# Question for the crunchers - Monthly Cost



## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

hello fellow crunchers,

So my situation is that where I live the electricity bill is inclusive of my rent.  However, if they see a sudden increase that's very drastic it might cause them to look into things and maybe raise my rent.  So I am not trying to rip off my land lord, but I just want to know more or less your average rig nowadays how much does it waste a month in electricity?  I know some of you have somewhat measured this and can provide some input.  If not too much I'd like to add a rig or two over time to get going again.  If it's too drastic of a change in electricity bill then I'd probably have to hold off.  Just looking for some input on how much it can cost a month, give or take.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Just google and you can calculate it based on your own rate. Every one has different rates.

For me, in Ontario Canada, 300watt /24 hours would cost me around 25 CAD per month.

Edit: Corrected the cost.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Just google and you can calculate it based on your own rate. Every one has different rates.
> 
> For me, in Ontario Canada, 300watt /24 hours would cost me around 10 CAD per month / 120 CAD per year.


Thing is I have no idea how much my rig is using.  I'm googling right now to see if there's some sort of way to calculate that, but not coming across anything.  I'll keep trying.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

What are the specs for the rigs? And is it Miami?


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## Norton (May 23, 2017)

Chicken Patty said:


> Thing is I have no idea how much my rig is using. I'm googling right now to see if there's some sort of way to calculate that, but not coming across anything. I'll keep trying.


Does your place have its own electric meter?

A 2600k will run about 200-250+ watts depending on the overclock. @thebluebumblebee should be able to get you some info on the lower powered crunching chips if you want to build something new(er)


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> What are the specs for the rigs? And is it Miami?



Hello the specs are on the left under my systems specs.  CPU is currently running at 4.4 GHz and 1.38v.  I'd be happy to provide anything other detail should you need it.  Yes, Miami.



Norton said:


> Does your place have its own electric meter?
> 
> A 2600k will run about 200-250+ watts depending on the overclock. @thebluebumblebee should be able to get you some info on the lower powered crunching chips if you want to build something new(er)



Mine does not, the whole house has only one.


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## jboydgolfer (May 23, 2017)

Norton said:


> lower powered crunching chips if you want to build something new(er)



 The Xeon is a pretty low power chip , i have the 1231V3 (1150) its sips power while crunching & hit a max multithread frquency of 3.6ghz on 8 threads


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

From google


```
The average industrial electricity rate in Miami is 6.86¢/kWh. This average (industrial) electricity rate in Miami is 14.68% less than the Florida average rate of 8.04¢/kWh.
```

So, according to Norton, your max is around 250w. So, your monthly pay for it will be less than what I say for 300w. My rate is something like 9/kWh.


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## JunkBear (May 23, 2017)

As long as you don't reach 1.21 gigawatts !!!


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> From google
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



So at the rate you provided above, even at 300W max, the estimate is about $15 a month, or $180 a year.  If that's the case, I should be fine adding a rig or two


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

If you plan to have more than one rig, I strongly recommend running them on stock. OCing is not really power efficient. Crunching is similar to rendering. It favors more cores over high frequency.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> If you plan to have more than one rig, I strongly recommend running them on stock. OCing is not really power efficient. Crunching is similar to rendering. It favors more cores over high frequency.



I haven't looked into it much, but I was thinking maybe an AMD 6 or 8 core.  For the price you can't beat them, however it does appear they are a bit more power hungry.  But at stock clocks it should not be so bad.  This rig is overclocked because it's the one I use to game too, so I take advantage of the FPS increase.  But if I build something else I will probably run it on stock clocks.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

At stock, Ryzen is fine. But know that AMD's TDP rating is for average computing whereas Intel's TDP rating is for max computing.

So, 65w Ryzen power consumption is similar to Intel's 95w. Their 95w CPU is similar to Intel's 120w.

Having said that, do NOT OC Ryzen chips for crunching. They are awful for power efficiency once you OC even 0.2 ghz.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> At stock, Ryzen is fine. But know that AMD's TDP rating is for average computing whereas Intel's TDP rating is for max computing.
> 
> So, 65w Ryzen power consumption is similar to Intel's 95w. Their 95w CPU is similar to Intel's 120w.
> 
> Having said that, do NOT OC Ryzen chips for crunching. They are awful for power efficiency once you OC even 0.2 ghz.



Thank you for pointing that out.  Very important information I did not know.    Seriously, thanks for the help!


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

No problem. I used to run 10 rigs for WCG a decade ago. OCed the heck out of them and half of them were dual socket rackmounts. Saw the powerbill (over a grand) and had to stop, lol.

Hardly OCed ever since.

Edit: By the way, this is the website I used to calculate my cost. Put 744 hours for a month (31 days).

http://www.hydroone.com/MyHome/SaveEnergy/Pages/ElectricityCostCalculators.aspx


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> No problem. I used to run 10 rigs for WCG a decade ago. OCed the heck out of them and half of them were dual socket rackmounts. Saw the powerbill (over a grand) and had to stop, lol.
> 
> Hardly OCed ever since.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I used to run about 4-5 rigs all overclocked a while back too.  Nothing as powerful as what you described but at the time I lived with my parents so the power bill went up, I contributed.  Here they might just raise my rent and they won't raise it what the electricity bill raised it.  They'll probably just raise it $100 or something to offset the cost.  So it's different., can't go crazy.  Parents house they understood so I'd give the difference, but here it could hurt me more than what it actually should.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

I've been thinking of resuming WCGing but I've got a family now, and a house w/ mortgage to pay. So, it hasn't been easy.

If I were to resume, I'd build a heck of power efficient Xeon machine. There are cheap Xeon ES chips out there that's rated for 55w TDP with 10 cores at 1.7ghz @ 120 USD. That chip should be as good as high-end i7 4c/8t at half of TDP.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> I've been thinking of resuming WCGing but I've got a family now, and a house w/ mortgage to pay. So, it hasn't been easy.
> 
> If I were to resume, I'd build a heck of power efficient Xeon machine. There are cheap Xeon ES chips out there that's rated for 55w TDP with 10 cores at 1.7ghz @ 120 USD. That chip should be as good as high-end i7 4c/8t at half of TDP.



You can do like me start of with one rig, see where that goes.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

That's how I began in the first place. I didn't start with 10 rigs.


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## JunkBear (May 23, 2017)

Usually when you are crunching what are you crunching for?


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

For medical researches, mainly cancer. For me at least, I chose only cancer related workloads.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

My rig is set to receive work from all the different projects.  Either way you decide to do it, it's for a great cause.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 23, 2017)

CP, the system that @Norton mentioned is my i3-3220T - a 35 watt TDP chip.  Running without a dedicated GPU and a laptop HDD, it doesn't reach 45 watts while crunching under Linux.  I've been wanting to update it with an i7-6700T/7700T which is also a 35 watt CPU.  I'm more interested in run time than in PPD. (opposite of F@H)  [ION], as well as others,  have shown that they way to go is many core/thread systems.  [ION]'s got a couple of 44c/88t systems! FYI:TPU's WCG/BOINC Team


Norton said:


> A 2600k will run about 200-250+ watts depending on the overclock.


I think that's really high.  That's more like what a gaming system will use while gaming.  A crunching system does not need a GPU, unless some work comes down for them again, but I don't count on it.  That's why I like the "T" CPU's - integrated graphics.  Only select Xeon's have iGPU.


Chicken Patty said:


> CPU is currently running at 4.4 GHz


I have a "cough" 2600K running at 4.4.  I'll try to put it on the wattmeter and see what it pulls.  I think it was OZ WU's that gave me a peak 15K PPD with that system.


> The average *industrial* electricity rate in Miami is 6.86¢/kWh


Residential rates will be much higher.
Then there's this thread: How efficient is your cruncher?


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

thebluebumblebee said:


> CP, the system that @Norton mentioned is my i3-3220T - a 35 watt TDP chip.  Running without a dedicated GPU and a laptop HDD, it doesn't reach 45 watts while crunching under Linux.  I've been wanting to update it with an i7-6700T/7700T which is also a 35 watt CPU.  I'm more interested in run time than in PPD. (opposite of F@H)  [ION], as well as others,  have shown that they way to go is many core/thread systems.  [ION]'s got a couple of 44c/88t systems! FYI:TPU's WCG/BOINC Team
> 
> I think that's really high.  That's more like what a gaming system will use while gaming.  A crunching system does not need a GPU, unless some work comes down for them again, but I don't count on it.  That's why I like the "T" CPU's - integrated graphics.  Only select Xeon's have iGPU.
> 
> ...



A lot of good info here, thank you so much.  I'll review this later when I'm home and I can read through it with time.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

For intel system, it's fair easy to figure total TDP as long as it's not OCed.

CPU TDP + Chipset (5w) + other stuff (HDD, PSU efficiency = Add further few watts)

Using iGPU of course. It's always better to use iGPU for crunchers.


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## The Data Master (May 23, 2017)

@Chicken Patty - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/CPU_mega_page.html Click on Power Perf. at the top to sort it ascending or descending. That is power/performance ratio. The higher the number, the more efficient the chip is compared to others. As @alucasa mentioned, AMD chips do run a higher than their TDP, problem with that is that they will also produce more heat which may gain a couple extra watts in fans trying to cool them down. With crunching, even a 5w fan running 24/7 can increase your yearly electric bill a few dollars.

As mentioned in another thread, I use a J1900 for my 24/7 crunching. It was rated at 10w, has 4 cores and a benchmark of around 1800. The rig uses 30w when all is said and done. Running 24/7 costs me around $5 a month which is nickles and dimes. It doesn't score me a lot of points, but keeps me in the run. In the winter time, I purposely run high wattage performance machines to heat up some rooms, but that is more off topic.

I too was looking into Ryzen and hoping it was going to bring my numbers up with minimal cost. The Intel i7-7700T is a major consideration of mine for crunching because it is a TDP of 45w and the single thread rating I feel will earn me more points with less runtime where as a Ryzen 7, 5, or threadripper will get me a lot of runtime, but not as many points per Watt. The 7700T benches about 4000 points behind the 65w 1600 and 1700 Ryzen chips, but uses almost half of the electricity when it is all said and done. It is also a couple bucks less than the 1700, but 100 more than the 1600, so doing the math you may break even with a 24/7 run over a matter of years.

I have been doing greener builds since getting my own place and continue to crunch with them. If you have any questions, I have a ton of resources that can help you make the right decision.

I would also recommend you get a watt-o-meter to measure your current rig. They also tell you how many Kwh reached during a full run, which will help you a lot with determining how much you are using now and how much you will be in the future. I purchased mine for $30 on newegg, but calculations it performed already payed for itself in the world of crunching. Also I found it on Amazon for $18 -_-
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00009MDBU/?tag=tec06d-20


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Low power computing is a funny business. 

@The Data Master , while the T version CPUs are certainly a choice. I've looked at Xeon ES ships, mainly 2630L version. V3 has 8c/16t. V4 has 10c/20t at 1.6ghz and 1.7ghz respectively. Their TDP is 70w and 55w also respectively.

Those chips are also a choice. Granted, you will be forced to use a cheap GPU but the output should be a fair higher than 7700T, I believe.


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## Vayra86 (May 23, 2017)

Chicken Patty said:


> So at the rate you provided above, even at 300W max, the estimate is about $15 a month, or $180 a year.  If that's the case, I should be fine adding a rig or two



Yeah, for some more perspective;

I used to have a rental situation similar to yours and I hooked up some serious gear, didn't hear one complaint for two years. Then at some point the thermostat went behind locked doors (dont ask why) and my room went cold in winter, so I hooked up one of those ancient electrical heaters rated at 2000w or so... it took literally two months before the landlord knocked on our door  He showed me the bill increase, which was about 80% higher than it used to be


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Should have kicked the landlord in Sparta style.


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## Vayra86 (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Should have kicked the landlord in Sparta style.



Kinda did, because I told him its one or the other: access to thermostat, or electrical heater on his expense.

I kept the heater


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## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

When i used to Crunch my last bill was 600€


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## The Data Master (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Low power computing is a funny business.
> 
> @The Data Master , while the T version CPUs are certainly a choice. I've looked at Xeon ES ships, mainly 2630L version. V3 has 8c/16t. V4 has 10c/20t at 1.6ghz and 1.7ghz respectively. Their TDP is 70w and 55w also respectively.
> 
> Those chips are also a choice. Granted, you will be forced to use a cheap GPU but the output should be a fair higher than 7700T, I believe.



Very true, also the 7700T is 35w TDP. I made a mistake. The Haswell series was 45. They came down 10 over newer generations.

While we are on the topic, in your experience do most Xeons work on Desktop Model boards? That has always been the one thing that pushed me away from the Xeon chip. I was too afraid I would purchase an incompatible board. Especially when you throw ECC and Non-ECC into the mix.


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## The Data Master (May 23, 2017)

Knoxx29 said:


> When i used to Crunch my last bill was 600€



I've seen worse with bitcoin miners, but considering those paid for their electrical usage, that number is insane for crunching.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

The Data Master said:


> Very true, also the 7700T is 35w TDP. I made a mistake. The Haswell series was 45. They came down 10 over newer generations.
> 
> While we are on the topic, in your experience do most Xeons work on Desktop style boards? That has always been the one thing that pushed me away from the Xeon chip. I was too afraid I would purchase an incompatible board. Especially when you throw ECC and Non-ECC into the mix.



The only exception is X99. X99 will accept most Xeons. X99 mobo is pretty cheap nowadays.

1xx, 2xx won't accept any xeons.

ECC RAM is largely depended on CPU rather than board. If a CPU can take ECC, X99 mobo will take ECC.


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## EarthDog (May 23, 2017)

Chicken Patty said:


> Thing is I have no idea how much my rig is using.  I'm googling right now to see if there's some sort of way to calculate that, but not coming across anything.  I'll keep trying.


Get a Kill a Watt meter... Or go by max whitepaper values...


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## The Data Master (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> The only exception is X99. X99 will accept most Xeons. X99 mobo is pretty cheap nowadays.
> 
> 1xx, 2xx won't accept any xeons.
> 
> ECC RAM is largely depended on CPU rather than board. If a CPU can take ECC, X99 mobo will take ECC.



Cool thanks for the info! I am sure @Chicken Patty will find this helpful during his next upgrade as well. I mostly stick with Desktop brand for builds.


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## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

If i decide to Crunch once again i will be using the Xeon 5640L those are very low power consumption and they are 6 cores at 2.26GHz, my first Crunch Machine was 2 x 5640L.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

2630Lv4, 10c/20t, 55wTDP, 1.8ghz

https://ark.intel.com/products/92978/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2630L-v4-25M-Cache-1_80-GHz

You can find ES version for dirt cheap.

2630Lv3 is a lot cheaper (on E*ay).

https://ark.intel.com/products/83357/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2630L-v3-20M-Cache-1_80-GHz


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> For intel system, it's fair easy to figure total TDP as long as it's not OCed.
> 
> CPU TDP + Chipset (5w) + other stuff (HDD, PSU efficiency = Add further few watts)
> 
> Using iGPU of course. It's always better to use iGPU for crunchers.



I'd really like to build a Ryzen 8 core.  Just one rig but a lot of cores.  They don't have iGPU but if anything I can add the lowest power consuming cars I can find.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

The Data Master said:


> @Chicken Patty - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/CPU_mega_page.html Click on Power Perf. at the top to sort it ascending or descending. That is power/performance ratio. The higher the number, the more efficient the chip is compared to others. As @alucasa mentioned, AMD chips do run a higher than their TDP, problem with that is that they will also produce more heat which may gain a couple extra watts in fans trying to cool them down. With crunching, even a 5w fan running 24/7 can increase your yearly electric bill a few dollars.
> 
> As mentioned in another thread, I use a J1900 for my 24/7 crunching. It was rated at 10w, has 4 cores and a benchmark of around 1800. The rig uses 30w when all is said and done. Running 24/7 costs me around $5 a month which is nickles and dimes. It doesn't score me a lot of points, but keeps me in the run. In the winter time, I purposely run high wattage performance machines to heat up some rooms, but that is more off topic.
> 
> ...



Wow awesome post.  Thank you so much!  Investing in a meter would definitely help. This is great.  I have a lot of thinking and reading to do.  


You guys rock!  I mean this for everybody that has pitched in with info


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Ryzen is fine. Just don't OC it.


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## Chicken Patty (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Ryzen is fine. Just don't OC it.


Don't plan on.  Plus the heat inside my room would get unbearable too.


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## thebluebumblebee (May 24, 2017)

Okay, @Norton  was closer than I though.  I should have known better!
My 4.4 GHz 2600K on the GA-P67A-UD4-B3 with 4GB DDR3-1600, MSI HD7770, Be quiet! SHADOW ROCK SLIM Silent Wings CPU Cooler, 3x 120 mm case fans and a laptop HDD is pulling *174 watts* running OZ and OET on Linux.  That is being powered by my old faithful (do I dare say that?) Corsair VX 550, whose efficiency at this load level is in the low 80%'s

*Edit:*
Switched the wattmeter over to my other, non-OC'd 2600K
Differences - MSI Z77A-GD55 motherboard, 8 GB DDR3-1600, H80 CPU cooler on medium setting, no GPU (should only account for ~8 watts) and the PSU is a SEASONIC PLATINUM-760;SS-760XP2 
*102 watts! *(would not have believed that if I hadn't seen it myself)


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## JunkBear (Jun 10, 2017)

You can crunch with any rigs i guess but better processor is better processing. What about GPU dors it matter when screen is Closed? Where Do i download the things?


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## jboydgolfer (Jun 10, 2017)

JunkBear said:


> vous/



Clarify question please


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## JunkBear (Jun 11, 2017)

jboydgolfer said:


> Clarify question please



Done


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## thebluebumblebee (Jun 11, 2017)

JunkBear said:


> You can crunch with any rigs i guess but better processor is better processing. What about GPU dors it matter when screen is Closed? Where Do i download the things?


 https://join.worldcommunitygrid.org?teamId=S8TLJ6TFV1


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## Melvis (Jun 11, 2017)

At 31c per kwh we just cant do it here in Aus unless your rich. Otherwise id be more then happy to crunch or even bitcoin it up.


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## Norton (Jun 11, 2017)

Melvis said:


> At 31c per kwh we just cant do it here in Aus unless your rich. Otherwise id be more then happy to crunch or even bitcoin it up.


Crunching overnight on a couple of cores set at 60% uses minimal power- we have a Team member that does this with their business PC while away from the office (500 ppd on a Phenom II dual core)


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## JunkBear (Jun 11, 2017)

For Québec ... http://www.hydroquebec.com/resident...erstanding-bill/residential-rates/rate-d.html


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## jboydgolfer (Jun 11, 2017)

JunkBear said:


> What about GPU does it matter when screen is Closed?



No the gpu will draw power regardless. If you had a game running & turned off your monitor, your gpu is still rendering, its just that your display isnt on for you to see it (so you would save tiny amount due to monitor being off) optimally you would have the cpu & the bare minimum of components for crunching, and manage it via a program like vnc veiwer , or team viewer, that way all it is ever doing is crunching & nothing else(thats how to cut cost).aka a dedicated crunching pc.

As posted earlier just click the wcg badge on the bottom of a crunchers post & it will take u to the site where u can DL


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## Silvertigo (Jun 11, 2017)

Melvis said:


> At 31c per kwh we just cant do it here in Aus unless your rich.



@Melvis -I think it helps if one is employed, I`m far from rich, but I agree the electricity charges are steep here.

I don`t have an watt-meter since I have resumed crunching but I estimate It costs me around $25 a week...dunno maybe more or less...

I figure thats a cheap hobby for me to sustain these days, I get to fiddle with PC hardware which I enjoy, and
help find cures to diseases so its quite a meaningful way to spend that extra money each week IMHO.
(and have an excuse to be constantly scouring 2nd hand PC parts websites)

Like Norton said above, you can go easy or go hard...

As a side note, I just bought a cheap 2P server yesterday for $130 (Dell T410)  so I can retire an x58 rig, so the plan is to hopefully _use less power_, and maybe knock out an extra few thousand points...

I can`t think of anything else that brings me so much fun for $25+ a week


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## AsRock (Jun 11, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Get a Kill a Watt meter... Or go by max whitepaper values...



Just what i was thinking, they are like $15-$25 how ever if unplugged they loose the data.  But there is a more exspenive one that has a battery  so when the power goes out or gets unplugged it keeps the data.


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## brandonwh64 (Jun 11, 2017)

I have mine under my desk at work so it costs me zero in electric. Its only running a 350W psu so its not really a huge load.


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## thebluebumblebee (Jun 11, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Get a Kill a Watt meter


Many libraries have them for you to check out.


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## EarthDog (Jun 11, 2017)

Get out??? Really?!! Thats cool!


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## thebluebumblebee (Jun 11, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Get out??? Really?!! Thats cool!


http://catalog.wccls.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.6&pos=1


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