Question GPU's crunching vs central heating system

[Assimilator1]

So I wondered at what point I'd be better off running my GPUs vs turning on my (gas) central heating for x hrs during the day when it's normally off (I'm furloughed atm, so at home during the day until the 30th).

My electricity charges are 15.72p/kWh and 21p/day standing charge.
Gas is 3.25p/kWh, standing charge is also 21p/day (I need to shop around to see if that's still any good).

I had my heating on for an hour (with it being about 9C outside) and it used 0.720 m3 of gas today, this site reckons that's 8.1811 kWh.
On my main rig, running 10T Rosetta and dual MW WUs on the GPU (@1266 MHz) it's drawing ~227w, with 12T Rosetta only it's ~116w, so ~111w running the GPU. Running the GPU 24hrs adds 2.664 kWh, quite a lot less energy than 1hrs heating! But even today just running my main rig's GPU wasn't quite enough to keep me warm, so I needed to find out what my 2nd rig draws too.

For 24hrs GPU crunching on my main rig that's an extra 41.9p/day over just CPU crunching, and 1hrs gas is 26.6p (+ standing charge for both).
So it would take just an extra 2hrs heating per day to exceed the cost of running 1 GPU all day on my main rig! (at 9C outside anyway).

My 2nd rig uses ~110w idling! lol. Running MW on its GPU (@850 MHz) it's drawing ~228w (and CPU is otherwise mostly idle. When loaded IIRC it adds about 100w).
So running my 2nd rig 24hrs/day, GPU crunching only, would add 5.472 kWh (24hrs x 228w) a day x15.72 = 86p/day, costing slightly more than 3hrs of heating (79.8p, with 9C outdoors temp).
Going by that, if I ran my 2nd rig just 6hrs/day (21.5p) it would be cheaper than running my heating an extra hour (26.6p). Sounds like a good excuse to GPU crunch! (assuming 2 GPUs can keep me warm enough in my lounge to prevent me from having to turn on the heating any extra).

Are my maths right?

Has anyone else worked out their heating cost vs GPU heating cost? (assuming your GPUs aren't producing more heat than you need! lol)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Speaking of crunching and heating. I might cobble together a box for my Mom's place, with a couple of fairly beefy (RX 5600XT/5700/5700XT) cards, and warm her place up at the same time. (We both have electric heat.)

 

[StefanR5R]

Wouldn't this have to be a rock-stable system?
Hence, if air-cooled, single-GPU.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I don't happen to agree that only single GPU systems can be rock-sold stable. In fact, given AMD's driver track-record, I'm not sure that I could state that even a single AMD GPU system would be rock-solid stable.

That said, the "mining frames" that I am proposing to utilize, support 2 or 3 GPUs, and are open-air frames (I have the sides somewhere, but chances are, they aren't on the case. Or maybe they are. I'm running one now without the sides on, however, and temps don't seem to be (much) of an issue. Most likely the GPUs would be power-tuned for lower wattage usage.

The biggest issue that I can see, is the limited floor space in each room of the apt. Both rooms have a monitor setup, though.

 

[Endgame124]

I ran dual GPU with a founders edition 1080ti and EVGA 1660 super on closed case 2700X system without issue for roughly 7 months. Well, there were issues with F@H making changes that broke stuff in fedora, but the system itself was fine.

what would make a dual GPU inherently unstable?

 

[StefanR5R]

@VirtualLarry, OK, a mining frame would make a difference of course.

@Endgame124, at what sort of noise level was it stable? (Perhaps a normal level to North American ears, and at the same time an entirely infeasible level to European ears.)

--------

Edit,
speaking of stability. A space heater appliance should probably run Linux, not Windows, unless effective technical measures are put into place which guarantee that system updates take place when the owner plans them, not when the operating system vendor rushes them in.

 

[Endgame124]

@Endgame124, at what sort of noise level was it stable? (Perhaps a normal level to North American ears, and at the same time an entirely infeasible level to European ears.)

CPU is cooled by an AIO (corsair h150i) with 6x Gentle Typhoons AP-15 running at 80% - very quiet IMO. Case exhaust fans were the 2 default fans that came with the Corsair Carbide running at 80% as well - definitely louder than the AP-15s.

The 1080ti was running at 60% power, and the fan was set to 40%. In single GPU mode, I've set it to 80% power and 50% fan.
The 1660 Super was a dual fan, which I couldn't seem to control from the linux nvidia X software. It ran around 60%.

I can't hear the system sitting roughly 2.5 meters away from the host - I rarely get any closer to it than that.

For an example of a "loud" system, on my workbench, I have an older watercooled system running a 120mm extra dense fin black ice extreme from 2002 running 1 38mm Delta at 100% at roughly 50dba. There are 4 other fans in the system, but you can't tell due to the volume of the delta.

 

[StefanR5R]

I had to look it up... The AP-15s appear to be 1850 rpm fans. If 80 % means circa 80 % of this rotational speed, and the case fans were even louder, then I confirm that this setup would be too loud to most Europeans to accept in a living room or in an office. As a room heating system, it could be acceptable for intermittent use, but not as the permanent heating.

 

[StefanR5R]

Here, like most everywhere else, heating with gas is a lot cheaper than heating with electricity.

Though this is only true when I only consider what I have to pay myself, not what future generations, South Seas islanders, Siberian reindeer herders, and others have to pay for me. The apartment house has central heating with natural gas, while I purchase electricity from 100 % renewable sources. (Granted, it is from a provider who also sells electricity from non-renewable sources. I suppose I support this part of this provider's business indirectly.)

I now have 1.1 kW at PrimeGrid and 1.1 kW at SiDock, and it's a little more than I really need to heat the entire home. I've got several more space heaters which are switched off, and likely will stay off. I no longer want to have windows open 24 h/d in winter.

Right after I wrote this, it came to my mind that I can still deploy one or two of such space heaters in my bedroom. I don't have any computers in there, and I don't want any there . . . . . . . while I actually use the bedroom. That is, I could still use computers to heat this room for ≈⅔rds of the day. Either I switch them off during the other ⅓rd, or I move them out of the room. For the latter, I could even put them on something like a tea cart for convenient transport. Though one nuisance is that I don't have Ethernet in the bedroom, and I prefer wired networking over wireless, e.g. for reliability.

 

[Icecold]

For the latter, I could even put them on something like a tea cart for convenient transport. Though one nuisance is that I don't have Ethernet in the bedroom, and I prefer wired networking over wireless, e.g. for reliability.

I use ethernet over powerline for this. The speed isn't incredible, but they are super reliable in my experience. Even with the temperature fluctuations in my garage I never have had to power cycle the adapters ,and they were just some inexpensive TP-links I had purchased. The speed isn't any better than wireless(and probably often worse), but in my experience the reliability definitely is. And it's not like I'm using garbage access points it's all Ubiquiti, but anything wireless seems inherently somewhat less reliable. Also to add more machines I just hooked a switch to it, vs either having every computer have wireless adapters or using a wireless bridge or some other kludge.

I'm not in an apartment or somewhere where the electrical is shared, though, so I have no experience or advice regarding the security aspect of it. My understanding though is if you pair them properly that somebody cannot just hook up a similar adapter and accidentally end up on your network.

 

[StefanR5R]

I'm not in an apartment or somewhere where the electrical is shared, though,

I am.
Powerline, WLAN — its pretty much the same in my eyes. I'll keep my high-frequency I/O on shielded cables. (Edit: I admit I am ignorant about current Powerline implementations. Supposedly, they broadcast at much lower levels than WLAN, or DECT for example.)