Sign off from SETI?

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UBT - Mikee
Marvin the Dalek
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Sign off from SETI?

Post by UBT - Mikee »

This should generate some discussion and may shine a light on why Timbo can't get magazines interested in running a BOINC feature.

October 2008 UK edition of PCPro page 117.

Discusses ways of saving money. Some good ideas, some not so good. I'll quote the full text...
Donating spare computer cycles to the search for alien life seemed fun when electricity bills were usually in double, rather than triple, figures, but are distributed computing projects such as SETI@Home worth the bother now?
then in bold...
[Saving] Perhaps only a few pounds a year, but every little helps
With publicity like that...

Well you carry on!Image
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UBT - Timbo
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Mike,

Yup - PC Pro have been pushing the "Save IT" campaign to reduce the power consumption of PC's....

...and yet, they will fully endorse a X2 graphics card that might consume 300W of power alone.....

SETI and other BOINC projects will consume some of your CPU power, but nothing like as much as a fully loaded (or even half-loaded) GPU....

Personally, I'd like to carry on crunching but have to admit that with leccy bills increasing dramatically every year, what was just a nice way of doing science, is going to prove to be more expensive to do at the same rate...

But hey ho....

Maybe the Intel Atom or AMD Nano CPU's (esp if they become dual core soon?) might be worthy successors instead of the current crop of high temperature models.

regards

Tim
Ben
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by Ben »

Or we could get the treadmills out  :lol:

Thats a lot of running for out 24/7 peeps  :wink:
UBT - Nogbo
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by UBT - Nogbo »

I just hope these energy conscious people remember to switch off their fridges, freezers, fish tanks, alarm systems etc tonight  :wink:
Sir Cracked of the Mind
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by Sir Cracked of the Mind »

I'll save my money by not buying PCPro magazine, thanks...
Scott
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by Scott »

UBT - Timbo wrote:...and yet, they will fully endorse a X2 graphics card that might consume 300W of power alone.....
I might be being cynical here but could that be because they get advertising revenues from the manufactures of such components?

PC Pro needs to get some perspective, the cost of running a cpu at 100% for BOINC by the average user will never be noticeable by them as the PC would be switched on whether BOINC was running or not.

If they really wanted to save people money they could tell them to remove those really fancy GFX cards and use the on-board chip, but I doubt it as that might upset one of their sources of income.

My two cents.
NaRyan
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by NaRyan »

Just out of curiosity I hooked up Mr KilloWatt (reads power draw from the mains plug) to a Q6600 system that I was *ahem*fixing*ahem*.

And going by the results (they vary, with what you got in your poota and the efficiency rating of the PSU!), running boinc on all 4 cores will cost you an extra £4.50 per month (also depends on project, Milkyway uses less power than a PrimeGrid LLR!!)
However if you were to run PS3GRID also (this is on a 8800ULTRA), plus 3 projects it will cost you £11 extra per month!

Boinc is sure starting to look like it's heading for the "bye bye" bin for me :(

*Note this is based on running your PC 24/7 & have Npower *cough*insertbadword*cough* as your leccy company.

Oh and for anyone curious I est Boinc is costing me about £40 extra per month :(
Ben
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by Ben »

What about an ordinary 8800GT?
Scott
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by Scott »

NaRyan wrote:Just out of curiosity I hooked up Mr KilloWatt (reads power draw from the mains plug) to a Q6600 system that I was *ahem*fixing*ahem*.

And going by the results (they vary, with what you got in your poota and the efficiency rating of the PSU!), running boinc on all 4 cores will cost you an extra £4.50 per month (also depends on project, Milkyway uses less power than a PrimeGrid LLR!!)
However if you were to run PS3GRID also (this is on a 8800ULTRA), plus 3 projects it will cost you £11 extra per month!

Boinc is sure starting to look like it's heading for the "bye bye" bin for me :(

*Note this is based on running your PC 24/7 & have Npower *cough*insertbadword*cough* as your leccy company.

Oh and for anyone curious I est Boinc is costing me about £40 extra per month :(
Bloomin' Nora! £40 per month is more than my entire gas & electricity bill! I don't run my PC 24/7 though, and it's three years old now - my processor alone (AMD 64 3800) uses less than half the power of the Q6600 (45w vs 95w IIRC) so I guess it really does depend upon what is in the computer and how you use it. Instead of chucking BOINC completely why not just run it in the background when your doing other stuff?
NaRyan
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by NaRyan »

Bloomin' Nora! £40 per month is more than my entire gas & electricity bill! I don't run my PC 24/7 though, and it's three years old now - my processor alone (AMD 64 3800) uses less than half the power of the Q6600 (45w vs 95w IIRC) so I guess it really does depend upon what is in the computer and how you use it. Instead of chucking BOINC completely why not just run it in the background when your doing other stuff?
That £40 (works out that was just using cpu, cpu+gpu made it more!) was on 5 computers

Q6600 with a 80% efficient 1000w PSU
AMD 6000+ with a 85% efficient 850w PSU
AMD 4200+ with a 85% efficient 850w PSU
AMD Sempron 2800+ with a 85% efficient 650w PSU (Origional Sempron not the x64 one)
Intel Celeron(m) 1.5Ghz this is a laptop.

I'll probably just stick to running Boinc on the Q6600 (cpu only).
UBT-mark3346
Active UBT Contributor 15+ yrs
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re: Sign off from SETI?

Post by UBT-mark3346 »

NaRyan wrote:Just out of curiosity I hooked up Mr KilloWatt (reads power draw from the mains plug) to a Q6600 system that I was *ahem*fixing*ahem*.

And going by the results (they vary, with what you got in your poota and the efficiency rating of the PSU!), running boinc on all 4 cores will cost you an extra £4.50 per month (also depends on project, Milkyway uses less power than a PrimeGrid LLR!!)
However if you were to run PS3GRID also (this is on a 8800ULTRA), plus 3 projects it will cost you £11 extra per month!

Boinc is sure starting to look like it's heading for the "bye bye" bin for me :(

*Note this is based on running your PC 24/7 & have Npower *cough*insertbadword*cough* as your leccy company.

Oh and for anyone curious I est Boinc is costing me about £40 extra per month :(
As my heating+cooking is gas I suspect most of my £60/month leccy (old price) is down to boinc  :(
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