Is DC the latest hot trend?

[Ken g6]

Raise your hand if a gaming PC is currently heating your home

www.theverge.com

I keep my main PC in my bedroom, and I have problems keeping my bedroom cool enough. Especially in the summer. But I did close the heat vent, so I guess it qualifies.

I'd warm another room but running DC machines are mostly too loud.

 

[VirtualLarry]

LOL. The Verge.

Anyways, yes, I've heated my apt., through several winter seasons, using my PC collection / folding/mining farm.

It should be noted that I have my GPUs tuned for power-efficient mining, so they're not putting out nearly as much heat as they could be, or were, in prior seasons. (I finally figured out how to undervolt with Wattman on my RX 5700(XT) cards, and power-limit with AfterBurner for my NV cards.)

Heating that actually turns a profit (I have electric baseboard heaters in this place), is delightful.

 

[StefanR5R]

It may turn a profit if the electricity costs are externalized to a large part.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It may turn a profit if the electricity costs are externalized to a large part.

I'm talking about my (if I paid my electric bill; it's included in the rent) $USD costs for heating with electric, not some pie-in-the-sky greenie "total cost to the environment" value.

That said, if the current market price of electricity doesn't cover all of the "externalities", then the market is mis-shapen. I don't know if my landlord pays for renewable electricity or not. We have some fairly cheap nuclear power here on the East Coast of the USA. Not too much hydro-electric, unless we're buying some of that from our Northern neighbor.

(I have nothing against you in particular, Stefan, just that asking me to factor in "unknown externalities" into my power bill, when that's the responsibility of the energy companies selling me the electricity, isn't really practical in any sense.)

 

[StefanR5R]

I was merely leaving a very general (and trivial) comment, not asking you for anything. :-)

 

[Assimilator1]

Re the op, I was wondering in my thread what the extra costs were of GPU crunching on my main rig and 2nd rig vs turning on my gas central heating for extra time (whilst I'm off furloughed or over weekend days). For just heating my lounge, turns out that it uses less energy and is cheaper to GPU crunch on my 2nd rig for 6hrs, than to have my heating on for 1hr (1st hrs heating), with outside temps of ~9C.
Although I didn't look at how colder outside temps affected things (although it turns out that when it's just over freezing, crunching with both rigs on CPUs and GPUs is just enough to keep me warm), nor over long periods where somewhere after the 1st hr the heating would switch on and off. But generally I only need extra heating in the afternoons.
As a bonus, because I'm using electricity to heat instead of gas in that period, and that about 1/4-1/3 of UKs electricity is generated from renewables, that's less CO2 emissions than using gas alone .

I have electric baseboard heaters in this place

Baseboard heaters?

 

[lane42]

Baseboard heaters?

 

[Assimilator1]

Ah got ya, not even sure what they're called here! lol.... allegedly it's the same name here, hmm, not convinced

 

[Markfw]

BTW, I just got my electric bill. Over 6000 KWH for $815.....Is that a good rate ?

Energy Charges (6384 kWh) 766.59
Adjustments 21.39
787.98
Other Charges/Credits 3.55
Total Taxes and Fees 23.74
Current Energy Charges 815.27

 

[VirtualLarry]

Mark, that's basically $0.12 / KWh. Not too bad.

I had separate generation / transmission / utility charges when I was paying for my electric at my last apt.

I paid roughly $0.15 / KWh back then, all-in.

I heated my apt. during the winter months with my PCs, it was around $180-230/mo. during the coldest months.

 

[Markfw]

Mark, that's basically $0.12 / KWh. Not too bad.

I had separate generation / transmission / utility charges when I was paying for my electric at my last apt.

I paid roughly $0.15 / KWh back then, all-in.

I heated my apt. during the winter months with my PCs, it was around $180-230/mo. during the coldest months.

Right now is 32f here (freezing) and I had to close the house up. I had 4 windows open all night, its 66f in here now. TOO cold.

 

[Endgame124]

I pay 17.7 cents KWh (once I exceed what my solar generates) so 12 cents is pretty good!

 

[Markfw]

I pay 17.7 cents KWh (once I exceed what my solar generates) so 12 cents is pretty good!

Still, over $800 a month, I may have to cut back except the big races.

 

[Endgame124]

Still, over $800 a month, I may have to cut back except the big races.

I get that. I'm shutting down stuff as I upgrade hardware, and I'm focusing on power drops on each upgrade. My 5950 uses less power than the A10-7870k, and I'm planning on buying a 5950 to upgrade my 2700X, as that will also drop power. My next system may very well be a threadripper if it can manage to do more work than a 5950 while also using less power.

 

[Markfw]

I get that. I'm shutting down stuff as I upgrade hardware, and I'm focusing on power drops on each upgrade. My 5950 uses less power than the A10-7870k, and I'm planning on buying a 5950 to upgrade my 2700X, as that will also drop power. My next system may very well be a threadripper if it can manage to do more work than a 5950 while also using less power.

EPYC are the ultimate in power savings, but not cheap. Even in ebay, I have to give $2000 for a 7742, and motherboard and memory are $1000

 

[Endgame124]

EPYC are the ultimate in power savings, but not cheap. Even in ebay, I have to give $2000 for a 7742, and motherboard and memory are $1000

Yeah, from a DC standpoint I would love to go with EPYC, but realistically, my stopping point is going to be around $1250-1500 for a processor - I could see myself doing threadripper / workstation CPU for my primary workstation, and a top end consumer CPU for my secondary system. I also have a FreeNas that I may move to a higher end consumer CPU, but the i3-6100 doesn't really use a ton of power so I don't exactly know what I will upgrade it to at this time.

 

[sswingle]

Got both mine in the basement office and its still too cold down here. 1060 and 1070ti. Must be doing something wrong lol.

 

[StefanR5R]

My next system may very well be a threadripper if it can manage to do more work than a 5950 while also using less power.

It's all the same silicon. Threadripper systems have a lot more I/O than Ryzen systems, but Ryzens already have far more I/O than required in a compute node. Hence, a Threadripper system can never do more work at less power than a Ryzen system, if the latter is configured properly. (Exceptions: Workloads which are I/O bound, not compute bound.)

Edit: On second thought, never say never. More cores within the same power envelope will do more work, and therefore it may be possible to squeeze out somewhat more work even in a slightly smaller power envelope, when there are more cores per system. But the higher power consumption of the two fatter I/O dies of Threadripper systems (the one in the processor and the one in the southbridge) will make this hard to achieve.

 

[Endgame124]

It's all the same silicon. Threadripper systems have a lot more I/O than Ryzen systems, but Ryzens already have far more I/O than required in a compute node. Hence, a Threadripper system can never do more work at less power than a Ryzen system, if the latter is configured properly. (Exceptions: Workloads which are I/O bound, not compute bound.)

Edit: On second thought, never say never. More cores within the same power envelope will do more work, and therefore it may be possible to squeeze out somewhat more work even in a slightly smaller power envelope, when there are more cores per system. But the higher power consumption of the two fatter I/O dies of Threadripper systems (the one in the processor and the one in the southbridge) will make this hard to achieve.

I believe that a single 32 core Threadripper system will do more work per watt than two 16 core Ryzen systems given the minimum power requirements per system. I'm not entirely sure if that is what your edit was trying to convey.

For example, given that my 5950's eco mode load power is 146 watts and standing idle power on it is just under 70 watts (to power fans, motherboard, ram, pump etc) we can compare what 2x 16 core 5950s would do vs 1x 32 core 5970 (projected part name). I suspect the Threadripper 5970 would idle in a similar power envelope but we can over project.

Lets say the Threadripper requires 20% more base power and we say its 84 watts. With 32 cores / 64 threads under load with a similar performance to the 5950 per thread, and a similar power profile to eco mode, the Threadripper CPU itself should pull around 160 watts and the whole system 244 watts. Running 2x 5950s like I already have would pull 292 watts, a clear win for the Threadripper, assuming similar performance per thread.

 

[StefanR5R]

I read post #18 as 1 TR : 1 R9, not 1 TR : 2 R9. :-)

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I do DC every winter while it's cold, but not during the summer. Basically as long as it's around 50 degrees for the high temperature or less, I'll do DC, increasingly opening windows until it gets to about 70 outside, at which point, even with open windows it starts getting too warm inside.

Times like now (January / February) the rigs will be running 24/7 folding, especially now that we're about to see negative temps. It's basically about 1kWh of "free" heat. Obviously it costs electricity, but at least the cost to keep me warm is doing some good at the same time vs. the natural gas that makes up the deficit.

 

[cellarnoise]

I am frustrated by those of you lucky B... Dc'ers that have latest silicon pieces. Go gentle on those of us that can't buy the latest due to lack of supply. These shekels in my pocket hurt so No cpus, no gpus, no joy

Stay safe everyone!