Overclocking (and running F@H 24/7) is a waste of electricity.

[Rebel44]

Oh, and a 12000 BTU A/C.

depending on how often its being used, I would suspect that its responsible for nice part of your electricity bill.

 

[busydude]

I have 3 other similar systems, and all running F@H 24/7, and my power bill is only $200 a month.

$200 just for your DC systems?

 

[hamunaptra]

Consider buying really nice PSU, if you havent already =) Get one of those 90+ efficiency PSU's.

Also, dont use lights at all in your house, will help offset. =P

Or, invest in some solar panels and get your power for free.

 

[996GT2]

Your high electricity bill is the result of you running F@H 24/7, not really as a result of you overclocking anything.

If you overclock your CPU and GPU, your system might draw 75W more under load.

At the current cost of around $0.12/kWh, it would cost about 20 cents a day more to run that overclocked system 24/7.

In a month, that's only about $6 more than if your system wasn't overclocked at all.

Not exactly a big difference.

 

[Lordhumungus]

The following is an anecdote for all of your enjoyment:

My ex-girlfriend liked to game outside on our patio, but would often complain about how cold it was. She eventually bought a heater and started taking it outside with her in an attempt to defeat the weather. Long story short my electric bill went from $50 to $300 the next month and I pretty much blew a gasket. Go figure that the heater was stolen out of our backyard the day after I got the bill...

In hindsight, I probably should've just got a hooker. It would have been cheaper and less trouble for me in the long run.

Edit: Also agree with most people that the difference is negligible at best even if you are taxing your system 24/7. There might be some argument if you are talking about a small farm of systems, but that's an edge case scenario.

 

[bryanW1995]

Drop your cpu to the lowest voltage you can stably run at stock speeds. 25% + reduction in vcore is not unheard of, and possibly better. You can literally cut your cpu's power consumption in half if you have a decent chip.

Another alternative is to have you nephew stay with you all summer, necessitating a temporary power-down of one of your rigs. I don't recommend this, as the nephew also might eat everything in your refridgerator. And freezer, etc etc etc.

 

[hamunaptra]

Drop your cpu to the lowest voltage you can stably run at stock speeds. 25% + reduction in vcore is not unheard of, and possibly better. You can literally cut your cpu's power consumption in half if you have a decent chip.

I agree. I did this w/ my C0 i7 920 I had it at 3ghz .99v and under load the chip drew maybe 30watts (linpack) It was stable too! HT off

Since then I had gone to HT on and 3.2ghz @ 1.05v .. it still draws only a respectable 50watts under load.

You dont wanna know what it draws at 3.92ghz @ 1.323v LOL! It was above 100watts for sure.

These measurements taken w/ motherboards Gigabyte DES cpu current / voltage readout as shown in HWmonitor.

 

[Markfw]

$200 just for your DC systems?

For everything, TV's, AC (not big right now),dryer, everything.

Stove, water heater and furnace are gas, $13 per month

 

[Eddie313]

Wow I have 4 computers running 24/7 none do folding at home but they run all the time.
My highest bill in 5 years since we bought our house has been never over 80 bucks for electricity.

 

[georgec84]

Overclocking is like excessive bench pressing - just a numbers contest with little practical use.

Yes, overclocking can be extremely useful but the majority of people who do overclock have no practical need. They just want to post their numbers on a message board.

 

[Concillian]

Just saying...

No wonder my electric bill is $95/mo for a single person. Overclocked CPU. Overclocked GPU. F@H running 24/7.

Umm... shut off your machines instead of running F@H. If you need to donate, do it in a way that the money you spend is tax deductible.

Family of 3, my parents visited one week last month and our electric bill was $60.
2 overclocked computers. 2 overclocked video cards. Electric clothes dryer, electric oven (but gas range and central heating) The computers are on a fair bit, but shut down when idle 1 hour. They idle less than 100W.

It's a matter of overclocking in a way that you preserve power saving features of the CPU so it can shut stuff off when needed.

Our electricity is 11-13 cents for the first ~500 kWh, then jumps to 30cents a kWh after that. There's another tier above that one, we've never hit it, but I think it's ~40 cents. That's some incentive to pay attention to electricity consumption right there. We generally stay very close to or slightly below 500 kWh, because we don't want $200 electricity bills =)

 

[VirtualLarry]

I recently borrowed some KAW meters, and hooked them up to my desktop rig.

Q9300 @ 3.0, stock voltage, GTX460 1GB (715Mhz stock OC), and a KDS 26" LCD.

LCD 59-63W
Idle at desktop: 96W
F@H GPU: 194W
OCCT PSU test: 353W (CPU overheated > 85C! GPU temp was like 83-84C)

I pay $0.15 per KWh.

I get 10K PPD in F@H on the GPU.

It may not be just my A/C that is boosting my power bill. Look at that, my desktop takes over 400W at load. Even with a 45nm CPU. Now consider that I have two of them.

Edit: The K-A-W has spoken. $28.xx a month for running F@H on the GPU only. So two times that, is $56/mo, just for F@H, only on the GPUs, not the CPUs. Hmm, actually, I was running OCCT for like 10 minutes, so that number might be slightly high, but not by much, since I was running F@H 24/7 overnight.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

overclocking my i7 to 4ghz makes me idle at 180 watts. My NAS running an i5-2400 idles at 70 watts with 7 HDs and an optical drive too.

 

[imaheadcase]

Just saying...

No wonder my electric bill is $95/mo for a single person. Overclocked CPU. Overclocked GPU. F@H running 24/7.

The sweet-spot for CPUs, as far as power consumption, is within specifications. Overclocking, especially increasing voltage, reduces performance/watt.

I guess I'm getting more power-sensitive in my old age.

Sounds more like a insulation/home issue than folding. Or you live in someplace with high energy costs. Mine for a 3 bedroom house i can't tell the difference from normal bill vs when i'm running them 24/7.

 

[VirtualLarry]

In my new apt, where I don't pay for the electricity, running the same Q9300 @ 3.0 CPUs, but instead of a GTX460, I have Zotac GT630 Kepler 384SP cards rated at 25W.

I'm also using a 24" Westinghouse HDTV as a monitor, which is Energy Star certified.

My CyberPower UPS software says I'm using 178W, for the Q9300, GT630 @ 97% utlization, and the monitor.

A bit less than before, with my GTX460. (Not accounting for any measurement errors between my UPS and my Kill-A-Watt.)

I rarely have to open my windows in Dec., if it's a warm day. My PCs keep the apt moderately warm. (I keep the heat at 60F, but I don't often smell the heaters operating. I have electric heat, so really, I'm not costing my landlord any extra to run the PCs during the winter, for heat.)

I have purchased some Winbook 7" Win8.1 tablets to use in the warmer months.

PS. I guess I have to disagree with my original premise of this thread. It's not really the overclocking that's the issue, indeed, with some CPUs, as long as you don't jack the voltage too high, they can be more power-efficient by overclocking at stock voltage.

And since I don't pay the electric, and have electric heat, I'll say that running F@H 24/7 isn't a bad thing either, it heats the apt.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

Heh, I've got an overclocked 4670k and 280x. Drawing about 350w. I thought about picking up a 280 non-x while they are cheap and upgrading the PSU but decided against it. It is costing me $36/mo or $432/yr. Hm.

Over in texas the same machine was costing me $15/mo and $187/yr

I've considered dropping to stock or just 4Ghz and undervolting the i5 and limiting the TDP of the 280x.

To be fair, F@H is contributing to science and heating my house at the same time.

 

[MongGrel]

I used to fold, quite a bit.

There is a reason I stopped I guess.

 

[Plimogz]

When the chill starts to set in ahead of the impending deep freeze, I for one take solace in pumping as many kWh as I can through billions of transistors instead of just dumb resistors.

Just load up the energy waste-ar BIOS profiles, crank the clocks to 11 and let'em crunch 24/7 'til the room starts feeling uncomfortably warm in Spring!

 

[Ajay]

I only run F@H in the winter to warm up my basement.
Electricity costs have been climbing, especially as of late - due to the shutdown of some older coal fired plants in the North-East [apparently new EPA regs would have required expensive retro-fits that weren't deemed to be worth it for such old plants]. Vermont Yankee also shuts down at the end of this year.

F@H may well become a complete frivolity very quickly if the cost of electricity continues to well outpace inflation - unless the hardware and software show up to do 50K PPD on 100 watts. I used to run 3 machines 24x7x365 now I run 2 machines for 4 months - and one of them is old and not very productive.

 

[BSim500]

No wonder my electric bill is $95/mo for a single person. Overclocked CPU. Overclocked GPU. F@H running 24/7.

Hang on, so after spending all that money on green PC's, you still load them 24/7?...

I was talking about my 45nm C2Q Q9300 chips

If you insist on loading them 100% 24/7 it's time to buy a 22nm CPU (plus decent Gold / Platinum rated PSU). My i5-3570 (mildly OCd to 4GHz) whole system idle's at 37w and 4T Prime load is 98w. Remove the dGPU and use the HD2500 iGPU, and it drops 9w to 28w idle / 89w load... :thumbsup:

During the winter, I have to leave my windows open, in order to maintain normal room temperature (otherwise too hot if I close the windows). Oh, and a 12000 BTU A/C, it fits in a box below the window that was built-in to my apt. (which seems to be losing the battle, as I'm watching my thermostat creep subtly up, after turning on the 2nd GTX460 for F@H.)

Just seems crazy to switch on a 500w heater (folding PC) then switch on an A/C to counter it. Then open all the windows presumably whilst the heating is on in winter? As "Concillian" said, if your system is that inefficient, there comes a point where you're better off shutting off F@H and just donating tax-deductible charitable contribution. The money will go further and your residence will be a lot more comfortable. Folding is ludicrously wasteful on older PC's compared to other more direct means of donating to charity. Hell you could even not fold but volunteer for a local charity one morning per month and it would have more of a net positive effect on the planet in practice.

 

[Galatian]

I think it is a fair point about the sweet spot. I realized this when overclocking my i7-4790K. On stock it will draw around 90W according to HWInfo64 during Prime95. That is with a 4,2 GHz on all cores. Overclocking to a stable 4,8 GHz (which really is only a meager 600 MHz increase) with 1.35V nets a power draw from around 180W at peak. So essentially double the power draw for only 600 MHz more. It's save to assume that Haswell has it's sweet spot around 4,3-4,4 GHz.

 

[Spungo]

The sweet-spot for CPUs, as far as power consumption, is within specifications. Overclocking, especially increasing voltage, reduces performance/watt.

Actually the sweet spot would be aggressively underclocked and undervolted. Making your CPU 1/2 as fast doesn't use 1/2 as much power, but more like 1/3 or 1/4 as much power.

Doing this kind of optimization would work like this:
1) Set the CPU as slow as possible. Turn the multiplier as low as it will go.
2) Lower the voltage bit by bit until the computer doesn't post. The lowest voltage that still posts is the voltage you want.
3) Increase the CPU multiplier bit by bit and check the stability with prime95 or something. The highest CPU speed you can get at this voltage is what you want.
4) You can also try lowering some of the other voltages, but I wouldn't go that far.
I've done this before with file servers, and it's amazing how low the power consumption can go.

When the chill starts to set in ahead of the impending deep freeze, I for one take solace in pumping as many kWh as I can through billions of transistors instead of just dumb resistors.

I do this too. Folding completely stops on all computers when spring/summer begin. I live in a condo and it gets incredibly hot in summer. I can deal with melting while I'm awake, but it's close to impossible to sleep without running the air conditioner all night. The last thing I want to do is put the computers against the air conditioner. Not only do I pay for the electricity used by the computers, but I pay a second time for the air conditioner to remove the heat generated by the computers!
Generating heat in winter doesn't upset me. It's not really "wasted" power.

 

[Idontcare]

I think it is a fair point about the sweet spot. I realized this when overclocking my i7-4790K. On stock it will draw around 90W according to HWInfo64 during Prime95. That is with a 4,2 GHz on all cores. Overclocking to a stable 4,8 GHz (which really is only a meager 600 MHz increase) with 1.35V nets a power draw from around 180W at peak. So essentially double the power draw for only 600 MHz more. It's save to assume that Haswell has it's sweet spot around 4,3-4,4 GHz.

The sweet spot should be where the dynamic:static power ratio reaches a maximum.

Something akin to the following:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I've shut down the Folding, and clocked the CPU back to stock (and set the vcore on NORMAL). This means that it will also scale down the voltage (slightly) when it scales down the clock speed with SpeedStep/C1E.

Doing nothing but web browsing, my UPS software reports 95-102W, for my 24" HDTV LCD monitor, my Q9300 @ stock (2.5Ghz, 7.5x multi), and a GT630 1GB DDR3 Kepler 384SP 25W card.

Granted, that's at idle. By comparison, my G3258 Haswell dual-core, overclocked to 3.8Ghz @ 1.2v, fully loaded on both cores, comes in at around 78-82W.