How much is your electric bill per month?

[dajeepster]

Ok... well.. i'm moving into a house... so i'm losing the luxury of not having to pay for my utilities.

and i'm working on getting a ball park figure for how much it's going to cost me a month for electricity just to run my farm.

How much are you DCers paying for your electricity each month?



I'll be paying $.0955 per kwh.
sooo... assuming i have 15 computers averaging 600 watts

((600 watts x 24 hours x 365 days/yr)/1000 watts) x $.0955 per kwh = $501.948 per year per computer.

x15 computers = @$7,500 per year

so... i'm looking at paying about $600 a month on electricity just for computers... and that doesn't include cooling... but most of these computers will be in the garage and i'll have a portable AC unit... so.... that's what i'm looking at.

well... at least i won't have to heat during the winter time.

 

[petrusbroder]

24 computers @ 300W/computer approx; 5180KWh/month. 0,1155 USD/KWh (include all taxes, incl. a environmental tax of approx 0.03 USD). 598 USD/month.

OTOH: I use the heat produced by the computers to heat all of my house and generating hot water (for showers, baths etc). 75 percent of the heat is recovered using a heat exchangers in the attic.

Therefore: Heating in the period September - April of a 380 m^2 (4090 squ feet) less than USD 300 (= USD 37/month). That is probably a somewhat high figure but that was the cost for the past winter, when we had 37 days in a row with temperatures below -20 degrees C (= -5 degrees F) and 22 days in a row below -27 degrees C (= -17 degrees F). This winter I used the full potential of the heat exchanger.

Only in summer, when virually no heating is needed I pay for the computers' electricity.

Before the computer farm the heating was approx 600 - 650 USD/month.
Real cost in period Sept - April: approx USD 40.
Real cost in period May - August: approx USD 600.
I have no AC, I use the heat exchanger without using the heat (bypass).

As I see it: USD 2 720/year = USD 226/month

The investment cost was quite high, but we had a period in Sweden whan the costs for installation of such devices was discounted heavily (up to 75&#37.

Edit: BTW: isn't 600W/computer somewhat high? I have measured most of my comps and they use 200 - 250W/computer, except those who have more powerful GPUs, those use approx 350 - 450W/computer (from the wall). OK, my few GPUs are quite receont (GTX 260, 280 and ATI 5770 and very few older and none are OC'ed)

 

[biodoc]

Thanks for starting this thread dajeepster. I've been putting off measuring the electricity consumption/cost of my rigs. :hmm:

I've got a "kill-o-watt" meter so this is measured consumption.

electricity cost: $0.16 per KWh

2 Q6600's @ 3.0 GHz each with 1 radeon 4850. The lcd monitors are turned off. Since both are plugged into the same wall socket, I measured power consumption of both rigs together.

both Q6600's: 526 watts (400 watts with radeons on idle)

Q9550 @3.4 GHz w/GTX295 idle: 236 watts with monitor off

total electricity cost per year: 762 watts x 24 hours x 365 days/yr)/1000 watts) x $.16 per kwh = $1,068

So about $90 per month. Not as bad as I thought!

 

[dajeepster]

600 watt could be high... but i'm running several computers OC that have several gpus... 2-3850, 3-4850s, 1-4890, 1-4830, 2-5850, 1-5870, 3-5770, 5-GTX260, 1-GTX280, 1GTX460, 2-8800GT, 1-GTS250, 1-GT240.... and a few smaller ones.

I'm going to be consolidating my GPUs to my i7s and i5 and i'm most likely going to sell all my q6600 mb, mem combos...

my current main rig is an i7-940@4Ghz with a 5870 and 5850 in it.
which will be replaced shortly by an i7-975

and I do run my systems 24/7 under full load... except when i pop circuit breakers.. and that happens often.

on the plus side... i did find a company that charges $.0788 per kwh..

 

[dajeepster]

once i move into the new place... and have internet access... i'll pull out the kill-a-watt and do some actual measurements.

 

[petrusbroder]

Here are some more figures - but this is gaming, probably some slight difference comapred to DC-ing.

 

[mk]

How much are you DCers paying for your electricity each month?

Exactly the same I'd be paying without crunching. Electricity is covered by the apartment maintenance charge. Never had to pay for it separately.

edit: The prices here are roughly equivalent to 0.08-0.10 $/kWh.

 

[dajeepster]

Exactly the same I'd be paying without crunching. Electricity is covered by the apartment maintenance charge. Never had to pay for it separately.

edit: The prices here are roughly equivalent to 0.08-0.10 $/kWh.

I already know that one, which stated on my first line... but that's not relavent to the topic under investigation .. i'm currently not paying anything either at my apartment because it's covered under the rent, but i'm moving into a house where i do have to pay utilities... hence a rough formula was given.

I'm collecting this information for myself and others... but mostly for myself.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My electric bill went from $60/mo to $180/mo with my quad-GPU cruncher, my HTPC, my laptop, my main A/C (12000 BTU), and a window AC part-time (6000BTU?) all running.

From 470KWh to 1250KWh. Cannot imagine that all of that can be the quad-GPU cruncher, it only has a 650W EarthWatts PSU.

 

[mk]

I already know that one, which stated on my first line... but that's not relavent to the topic under investigation .. i'm currently not paying anything either at my apartment because it's covered under the rent, but i'm moving into a house where i do have to pay utilities... hence a rough formula was given.

I'm collecting this information for myself and others... but mostly for myself.

OK then, here's another semi useful post.

There's three Core2 machines (2xQuad, 1xDuo) running w/ 1x5770 & 2x4770, estimated total power consumption around 700W (based on old measurements (can't seem to find the meter at the moment) and biodoc's post).

(0.7kW x 24h x 365) x 0.07€/kWh = 429.24 €/yr, roughly 560$/yr.
With lower usage during hot summer days and some days off, not taking into account changes in PSU efficiency due to varying room temperatures as I'm too tired and lazy to make a decent guesstimate, the real number is probably 5-10% lower.

 

[bryanW1995]

I don't know what a heat exchanger costs, but it might be worthwhile for you to set one up as well. Peter definitely has the advantage, however, I don't recall many instances of 22 days in a row of -17f or lower here in the US.

I only have 2 units at home, and due to technical difficulties I just recently got the i7 920 running 24/7 DC. The rest of mine are at work, mom's house, friends houses, etc.

I will say, however, that I have 3 ac units at my house in the San Antonio area. It gets VERY hot here, and $600 matches the highest power bill I've ever had. That's a LOT to pay on electricity!

 

[biodoc]

Q9550 @3.4 GHz w/GTX295 idle: 236 watts with monitor off

Started DNETC@home on GTX295. I Only have one gpu running (2nd gpu is idle) and can't figure out how to get the second crunching. The GTX295 has 2 gpu's on a single pcb. Even so, the power consumption went from 236 watts to 360 watts!

 

[Bradtech519]

I paid $159.00 last month.. Actually went down when I started crunching. lol

 

[Markfw]

About $300.month, but that really varies. Right now I have 8 quads, and 13 video cards running 24/7, and the AC is running 24/7, even though its down to 55f at night here.

I can't turn my whole farm on in the summer, since the AC can't keep up, plus I only have a 120 amp breaker box, and its already overheating ! Total I have 12 quads, a dual-core, and a hex-core and 28 video cards, the slowest is 8800 GT's doing 5k ppd. In the winter, I can get most of it going. Right now, I estimate that if I had the electricity and the AC, I could do 300,000 ppd.

 

[Bradtech519]

Impressive farm! I'm going to try to keep mine small but effective.. This is getting addicting LOL

About $300.month, but that really varies. Right now I have 8 quads, and 13 video cards running 24/7, and the AC is running 24/7, even though its down to 55f at night here.

I can't turn my whole farm on in the summer, since the AC can't keep up, plus I only have a 120 amp breaker box, and its already overheating ! Total I have 12 quads, a dual-core, and a hex-core and 28 video cards, the slowest is 8800 GT's doing 5k ppd. In the winter, I can get most of it going. Right now, I estimate that if I had the electricity and the AC, I could do 300,000 ppd.

 

[dajeepster]

About $300.month, but that really varies. Right now I have 8 quads, and 13 video cards running 24/7, and the AC is running 24/7, even though its down to 55f at night here.

I can't turn my whole farm on in the summer, since the AC can't keep up, plus I only have a 120 amp breaker box, and its already overheating ! Total I have 12 quads, a dual-core, and a hex-core and 28 video cards, the slowest is 8800 GT's doing 5k ppd. In the winter, I can get most of it going. Right now, I estimate that if I had the electricity and the AC, I could do 300,000 ppd.

Thanks mark... You're probably the closest match i'll get to an equivalent farm. I'm going to reconfigure a few of my computers once i have everything moved in... i.e. i won't be running anymore single gpu configurations anymore, and since most of my systems have multiple PCIe... that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[dajeepster]

24 computers @ 300W/computer approx; 5180KWh/month. 0,1155 USD/KWh (include all taxes, incl. a environmental tax of approx 0.03 USD). 598 USD/month.

OTOH: I use the heat

... BLAH BLAH BLAH... YADA YADA... seriously.. there's a lot of stuff to quote here...

approx 350 - 450W/computer (from the wall). OK, my few GPUs are quite receont (GTX 260, 280 and ATI 5770 and very few older and none are OC'ed)

I'm curious about your setup. do you have rough blueprint that you would be willing to share. I'd like to take a look at it and possibly incorporate it.
I'll probably be buying a house in a couple of years... but i'm sure i could incorporate something like this in the garage at the place i'm moving to.

 

[RaySun2Be]

About $110 per month during the summer in a 1000 square foot apt. But that's with only 1 PC running 24x7, an AMD3000+ and a 23" LCD monitor. Most of the lights have been replaced with energy savers. We have fans running to help the A/C keep us cool. And we don't turn all the lights off (/me looks at the wife, she likes having lights on in all the rooms she has been in or will be in).

 

[biodoc]

Right now I have 8 quads, and 13 video cards running 24/7, and the AC is running 24/7, even though its down to 55f at night here.

I wonder if a "whole house fan" could draw enough air through the windows to cool your house down on those 55 F evenings. You need good ventilation in your attic though.

wiki link

 

[petrusbroder]

I'm curious about your setup. do you have rough blueprint that you would be willing to share. I'd like to take a look at it and possibly incorporate it.
I'll probably be buying a house in a couple of years... but i'm sure i could incorporate something like this in the garage at the place i'm moving to.

Sorry, I do not have a blueprint .. we never made one, we built as we went along ... but the system is as follows:

The computer room in the basement; with 17 computers in a room 3 x 4 yards. From the computer room is a a existing air duct 21 x 21 cm (8.2 inches x 8.2 inches) to the roof. The computer rooms is next to the utility room, and a staircase, and the doors to the computer room are always open ...
I have a fan in the computer room (max 800 m^3/hour, temperature regulated) which evacuates the hot air through this air duct to the attic, where the hot air is ducted to two heat exchangers (Flexit SL4 EC + 2 water batteries). From these heat exchangers the pre-warmed fresh air is ducted in preexisting air ducts to the lower floor and and in newly installed air ducts to the upper floor. Before being heated in the heat exchanger the air is filtered; and - when needed after heating - humidified to a reasonable level. In summer, when no heating is needed a bypass duct evacuates the hot indoor air to the chimney.

I have also a deep well (180 m = 590 feet) heat pump which is the back up system when more heat is needed, That system heats the house through existing water radiators. This system also generates the hot water when the air heating system does not suffice ... which happens once or twice every month - more in the winter.

Considering that we are 8 people (6 teenagers and 2 adults) a energy use of 65000 KWh per year (including all light [all low energy lighting] food preparation, freezers, refrigerators, etc). is not too bad ... considering that the house used 69 000 KWh for two adults (only) before the heating system was modified and the computers using approx 62000 KWh/year.

All heat is used. the freezers are in the utility room, the washer, dryer too; the fan from the kitchen leads the hot air to the heat exchangers and the hot air from the bathrooms are also ducted the the attic. Thus more than 84 percent of all energy input to the house (54 500 KWh of 65 000 KWH) are regained in the heat exchangers, which is sufficient for all heating during 90% of the time.

 

[bryanW1995]

dajeepster, can you supply your own computer at work? One of my quads with a 9600gso is up here now. It's kind of nice b/c it keeps the wifey off my ass re my computer farm.

@peter: if I'm ever in sweden I would love to walk in your basement. might have to leave the wife and kids in town, they probably wouldn't understand!

 

[dajeepster]

dajeepster, can you supply your own computer at work? One of my quads with a 9600gso is up here now. It's kind of nice b/c it keeps the wifey off my ass re my computer farm.

well.. it's more to do with school work.. the computers supplied by the university are just too slow for me.. so i provided my own. I'm currently doing some board design work for one of the other departments and so i currently have an i7-920 with 2 8800gt and one gts240 running three monitors... makes it sooo much easier to do circuit and board design.. I never have to worry about a slow computer or for software to start up... it's quick... and i'm running DC on it 24/7... just my lab mates are worried that it's a little loud. I had built thier lab computers to run quiet. (i7-860, 6gigs, gt210).. I don't run DC on thier computers. I only run DC on my computers, less problems that way.

 

[Rudy Toody]

From an article in Science News.

More than 108,000 volunteer computers downloaded work from Einstein@Home during the first week in August. Just the electrical power donated by volunteers would cost more than $4 million a year at typical U.S. rates, the research team notes.

Read the Einstein Pulsar thread for more.

 

[RaySun2Be]

You could always try a bit of "spot" cooling!

http://campaign.constantcontact.com...am7bN_VdH4BEx3HYMulGA5bsIKvHJAdMCJOQbnRR0Fg==




My boss loves it cold. If he built a house, he would have a "cold room" just for him, sort of like a commercial walk-in freezer. We recently installed an APC ACPA4000 spot cooler ($3,500) in our data center. His A/C went out at home, and he was seriously thinking about taking it home....

 

[petrusbroder]

Does not sound too bad ...