yr, $202.78 a month. I'm starting to think we should be able to do tax write-offs for contributing!
So, I hope I've not scared anyone OUT of contributing. I just wanted to raise awareness of the cost(s), and then I wanted to give and get ideas on how to reduce that cost.
So, any ideas how to reduce that cost? Here's mine.
Any other suggestions/tips/tricks are welcome!
Yeah alright, I'm done with the silly introduction. This is primarily a thread on the consumption of energy in relation to distributed computing.
1st, the Kill-a-Watt. Everyone who uses electricity needs one or one like it. I haven't yet found one for 240v, most likely due to the seemingly endless types and sizes of receptacles and plugs for 240v appliances.
2nd, rates (cost). With a little bit of effort, your electrically powered fingers can type on your electrically powered keyboard and upon your electrically powered monitor you can see search results for the cost of electricity per kilowatt/hour that you pay to your provider, plus a monthly 'customer charge.'
I miss the rates inside the city limits... only $0.085 per KW/hr. The county is higher at $0.101, but that's still cheap I suppose, compared to other areas and countries.
Last is your monthly bill. Because now you know how much juice your fancy rig is drinking when it's crunching, and you know your rates. Now it's time to figure up how much of that electric bill is going towards distributed computing. Yep, it's MATH TIME!!!
Using one (1) [yes only ONE] of my workstations running 23 Core i7 threads plus a Radeon 280X GPU pulls 550 watts at the plug. So here's the formula: 550 watts per hour divided by 1000 is .55KW/hr times 24 hours a day times 30 days a month gives the total KW/hrs used, times the $rate$ of .101 (10.1 cents) equals= uhm, carry the one...substract the...uh..ah, here we go, $40.56 a month.
Okay, okay, okay, calm down, you can skip all the math. Here's a calculator for you.
$1.34 per day doesn't sound too bad does it? $40.56 a month. $486.67 a year. Hmm. Now let's say I actually had 4 of these, plus a newer primary system all running. $2433.35 per yr, $202.78 a month. I'm starting to think we should be able to do tax write-offs for contributing!
So, I hope I've not scared anyone OUT of contributing. I just wanted to raise awareness of the cost(s), and then I wanted to give and get ideas on how to reduce that cost.
So, any ideas how to reduce that cost? Here's mine.
- Don't use 120v. Obviously not very practical for many.
- I know you've read a PSU review before, and I know you may remember that the PSU is more efficient at higher (220-240) voltages.
- Urban Legend? I keep hearing that you need to 'balance the load' on 120v breaker panels. 240v is automatically balanced, assuming there's any truth to this one.
- Use the heat produced by your equipment wisely. In the winter, multiple rigs can REALLY warm your home, or at least help. In warmer weather, DON'T heat your home, heat your garage or seal off that spare bedroom and use outside air for cooling the systems if possible. And make sure your 'space heater' isn't too near the HVAC's thermostat.
- Analyze your older equipment. It may be time to upgrade entirely. I dare say most of us with multiple rigs are using older equipment, the last personal gaming rig for example, built 3-8 years ago. In some cases, they are likely still at a decent output (workunits) vs input (KW/hr) ratio. You won't really know until you know the electrical usage, and the crunch power you're getting out of that energy. The energy used was covered above, so now how do you find the crunch-power? This is what I use.
- Continuing from the bullet above, it's up to you to determine if building ONE new system will save you money in the long run to replace those three old systems you've been running for years now, all while allowing you to keep or even increase your processing power. I know it will certainly save you SPACE.
- Newer PSU's are more efficient. I still occasionally fire up an old dual core machine, with a 550w PSU, with about 65% efficiency rating. Did I type that right? 65%? Yep. That bad. Consider replacing older PSU's on 24/7 machines.
- Newer systems are more efficient. Unless made by AMD. (I'm an AMD fan by the way, but the truth hurts). From the power supply to the RAM to the SSD, processor, chipset, GPU, darn near everything on a new (Intel) build is more efficient. Depending on if you are just replacing your current processing power level, or increasing it, a new high-end rig may use more energy, but the crunch-power will go up substantially, thus still being more efficient. Don't forget to sell the older stuff to further finance the new build.
Any other suggestions/tips/tricks are welcome!
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