My old 500MHz P3 uses 39W idle, 42W crunching. Not much difference there.

Back in the way back times I was using 40 or so celeron 400mhz machines. Even running 2 motherboards off of 1 power supply with special Y cables I had made. I don't recall if I ever measured the power fomr them but they were all running off of a 15A breaker. Good ole P3's were good on power. :)

I mentioned the Intel Atom processor on another thread -- some very efficient motherboards around that chip (as low as 8w, but those are expensive).

... and I'm really curious about the Nvidia ION based boards that are CUDA capable. I'm sure they aren't nearly as fast as some of the exotic stuff people talk about all the time, but they're under 40w.

I have a little server sitting here. It isn't crunching SETI, it's doing mail and file transfers and DNS and drawing about sixteen watts total.

---

My old 500MHz P3 uses 39W idle, 42W crunching. Not much difference there.

Back in the way back times I was using 40 or so celeron 400mhz machines. Even running 2 motherboards off of 1 power supply with special Y cables I had made. I don't recall if I ever measured the power fomr them but they were all running off of a 15A breaker. Good ole P3's were good on power. :)

I mentioned the Intel Atom processor on another thread -- some very efficient motherboards around that chip (as low as 8w, but those are expensive).

... and I'm really curious about the Nvidia ION based boards that are CUDA capable. I'm sure they aren't nearly as fast as some of the exotic stuff people talk about all the time, but they're under 40w.

I have a little server sitting here. It isn't crunching SETI, it's doing mail and file transfers and DNS and drawing about sixteen watts total.

Just before I decided to upgraded to a Core 2 Quad and put my current Core 2 Duo in a cheap mono to use for a HTPC. I was looking at Socket P mini-ITX boards. Much like my current MoTD server I run. They are boards designed to use the mobile CPUs. So I do have a path to upgrade that box later on if it ever really needs it.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

I would love to get one of the Atom based rigs up and running as a server here at home, unfortunately, given only a single PCI slot always leaves me choosing between Gigabit NIC and RAID card utilization......if the boards came with 2 slots for expansion card integration (or Gig LAN onboard + 1 PCI slot), I would be all over them.

---

I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

My old 500MHz P3 uses 39W idle, 42W crunching. Not much difference there.

Thing is, my Quad core does 50w idle and 80w crunching... Yes it's a very basic rig, but it crunches pretty well. Probably does in a half hour what a P3 does in a day?

I do have couple of P3s crunching too, and a stack of P4s, but only because it's literally freezing outside. I have the gas heaters down on low now because the 'waste' heat from the CPUs helps warm the house. In the summer, I go back to a couple of modern low power crunchers and various machines doing 'burn-in'.

The spare boxes get stacked in the spare room for 6 months.

Out of interest, looking at the top 500 supercomputers. The top machine on the list is drawing 2 mW, like a small town, 24/7.

Thats the sort of computing power that SETI is currently harnessing, so I would expect the actual power use may be higher as it's a whole heap of discrete power supplies, motherboards, hard diskas , graphics cards etc.

Either way, it's using a significant amount of electricity.

I would still say that it's less that is being used killing alien scum in Halo at the same time.

Ian

All the first 4 systems in the green500 list use the CELL processor. The fourth, the Roadrunner, is #1 in the top500 list and produces 444.94 Mflops/watt.
Tullio

---

this is not directed at anyone in praticular. if you feel i am typing about you then deal with it.

it's not fair to say that boinc uses spare cpu cycles that would be wasted. on a modern or even quasi modern computer, those supposed wasted cycles would have never existed.

maybe it would be fair to say this when seti was first thought up and modern clock throttling like intels speedstep, amd's powernow! etc had not been invented or widely implemented.

modern computers have cpu throttling. when the processor is not doing much, it slows down, sometimes by a lot. it also lowers its voltage, can turn off select fans, stop some internal busses, etc. my e5200 goes from a 12.5 multiplier down to 6 when its not busy. it also volt drops from 1.4 to 0.8xx. the front side buss also drops from 1333mhz down to 800mhz which lowers energy use by the northbridge, ram, etc.

heck even my CUDA video card has a power saving mode where it vastly lowers the frequency of the gpu and ram to save power when it detects nothing is happening.

and all this assumes one does not just use the suspend to ram feature and put the thing to sleep when you need to get up and go to the bathroom or whatever.

so running boinc on a modern computer keeps it from going into power saving mode. intel calls this speedstep. and calls it powernow!. im sure there is something similar for ppc macs?

even my ancient p3 900 laptop has speedstep. it can be at 900mhz or 600mhz depending on cpu demand. most of you cannot properly say that boinc is only using spare cycles and put urselves on the back for being green because of what i just said.

i go the opposite route the lot of you do. i overclock, i overvolt, and i stress test to get every last mhz i can out of every part of my pc's. i also leave them all on 24'7 with ups's so that lightning its self cant even stop boinc. i try to make sure they never go into any power saving mode because i want max performance. my fans are loud, some of my computers have cases made out of rubbermaid containers because id rather spend the money on hardware that crunches (cpu/gpu) then a steel box that does nothing but hold parts.

some of you guys say that seti was only intended to run during spare cycles at some old computers doing word processing? haha. seti was put on the internet to be downloaded and run by as many computers as possible for as often as possible. if that means boinc is installed on an office pc to be used while word processing then so be it. if that means boinc is on my rubbermaid computers sitting on a shelf in my guest room then_so_be_it. if they did not want you running it as often as you like they would have put in some feature to limit processing to only a few hours per day or even limit how many cpu's an account can have.


there are no limits on what hardware can be used and shame on yous for implying that us dedicated crunchers are somehow not wanted.

When SETI@HOME started a computer used almost the same amount of energy in idle as it would at full load. But computers have grown much smarter in the years using much less energy when not used.

The rig I have uses about twice the amount of energy when running SETI/BOINC compared to Idle/normal usage.

Therefore one could honestly say ten years ago running SET@HOME didn't cost one extra electricity/money. But nowadays it'll cost ya.. Also there is a difference when people leave their computer on for SETI, then the cost for the electricity goes for 100% to SETI/BOINC. But as mentioned earlier most crunchers use the computer when crunching.. so then 50% of the electricity would be used anyway.. but the other 50% (again) goes to SETI/BOINC.

This all makes a good calculation virtually impossible..

---

The SETI@Home Gauntlet 2012 april 16 - 30| info / chat | STATS

I would love to get one of the Atom based rigs up and running as a server here at home, unfortunately, given only a single PCI slot always leaves me choosing between Gigabit NIC and RAID card utilization......if the boards came with 2 slots for expansion card integration (or Gig LAN onboard + 1 PCI slot), I would be all over them.

Take a good look at the MSI IM-945GSE-A.

Dual *Intel* gigabit ethernet on board, plus the PCI card you want.

... and compared to the Intel D945GCLF motherboard, about half the power draw.

---

it's not fair to say that boinc uses spare cpu cycles that would be wasted. on a modern or even quasi modern computer, those supposed wasted cycles would have never existed.

Just so we're clear.

The dual-core AMD machine at my real estate agent's office never has a single wasted clock cycle? It takes 100% of the clocks on both CPUs to do E-Mail and light word processing?

Really??

In the original specifications, SETI@Home classic was designed to harness a waste product. BOINC talks about harnessing waste processor cycles, and the people running around installing BOINC on every idle machine they can find are harnessing a waste product.

If you want to make a waste product just for SETI, you have my respect. You are certainly welcome to do so, and I admire your dedication.

What I don't like is being told that I'm somehow being critical of you because you're building machines just for SETI.

Go for it. But show some respect for those who do not choose to follow in your path. Respect is a two way street.

SETI is for anyone who wants to crunch -- an hour a day on an old P3 or 24/7 on a great big stack of quad i7's.

---

I would love to get one of the Atom based rigs up and running as a server here at home, unfortunately, given only a single PCI slot always leaves me choosing between Gigabit NIC and RAID card utilization......if the boards came with 2 slots for expansion card integration (or Gig LAN onboard + 1 PCI slot), I would be all over them.

They still make board with built in lan that are not Gb? You might want to look at something like the Asus AT3GC-I it has the dual core Atom 330. There is just 1 dimm slot, but I'm not sure that the Atom knows what to do with dual channel anyway.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

it's not fair to say that boinc uses spare cpu cycles that would be wasted. on a modern or even quasi modern computer, those supposed wasted cycles would have never existed.

Just so we're clear.

The dual-core AMD machine at my real estate agent's office never has a single wasted clock cycle? It takes 100% of the clocks on both CPUs to do E-Mail and light word processing?

Really??

In the original specifications, SETI@Home classic was designed to harness a waste product. BOINC talks about harnessing waste processor cycles, and the people running around installing BOINC on every idle machine they can find are harnessing a waste product.

If you want to make a waste product just for SETI, you have my respect. You are certainly welcome to do so, and I admire your dedication.

What I don't like is being told that I'm somehow being critical of you because you're building machines just for SETI.

Go for it. But show some respect for those who do not choose to follow in your path. Respect is a two way street.

SETI is for anyone who wants to crunch -- an hour a day on an old P3 or 24/7 on a great big stack of quad i7's.

i dont know the specifics of you're dual core amd machine but it seems to me that most computers these days down clock the cpu/fsb etc when they are not being taxed 100%. maybe yours doesn't, i don't know. i quit using amd after socket a. most computers these days will down clock the components to save power. running boinc for the most part stops this down clock process. i personally dont care if you have a dual core setup for email and light word processing. seems like a waste of a good setup to me when a athlon or pentium 3 would do that just as well and with probably 1/4 the power draw. (with or without boinc). if you dont want to run it 24/7 thats fine with me. i am indifferent.

personally i dont really care what other people use for their computers or how they use them. i have no problem with any of you guys who want to run boinc only part time. that's you're decision. but i really dislike it when people who shun us dedicated crunchers as if we are hurting seti. what is that called, killing with kindness?

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

it's not fair to say that boinc uses spare cpu cycles that would be wasted. on a modern or even quasi modern computer, those supposed wasted cycles would have never existed.

Just so we're clear.

The dual-core AMD machine at my real estate agent's office never has a single wasted clock cycle? It takes 100% of the clocks on both CPUs to do E-Mail and light word processing?

Really??

In the original specifications, SETI@Home classic was designed to harness a waste product. BOINC talks about harnessing waste processor cycles, and the people running around installing BOINC on every idle machine they can find are harnessing a waste product.

If you want to make a waste product just for SETI, you have my respect. You are certainly welcome to do so, and I admire your dedication.

What I don't like is being told that I'm somehow being critical of you because you're building machines just for SETI.

Go for it. But show some respect for those who do not choose to follow in your path. Respect is a two way street.

SETI is for anyone who wants to crunch -- an hour a day on an old P3 or 24/7 on a great big stack of quad i7's.

i dont know the specifics of you're dual core amd machine but it seems to me that most computers these days down clock the cpu/fsb etc when they are not being taxed 100%. maybe yours doesn't, i don't know. i quit using amd after socket a. most computers these days will down clock the components to save power. running boinc for the most part stops this down clock process. i personally dont care if you have a dual core setup for email and light word processing. seems like a waste of a good setup to me when a athlon or pentium 3 would do that just as well and with probably 1/4 the power draw. (with or without boinc). if you dont want to run it 24/7 thats fine with me. i am indifferent.

personally i dont really care what other people use for their computers or how they use them. i have no problem with any of you guys who want to run boinc only part time. that's you're decision. but i really dislike it when people who shun us dedicated crunchers as if we are hurting seti. what is that called, killing with kindness?

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

Generally I disable the speed stepping options on my computers. Sure they use more power at idle, but I've found it annoying when in the middle of doing something the system has clocked itself down. Then sometimes there would be a delay while it thought about speeding back up.

I have 6 computers on 24/7 in my home, and 4 are running seti atm. I figure I pay my electric bill. So it gives me the right to do as I please with them. :) I applaude anyone that takes the time and spends the money to run seti on their boxen 1 hr a day or 24/7.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

it's not fair to say that boinc uses spare cpu cycles that would be wasted. on a modern or even quasi modern computer, those supposed wasted cycles would have never existed.

Just so we're clear.

The dual-core AMD machine at my real estate agent's office never has a single wasted clock cycle? It takes 100% of the clocks on both CPUs to do E-Mail and light word processing?

Really??

In the original specifications, SETI@Home classic was designed to harness a waste product. BOINC talks about harnessing waste processor cycles, and the people running around installing BOINC on every idle machine they can find are harnessing a waste product.

If you want to make a waste product just for SETI, you have my respect. You are certainly welcome to do so, and I admire your dedication.

What I don't like is being told that I'm somehow being critical of you because you're building machines just for SETI.

Go for it. But show some respect for those who do not choose to follow in your path. Respect is a two way street.

SETI is for anyone who wants to crunch -- an hour a day on an old P3 or 24/7 on a great big stack of quad i7's.

i dont know the specifics of you're dual core amd machine but it seems to me that most computers these days down clock the cpu/fsb etc when they are not being taxed 100%. maybe yours doesn't, i don't know. i quit using amd after socket a. most computers these days will down clock the components to save power. running boinc for the most part stops this down clock process. i personally dont care if you have a dual core setup for email and light word processing. seems like a waste of a good setup to me when a athlon or pentium 3 would do that just as well and with probably 1/4 the power draw. (with or without boinc). if you dont want to run it 24/7 thats fine with me. i am indifferent.

personally i dont really care what other people use for their computers or how they use them. i have no problem with any of you guys who want to run boinc only part time. that's you're decision. but i really dislike it when people who shun us dedicated crunchers as if we are hurting seti. what is that called, killing with kindness?

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

There is no difference between criticizing those who choose to build machines just for crunching, and those who don't.

It is still saying "I'm better than you."

What I've tried to point out is that if you build a super-cruncher, you are going above and beyond what is asked. If the project has tough times, and doesn't have work for your super-cruncher, well, that's what they've always promised.

Given what they've done, with what they have (hardware and staffing) there have been very few times without work.

Each of us can choose to be mad at the project when work runs short, or we can realize that they've always promised that there will be times without work.

I don't see that changing unless their resource situation improves (and I do mean money).

---

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

I really think there is some miscommunication going on here, amplified by bruised or hurt feelings and egos.

No one here is saying that dedicated crunchers aren't welcome, and I certainly don't see any "smug sense of superiority".

The only thing I see is some people pointing out that those who have chosen to go above and beyond the call of volunteering and have built machines just for crunching are by all means welcome, but typically these are also the people who complain the loudest when there's no work and they're wasting their electricity.

What some of us are trying to tell those people is that SETI never promised to have work available all the time, and that all those rigs they've built, when they go idle, the only ones they can "blame" or get angry with is themselves because no one ever asked them to give more than the systems they would own naturally.


Again, that isn't to say that people who are dedicated, or are in it for the credits alone aren't welcome. It doesn't matter how quickly we find ETI, just as long as we find it.

I'm saying this as a person who owns a large farm myself (albeit not a dedicated farm for crunching, but a museum that resembles a cruncher's farm), and have admittedly taken SETI into consideration during purchasing of upgrades. But I do so knowing that any problems SETI has with their servers has no bearing on my interest in the project, nor do I start making demands or having unrealistic expectations of their server uptime.


I hope we can back up and re-examine the situation and realize that we are all in this together (why do I think of High School Musical every time I say that?), and that no one is trying to be "superior" over the other simply due to differing philosophies or available cash.

---

If they are in so far over their heads, why do they keep expanding and looking for ways to add more than the project can handle ?

This type of project management sure doesn't help make it any easier for people to give up funds out of their own pockets to help an always sinking ship.

---

I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.

Wow! I'm pleased to see the amount of responses to my original post. Here are a couple of comments from my perspective that may summarize some of the discussion:

First, my post was not intended to place a value on SETI relative to the energy use, only to point out a possible interesting fact. Nearly everyone understood my intent correctly and I appreciate that, this group is obviously a cut above the average... worthy of contact from... you know! ;-)

Second, My estimate was obviously very rough and it was pointed out that there is a lot of uncertainty. The precision displayed in my numbers was certainly not intended to imply some level of accuracy or certainty, but only so folks could double check my math to ensure it was done correctly. Also, I used 8 cents per KWH only because it's about what I pay and it's a bit on the low side. I figured if I was going to post something that may be a bit surprising, I should use a bit of a low ballpark estimate.

Fourth: I don't see an issue with dedicated SETI systems with respect to energy use. If they are efficient and deliver good MFLOPs/watt then that may be a good approach. Given that we know CPU cycles aren't totally free and that many non-dedicated systems are awake instead of going to sleep, a dedicated system may not be any worse, and if it's crafted for efficiency, it may be better than average. Just a hunch.

Finally, I agree with many that, other than dedicated SETI crunch boxes, the source of the additional energy use in older systems and newer systems is somewhat different:

For older systems that typically had poor energy management, the primary energy use was due to people not turning off their systems so that they can continue to run SETI. For the systems that were on anyway, there probably wasn't too much difference between running SETI and some other screen saver. Obviously not everyone would have turned their system off anyway, but many would, which would be the primary source of the energy use.

For newer systems, it's much more complex because these mult-threaded/multi-core systems with sophisticated energy saving strategies in both the OS and the hardware, it's difficult to calculate the impact of running another algorithm during normal usage and what happens to that system during idle. Clearly the biggest impact is on SETI causing systems that would normally go into idle (or are turned off like in the "olden days") to stay on. In general, based on the computer and user behaviors I see in my extended family, I would say there are three roughly equal camps:

1) People that still turn off their computer after use.
2) People that have systems that properly go to sleep after being idle for a period of time.
3) People have have systems that, for various reasons, always stay on.

So my use of "50% sleep or off/50% running when idle" was an attempt to simply weigh the "off/idle versus on" camps roughly equally, barring better statistics on real behavior. I neglected to include the fourth case: People with systems solely dedicated to tasks like SETI.

My main point is that anything done on a massive scale can have significant side effects.

I was very upset with Intel's Pentium 4 architecture which was created to create huge clock rates with this "marketecture". I did a calculation once on the hundreds of millions of system burning 20-30 extra watts per system just because of these unneeded high clock rates (coupled with poor energy management in the OS/HW) and the number of extra power plants the world had to build due to Intel's decision was depressing.

On the plus side, massive scale means significant opportunity. I expect people have worked on SETI's algorithmic efficiency, so maybe there isn't much blood to squeeze out of it, but just another 10% in computational efficiency may have saved a lot of energy (assuming it means fewer systems are then running it).

Here's another a naive thought: Another savings could be if SETI detects it has more computation power than it needs (I don't know if this is ever the case) perhaps it can be configured to allow those systems to go idle so that the ones that are left on are run at 100% capacity. Or maybe it biases towards the newer, more efficient systems since the technology is constantly providing more MFLOPS/Watt, or simply refuses to run on systems that have especially poor MFLOPS/watt (get those gas guzzlers off the road!). Because as mentioned, it's not watts we're concerned about but possibly MFLOPs/watt.

Anyway... just a few thoughts.

Cheers,

Steven

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

I really think there is some miscommunication going on here, amplified by bruised or hurt feelings and egos.

No one here is saying that dedicated crunchers aren't welcome, and I certainly don't see any "smug sense of superiority".

The only thing I see is some people pointing out that those who have chosen to go above and beyond the call of volunteering and have built machines just for crunching are by all means welcome, but typically these are also the people who complain the loudest when there's no work and they're wasting their electricity.

What some of us are trying to tell those people is that SETI never promised to have work available all the time, and that all those rigs they've built, when they go idle, the only ones they can "blame" or get angry with is themselves because no one ever asked them to give more than the systems they would own naturally.


Again, that isn't to say that people who are dedicated, or are in it for the credits alone aren't welcome. It doesn't matter how quickly we find ETI, just as long as we find it.

I'm saying this as a person who owns a large farm myself (albeit not a dedicated farm for crunching, but a museum that resembles a cruncher's farm), and have admittedly taken SETI into consideration during purchasing of upgrades. But I do so knowing that any problems SETI has with their servers has no bearing on my interest in the project, nor do I start making demands or having unrealistic expectations of their server uptime.


I hope we can back up and re-examine the situation and realize that we are all in this together (why do I think of High School Musical every time I say that?), and that no one is trying to be "superior" over the other simply due to differing philosophies or available cash.

i like this a lot, ozzfan.



so i have a question for you guys. just as a TEMPORARY measure, would seti be better off if some people quit crunching and instead donated the saving they see on their electricity bill to seti so they can get that gigabit pipe done? just thought i would throw that out there....

so i have a question for you guys. just as a TEMPORARY measure, would seti be better off if some people quit crunching and instead donated the saving they see on their electricity bill to seti so they can get that gigabit pipe done? just thought i would throw that out there....

I don't think that would be a good idea. SETI needs our computer power and the cost to replace it by getting a supper computer is huge both in terms of hardware and power consumption. What we really can do is to get the people in charge "i.e politicians" to get some money to fund SETI.

---

some of you guys need to drop the smug sense of superiority and realize we are all in this for a common goal. how we get there doesn't matter.

I really think there is some miscommunication going on here, amplified by bruised or hurt feelings and egos.

No one here is saying that dedicated crunchers aren't welcome, and I certainly don't see any "smug sense of superiority".

The only thing I see is some people pointing out that those who have chosen to go above and beyond the call of volunteering and have built machines just for crunching are by all means welcome, but typically these are also the people who complain the loudest when there's no work and they're wasting their electricity.

What some of us are trying to tell those people is that SETI never promised to have work available all the time, and that all those rigs they've built, when they go idle, the only ones they can "blame" or get angry with is themselves because no one ever asked them to give more than the systems they would own naturally.


Again, that isn't to say that people who are dedicated, or are in it for the credits alone aren't welcome. It doesn't matter how quickly we find ETI, just as long as we find it.

I'm saying this as a person who owns a large farm myself (albeit not a dedicated farm for crunching, but a museum that resembles a cruncher's farm), and have admittedly taken SETI into consideration during purchasing of upgrades. But I do so knowing that any problems SETI has with their servers has no bearing on my interest in the project, nor do I start making demands or having unrealistic expectations of their server uptime.


I hope we can back up and re-examine the situation and realize that we are all in this together (why do I think of High School Musical every time I say that?), and that no one is trying to be "superior" over the other simply due to differing philosophies or available cash.

i like this a lot, ozzfan.

so i have a question for you guys. just as a TEMPORARY measure, would seti be better off if some people quit crunching and instead donated the saving they see on their electricity bill to seti so they can get that gigabit pipe done? just thought i would throw that out there....

He certainly summed up my position well.

Call it insurance, but I've always said that anyone who built machines just for crunching should kick a few bucks into the project as well -- not as any kind of obligation, but to help them keep the infrastructure going and feeding data.

... and entirely optional, of course.

---

Maybe the Project should pay us based on credits instead ? ......OR JUST BE THANKFUL WITH WHAT THEY GET FROM US FOR FREE.

---

I am TCP JESUS...The Carpenter Phenom Jesus....and HAMMERING is what I do best!
formerly known as...MC Hammer.