Has anyone calculated the cost of donated DC time?

[kylef]

I'm just curious. Back in the early days of DC, I always kept my computers on 24/7 so running programs like Seti@home was a no-brainer. Computers rarely consumed more than 100W total at 100% cpu utilization, and electricity was cheap.

But now things are different. Electricity has gone up more than 40% in my area. The CPU in my latest system consumes 100W at full load by itself! So it costs more to run DC than it did before.

Furthermore, turning systems on and off has gotten less painful. In fact, resume from S3 on my Vista system takes only about 5 seconds! It's easier than ever to just let your PC put itself to sleep while you're gone.

So I guess the question is, how many of you have looked at what it really costs to donate computer resources to these projects and wondered whether it is still worth it?

 

[Rudy Toody]

My FX-60s cost about $12.50/cpu-month at 24/7. I haven't checked my Phenom, yet. I'm waiting for my final over-clocking to test its consumption.

--Fred

 

[RaySun2Be]

For me, it's like anything else. People donate time and/or money to many good causes. Some sponsor a 3rd world child for a certain amount every month. Some volunteer their time for Habitat for Humanity. Some write checks to their favorite charities. Those of us in DC donate our PC time, and the costs associated with that. I don't see it as any different than giving $50 to Jerry's Kids, or donating a car to charity. Some of the projects have different goals than others, but that's ok.

Sure there's a cost to DC. Most of us wouldn't be doing it if we didn't believe it was worth it.

Many curtail their involvement when the weather turns warm due to the costs of cooling when the PCs are running, on top of the electrical draw.

Sure, many of us like donating our PCs to our pet projects, and many of us are statsaholics. But if the costs of running DC projects are getting to be too much for a person, then by all means they should curtail their involvement. Just like with a charity, if the amount you've pledged to a charity becomes too much and you or your family are going hungry or broke, you would need to consider curtailing the amount pledged to that charity.

I've come close to it myself, it's easy to get sucked into DC and caught up in stats, and lose sight of the bigger picture. I've seen people lose their jobs, start having marital problems due to their focus on DC. I had to cut my involvement way back a few years ago, as I myself was getting totally wrapped up in DC and races and stats. I had to cut back until I could find a good balance.

Bottom line is it's a personal choice. If it bothers you to leave your PC on 24/7 or you can't afford it, then don't do it, or participate within your means.

If you don't think it's worth it, then by all means don't do it. Whether it's donating your time, money, or PC.

 

[bryanW1995]

I do DC b/c I like the concept of everybody working together as a team to accomplish a common goal, especially one like this that involves putting our computers to a "good" use. I crunch seti b/c that's where it all began and, frankly, I think they get the short end of the stick with govt funding and whatnot. Besides, I like knowing that if and when I ever get my 9450 up and running I'll be close to 1/3 the daily output of dajeepster...until he gets HIS quads up and running...maybe I'm a little bit competitive I guess ;

 

[alfa147x]

we should be able to write it off, when we file taxes ...

 

[legoman666]

I don't pay my electricity bill (included in the monthly rent price) so my only concern is how hot my room gets. I'd still do it even if I had to pay the bill though.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
we should be able to write it off, when we file taxes ...

That would be excellent. Even before I was crunching, I never turned the computers off, so crunching works out well for me. I just have to pay the extra electricity for their additional load, and stats make up for that easily.

I remember my dual Xeon costed about $50 a month to run when I lived on the coast. I haven't gotten a chance to calculate operational costs of the machines here in San Marcos. I will have to add that to the list of things to do after we move though.

 

[JonB]

If a DC project could get itself declared a Charitable Organization and then send you a yearly statement of your "Donation" translated from work units to money (dollar, euros, etc..), I think they'd get some serious membership.

 

[Alyx]

Originally posted by: legoman666
I don't pay my electricity bill (included in the monthly rent price) so my only concern is how hot my room gets. I'd still do it even if I had to pay the bill though.

I have a friend who is like this, I've been tempted to move a few of my machines to his place to take advantage of it

 

[NicColt]

Don't get me started on Hydro... I pay 5.5/kW and 6.2/kW after 1000W so the more I use the more expensive it is. I use on average 1200W/month.

After doing this for years by best guestimate would be that the 3 computers I have going full time cost about $25/month.

Even with all that you have to strive to use the juice as efficient as you can, you have to consider is getting efficient CPU's like 65W per 2 cores. Get rid of the Pentium D's and 4's they cost to much for the output you're getting. Also get 80Plus Certified PSU's.

My advice, do it within your means, if you can't afford it don't do it.

 

[JonB]

This thread made me curious. My dual core Opteron 165 crunches DPAD 24/7 but I'd likely run it 24/7 anyway so I was curious about the difference in power usage each way.

Since the computer is on a UPS, I unplugged the UPS from the wall, then replugged it into my "Kill-A-Watt" meter. It immediately stabilized at 232 watts. My system consists of dual Viewsonic widescreen monitors (mounted one above the other if you're interested) but nothing else special. I don't have a dedicated CPU fan; the radiator style heat pipe cooler is ducted to my 120mm rear case fan. So then I shutdown DPAD. Power dropped down and stabilized at 185 watts. Mouse and monitors still on. CPU usage fluctuating around 2 to 4 percent.

That is 47 watts specifically being consumed by DPAD. Last I checked, I pay $0.14/kilowatt hour.

From the Benchmarking thread on the DPAD website, my Opteron does 441kpts/second.

So, for all the points I've accumulated in DPAD, a VERY rough guess is that I have used $830 of power just for DPAD. Granted, there are huge variables and guesses and assumptions in this calculation. Take it for what it is worth (exactly Nothing )

To go even farther out on a limb, the whole of DPAD's calculations (10,138 million Mpts) would mean a estimated $42k worth of electricity.

 

[Assimilator1]

I've got a quad Q6600 @3GHz running DPAD 24/7 & I live in the UK where energy prices are higher still.
This rig draws 225w from the wall running DPAD, & last I calculated it some months back this costs me £15/mth (~$30/mth).
DPAD benchmark shows I'm getting 1055 Kpts/s with this latest client.

And yep it's still worth it.

JonB
What's your 165 clocked at?