folding eletricity

[Slash_2CPU]

OTOOH, if you are a serious gamer, then "green" goes out the window anyhow, because I cannot find ANY environmental justification for consuming all that energy for gaming in the first place...

Personal gratification isn't a valid reason for any action???

[jrweiss]

Not in the environmental or "green" context!

[codysluder]

I consider personal gratification a valid cause for some actions. I consider the environment a valid cause for some actions. The only place in the world where where it seems there is no room for compromise is the church, where sin and virtue are understood as totally pure and unadulterated.

I make many of my decisions based on the environment, and I'm probably the "greenest" person in my neighborhood, but I do make some compromises, too.

[coorsleftfield]

This must be the old 90NM Opteron CPUs because one of the newer model will cost you more than $1200.

Is it a good idea?
Dual Xeon 5540 does 1% of bigadv in slightly less than 27m with 270W.
A 2.3GHz four Opteron setup is capable of doing ~24m45s with 470W. That's 9% faster with 74% more power
And yes, OCd i7 can match Dual Xeon setup (I don't use them -- no power consumption numbers).
tear

Burning 470W to do the same work you could accomplish with 270W is not really being socially responsible, and feeling socially responsible is a big part of why I participate in folding. Sure the initial investment in modern processors may be more, but reducing our carbon footprint is worth it.

The dual Xeon machines I'm running complete 1% in 23 minutes, and use far less power than 4 Opterons as you stated.

[Vectrexer]

Socially responsible?

Since carbon footprint is all the rage right now how big of a carbon footprint do you think the combined crunching power of all the F@h systems are? What is the comparative to say,, a team of real scientists getting hard data compared to simulated work.

Don't get me wrong here. I think the F@h project is good one in many ways. (you can tell by my points total) But as to socially responsibility in the total overall picture, or even the narrower view for total scientific value / energy consumed, I do wonder if F@H could be held up as the best answer.

[Nathan_P]

Socially responsible?

Since carbon footprint is all the rage right now how big of a carbon footprint do you think the combined crunching power of all the F@h systems are? What is the comparative to say,, a team of real scientists getting hard data compared to simulated work.

Don't get me wrong here. I think the F@h project is good one in many ways. (you can tell by my points total) But as to socially responsibility in the total overall picture, or even the narrower view for total scientific value / energy consumed, I do wonder if F@H could be held up as the best answer.

Viewed in the way F@H was thought of, yes i think it was socailly responsible. However we have extended this idea in several ways that probably wasn't though of at the time that F@H was concieved

1. A lot of us have built dedicated rigs/farms to crank out more science without affecting our main machines
2. Nvidia/ati have given us hugely powerful gpu's that can crunch monstrous amounts of science.
3. Multi cpu rigs were nowhere near as cheap as they are now.
4. PC's didn't guzzle as much energy as they do now.

I personally don't have any issue about my carbon footprint. My electricity comes either from an energy from a waste incinerator or a nuclear plant

[bruce]

Talking about the total carbon footprint of FAH is an inappropriate (inflamatory?) way of looking at it.

Yes, power [carbon] should be used responsibly. However if you believe that the research that FAH is worth doing, then it's also appropriate to beleive that others will find it worth doing, too. The fact that it's a big project means that it does have a large cost, but it also produces a large benefit.

I drive an automobile when I need to and avoid it when I don't need to. It would be hippocritical for me to believe that everyone else who drives an automobile is the problem and they should get off the road, no matter how appealing that idea might be.

Personally, power for my FAH computers comes from solar panels on my roof (along with almost all of my annual power consumption). That works for me, and I recommend it to others, but that's a sizeable investment in FAH and in the environment, and I know many of you cannot do the same. I do think it's appropriate to look both at PPE/W and PPD for any FAH hardware. Ultimately, the cost of electricity helps remind all of us what we choose to donate.

Nevertheless, this is not an environmental discussion group, so let's get back on topic and talk about PPD/W rather than carbon footprints -- though we all know that eventually they amount to the same thing.

[ashleylist]

Or

You could wait until sometime in the new year and get the new and shiny 6 core I9 system + some new GPUs from nvidia, possibly their new cards, if they ever get agound to shipping them?!?!

[COOLDUDEGAMER]

I have found alot of older AMD Opterons on Ebay at decent prices lately. The only problem is that alot of them are either single or dual core Opterons. I think I may have saw a couple quad core opterons at decent prices in the listings but, I could have been mistaken or the price was a little higher than the rest.

[PennyPincherP]

I have found alot of older AMD Opterons on Ebay at decent prices lately. The only problem is that alot of them are either single or dual core Opterons. I think I may have saw a couple quad core opterons at decent prices in the listings but, I could have been mistaken or the price was a little higher than the rest.

There's plenty of third generation quad core opterons cheap on Ebay. Trouble is that the motherboards aren't very cheap and power consumption is high compared to the Intel offerings. Memory is pricey as well and very scarce--not to mention very slow compared to DDR3. ppW/pp$ is more effective with the Nehalems given the relatively low cost of boards, memory, & mid range CPUs. If cost is no object, then a 48 core beast will crank considerable ppD.

[COOLDUDEGAMER]

Now that I look through Ebay again, I found some sub-$150 listings. I have one on my watched list, 2 Opteron 2352 2.1 GHz Quad Core Barcelonas for $129. It is a Buy It Now and not an Auction. Fairly good deal, I guess.

[Phantom2487]

A good calculator for how much your going to burn with a dedicated folding rig 24/7/365 or anything in-between I use: http://www.maxim-ic.com/tools/calculato ... y_cost.cfm

My electricity costs $0.1038 per kWh under 500kW and $0.0867 each over 500kWh so for the base components of my rig running 24/7/365 I get:

Phenom II x4 (Deneb) @ 2.8GHz @ 95W @ 100% load
9600GT OC 512MB @ 85W @ 100% load

180W total load = 130Kwh/month = $3.10/w, $13.45/m, and $161.430/y

Now my PSU is only 80% efficient, with that as a baseline for every W used you really burn 1.2 (to get 20% loss).

180*1.2=216 --> 216W total load = 156Kwh/month = $3.72/w, $16.14/m, and $193.71/y

Thats even without figuring how much the rest of the rig uses + the counteracting effect of running this during the summer time, AC fighting off the heat from this thing...

[Nathan_P]

A good calculator for how much your going to burn with a dedicated folding rig 24/7/365 or anything in-between I use: http://www.maxim-ic.com/tools/calculato ... y_cost.cfm

My electricity costs $0.1038 per kWh under 500kW and $0.0867 each over 500kWh so for the base components of my rig running 24/7/365 I get:

Phenom II x4 (Deneb) @ 2.8GHz @ 95W @ 100% load
9600GT OC 512MB @ 85W @ 100% load

180W total load = 130Kwh/month = $3.10/w, $13.45/m, and $161.430/y

Now my PSU is only 80% efficient, with that as a baseline for every W used you really burn 1.2 (to get 20% loss).

180*1.2=216 --> 216W total load = 156Kwh/month = $3.72/w, $16.14/m, and $193.71/y

Thats even without figuring how much the rest of the rig uses + the counteracting effect of running this during the summer time, AC fighting off the heat from this thing...

Also, don't forget that your PSU is most efficient at 50% load. Got to do some maths on my main rig and think about swapping out my 80% PSU for a 90%+ one

[Phantom2487]

Also, don't forget that your PSU is most efficient at 50% load. Got to do some maths on my main rig and think about swapping out my 80% PSU for a 90%+ one

Right mine is stamped 80% (plus) and manufacturer says 88%, since I'm using a 550W psu then this puts me in the sweet spot for my setup. With a GTX 240 786MB due on my doorstep in 2 days, my GPU goes from 85W to 150W just a number I saw after a quick google.

EDIT 2011-02-08 1534 CST (adding my new cost)

With other components etc added in, using high numbers on RAM (only other component running at ~100% per used quantity) and idle on hdds.

327W = 392kWh/m = $6.76/w, $29.30/m, and $351.56/y

Which is vastly less than my beer fund, I'll slack on a six pack here and there and break even!

[beer]

Hi
I am not sure I am putting this in the right section of message board. Sorry if it has eneded in the wrong place. And osrry for my bad english since it is not my native language.

Since folding@home consume large amount of eletrcity that is produced by Oil and coal that is producing CO2 that again can curse some form of cancer and other problems it feels like I am swining a double edge sword.

Therefore I will hear what you people are during about how you electricity is produced.

My working place has a small biogass reactor that produce nearly all our electricity and heat and I am in proces of switcing to a company that clamins that all the power they sell is produced by win mills (vindstoed.dk).

What else can one do to get green energy for folding and what are you during?