Folding Forum

I would like to start an informational thread about general FAH electrical costs. This thread is NOT to be used for complaints, but to share information for decision making purposes. In light of some current grumblings of electricity prices and client efficiency on this board, I have put together some of my observations. Like any other type of donation, you have a choice as to how much you wish to donate. I wish to stress, that choice is yours.

My FAH consists of the three rigs below. In Delaware, U.S., I pay $0.145 per Kilowatt hour. In the summer time with the air conditioner running, folding accounts for 35% of my bill or approximately $50 per month. Note: In the winter time yes it has literally heated part of my apartment, but I don't have any numbers/bills laying around to support how much it may have dropped my heating bill. Though I can say for fact it did make it decrease, I just don't know by how much, and if the lower gas bill offset the price of the higher electric bill.

I don't own a Kill-a-Watt or similar device, though I really wish I did. These ballpark figures do give you a fairly close idea though.

HP Notebook DV6408nr with Turion TL-56, 2 Gigs of RAM, and an integrated 6150 Graphics chipset, running Ubuntu 8.04 and the Linux SMP Client
-power usage ~45 watts with the screen turned off.
-600 to 1200 ppd depending on work unit
-so about 13 to 27 points per watt efficiency
-costs me $4.70 a month

PS3 (with newer 65nm Cell B.E.)
-power usage ~135watts ( compared to ~200 watts for the original 90nm)
-900ppd
-so about 6.6 points per watt efficiency ( about 4.5 points per watt efficiency for 90nm)
-costs me $14.09 a month ( 90nm would cost me about $20.88)

Custom built Desktop: AMD X2 3800+ (Manchester Core) Overclocked to 2.5Ghz, 2 Gigs of RAM, with a Radeon 4850.
This computer runs XP SP3 32 bit running only the AMD GPU2 Client.
-power usage ~300 watts
-1500 to 3500 ppd depending on work unit
- so about 5 to 12 points per watt efficiency
-costs me $31.32 a month

Let's decode this quick, by putting this in terms that are easier to grasp taking power efficiency into account, but not the time it would take to complete the work. Because obviously the GPU client is the main bread winner when it comes to speed, or ppd. Let's say, "How many points will $20 buy me?"

For $20 the-

-Notebook will run for 127.68 days and return 76,608 to 153,216 points.
-PS3 will run for 42.56 days and return 38,305 points. ( 90nm will run for 28.7 Days and return 25,856 points)
-Desktop will run for 19.15 days and return 28,725 to 67,025 points.

Clearly the Notebook win efficiency wise. Not that I had any thoughts that it wouldn't. The PS3 client is starting to show a little age in the points department, but is not as bad on the pocket book as the monstrous GPU Client. On a side note, the Nvidia GPU client has even higher ppd, sometimes over double that of the current ATI GPU Client. I don't have much experience with the Nvidia Client, so I don't know any power numbers, but I do know for the most part as of this day, September 7th, The Nvidia Client is more efficient than the ATI one. For more information you can go:

here for Nvidia ppd info http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=3193

here for ATI ppd info http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 63&start=0

I also wish I had some uniprocessor info too, but I can only work with what I have.

Edit: As always, YMMV.

This is a shot of my Bill for March '07, as posted in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1560&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=45



I received my Beast in July '07... and was on vacation in late August and early September......
This clearly proves illustrates what a Beast combined with Folding@Home can do to my electricity bill

I added The Monster just late last night, I am sure my bill will go even higher.
I might need someone to adopt me if the wife disowns me for this

Seriously though.... this is a good idea.
When I get the next bill I will post it for comparison so that I too know how much a GPU Monster affects S. CA. Edison's (Elect Co.) Revenues.


Peace

My systems in order of power useage are ..........
Q6600 @ 3.1Ghz, 4 Gb ram, onboard vid:- 4,000-5,000 PpD, 175 Watts, 22-28 PpDpWatt.
Q6600 @ 3.1 Ghz, 4 Gb ram, dual 9800GTX+ vid:- 15,000-16,000 PpD, 350 Watts, 42-45 PpDpWatt.
Dual 5450@s @ 3.4 Ghz, 8 Gb ram, 9800GTX vid:- 13,500-15,000 PpD, 400 Watts, 33-38 PpDpWatt.
9850 @2.5 Ghz, 4 Gb ram, Quad 9800GX2 vid:- 40,000 PpD, 900 Watts, 44 PpDpWatt.

I'm in the process of converting half my Q6600 systems over to running dual vid cards and shutting the other half down as it almost doubles the PpDpWatt figure.
The aim is to get the total output of the farm over 40 PpDpWatt and the farm at under 2.5 kW.
The first aim I can do but I think the farms going to be drawing around 2.66 kW once I finish the upgrades.

Luck ..........

If I had to complain about something, it would be the 24x7x365 electrical costs. There are advantages to having your machine on 24x7 (like you can have a daily save at 3 am when you're most likely asleep!).

On the other hand, all my machines were taken down in anticipation of IKE. I have verified that I lost power. It's back up but I'm stuck in DFW until they get I-45 straightened out. (No food, no fuel, no restrooms is the official report.)

The extra electrical costs of running your computer are the physical aspects of what you are donating to Stanford. So, there should be no complaining about those unless they were unantisipated...

I've had some thoughts about this recently as well. I've measured the PS3's power consumption... Here are the figures. Some surprises.

108 W - when system is asking basic stuff - or about to power off: completely black screen with white writing.
114 W - at menu (no disk), at a menu choice where there is not screen movement
116-120 W - playing Blu-ray
137-142 W - playing regular DVD (huh? more than when playing a Blu-ray. Maybe the cell processors are kicking in to help with the upconversion?)

142 W - playing Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

120 W - folding, screen-saver mode
130 W - folding, no molecule visuals just globe
132-145 W - Folding depending on activity on screen
167 W - folding + complicated molecule display rotation (Tapioca, zoomed in, constantly rotating). 2nd speed fan kicks in after a few minutes

In conclusion, if the PS3 is used for gaming, which is what I suspect most people have purchased it for, it uses more power than when folding. In fact you'd have to add in another 200 watts for the TV monitor and perhaps another 100-200 watts for the audio amplifier while you're gaming. Those peripherals are not needed when just folding.

So the folding wattage is around 120 (when in screen-saver mode), and gaming is around 4x as much.

Sure it's cheaper to turn the PS3 completely off if you want to save electricity. But it's a general fallacy to assume the folding application makes the PS3 max-out on its power consumption.

Great info oddman, thank you. Which PS3 do you have, the 90nm or the 65nm? With the 167 watt number I am hoping you have the old 90nm version which would mean the newer one would use even less.

I'd be happy to tell you but I don't know how to tell. It's a 40GB model. I guess I must be one of the few who don't own a scanning electron microscope. From what I've read, I've go the one that consumes less power than other older versions. But I could be wrong.

Please explain how 90nm vs 65nm is determined, and what it means.

The newer 40GB one, with no backwards compatibility, that come out November 2007 had the smaller one. Sounds like you would have the one with lower power consumption, which would put my guesstimate numbers up top fairly close.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/30/40gb ... nsumption/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90_nanometer
Basically the smaller the chip, being of the same design, the less power it uses.

Thanks for the great info, Karamiekos. Yes, I must have the newer, 65 nm one. Got it around March '08. I have heard people toss around figures like 200W, 220W, etc., and it certainly doesn't get anywhere close to that.

I don't see anything on the box indicating either way. You'd think they'd put "NOW with state-of-the-art low power 65 nm fabrication of sub-wavelength featuring special imaging technologies, such as optical proximity correction and phase-shifting masks" (from Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65_nanometer ). Maybe the entire graphics on the box were different before - I wouldn't know.

oddman wrote:I don't see anything on the box indicating either way. You'd think they'd put "NOW with state-of-the-art low power 65 nm fabrication of sub-wavelength featuring special imaging technologies, such as optical proximity correction and phase-shifting masks" (from Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65_nanometer ).

And you won't, either. A sign like that would still be there whenever they start making the Cell with 55 nm technology but it would no longer be "state-of-the-art" technology.

In case anyone is curious

Mac Mini: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz ~45 watts
PowerMac: G5 @ 1.6GHz ~176 watts
PowerBook: G4 @ 1.5GHz ~28 watts
Samsung SyncMaster 205BW ~45 watts

All machines were measured while running Folding@home using a P3 Kill A Watt.
PowerBook measurements are with screen and keyboard lights turned off.
I reset the Kill A Watt meter twice when measuring the monitor.
I don't have any specific points per watt ratings, but you can check http://fahinfo.org/ for more info.

this might be interesting for you

Got a P3 Kill A Watt for Xmas, here are some numbers to compare to my WAG (wild @$$ guess).
HP Notebook = 52 watts while folding

PS3 = 131 watts while folding

Custom built Desktop: AMD X2 3800+ (Manchester Core) Overclocked to 2.5Ghz, 2 Gigs of RAM, with a Radeon 4850.
This computer runs XP SP3 32 bit running only the AMD GPU2 Client. ( Now running Uni-Client as well) = 266 watts folding and 135 watts @ idle

!!NEW ADDITION TO THE FLEET!!

Custom built Desktop: Phenom 9950 Overclocked to 3.2Ghz, 2 Gigs of RAM, with a Radeon 1800XT (for gaming....the wife doesn't need much).
This computer runs Ubuntu 8.04 running the SMP Client.
-power usage on Kill A Watt reads 230 watts idle and 390 watts folding
-Around 5500 ppd depending on work unit
- so about 14 points per watt efficiency
-costs me $40.716 a month

I usually don't toot my own horn, but I am impressed my WAG was so close!

Merry Christmas to all! I wish everyone the best!

Q6600 @ 3.0GHz/1500FSB - SMP client
256MB 8800GT @ 1860MHz shaders - GPU client
512MB 9800GT @ 1660shaders - GPU client
10,000-11,500 PPD 338W
31.8PPD/Watt


Mac Pro 8-core (2x Xeon 5462) Overclocked to 3.164GHz 1808FSB 3 SMP clients
10,000PPD +/-500 325W
32.5PPD/Watt


MacBook Pro
T7200 2.16GHz SMP client
900-1000PPD 83W
11.1PPD/Watt