I'm curious about, how much other members pay/ed for SETI@home.

Equipment and electricity bill.


I bought in my history three PCs only for SETI@home:

AMD Athlon64 3200+ = ~ 1,000.- €
Intel Core2 Extreme QX6700 = ~ 2,000 €
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE and 4x OCed GTX260-216 = ~ 2,000.- €
5th OCed GTX260-216 for the QX6700 = ~ 200.- €

So equipment over years: ~ 5,200.- €


The AMD with 4x OCed GTX260-216 and the Intel with 1x OCed GTX260-216 used together ~ 1,100 W - or ~ 1.1 kW.

I'm a normal hard working worker and I payed ~ 1/7 / ~ 14 % of my (current) earnings for the SETI@home equipment electricity bill.

I'm crazy?

It's worth to do this for SETI@home?

Current I think about to continue or to leave (no longer 24/7) the project.


Now the AMD is switched off.
The Intel don't have longer a CUDA GPU and only sometimes switched on.


I'm surprised that I could reach with my RAC of ~ 85,000 the top_user_#24 of the world and the top_user_#1 of Germany.


Isn't it crazy?


If I, with my small earnings could reach this - why other don't do this also?


Why the project admins don't have this kind of equipment, for to make a well example?



So to my first question..
How much you payed for your whole SETI@home equipment and how much of your earnings you pay for the SETI@home equipment electricity bill?

Thanks a lot!


Maybe it will help me to decide what I'll do with my equipment.


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[Optimized project applications, for to increase your PC performance (double RAC)!][Overview of abbreviations, which are used often in forum and their meaning.]

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I read on another forum someone else's view. Their view stated that they believed that all the power we spend on parts and electricity could be better put toward custom ASICs designed to do the work far more efficiently then we volunteers ever could.

There is some truth to that statement, even if it misses the target on what volunteer computing is supposed to be (and ignores the fact that these scientists have no way of getting that money from us to buy custom ASICs). Their view was particularly abrasive toward searching for "little green men".

As for myself, I keep wanting to ramp up my contribution since I have about 22GHz worth of CPU power lying around in my museum, but due to current economic conditions I can no longer leave all my systems running 24/7. My main system and my gf's get shut down while we're sleeping and at work which is roughly 17 hours per day. My "family" computer is set to suspend processing after 15 minutes of no activity so that it can go into standby leaving about 8 hours per day of use. Only my 3 servers and my Home Theater PC get use 24/7, but only because the Home Theater PC cannot bring itself out of standby using my current wireless keyboard and mouse like my family computer, otherwise it would be on a limited crunching diet as well.

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The only computer that I have right now is Q-Baby and she cost approx $600 (app 430 euro). I've had other computers over the past couple years but none were bought/built specifically for crunching but were added on for 'just because' reasons.

I don't pay for electricity, it is included in my rent.

I also crunch Einstein and PrimeGrid so. . . Over the past year and a half since I built my Quad I've spent about $200 for equipment and $70 in donations or about 190 euro in total to this project.

Comparing that to the approx $1000 per year that I give to assorted humanist (non-religious) charities that I endorse, I don't spend much on SETI.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

Hi Sutaru!

I have no idea how much I've paid for my Seti hardware, I use some of it for other things (work, entertainment), but I'd guess in the neighborhood of 8 - 10 thousand dollars since I joined was "seti" related. For example, the machine I work from has a couple of Cuda cards in it, I don't really need those, I could get by with a $40 or $50 card to do what I do for work, so the expense of the cards is really "seti only". Also, they double the amount of power my machine draws (maybe more than double), so that power is "seti only". I also have a machine that I use as HTPC to watch movies on. I could turn that off 80 or 90% of the time and save all the power... But I also have three machines that do Seti (and other projects), that I would not otherwise need. I would say that doing Boinc projects adds in the neighborhood of $150/month to my power bill, probably for the last couple of years. Before that, not so much, since I didn't have as much or as powerful equipment. Probably something in the neighborhood of $7,500 since I joined (pre-Boinc) for power that I would not have otherwise used would be a fair estimate.
So here's my guess -
somewhere between 15 and 18 thousand dollars since I first started with Seti has gone towards Seti/Boinc for me.

-Dave

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I don't even want to know!

Regards,

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All of the hardware I have was purchased for reasons other than SETI so they don't count. The computer is on about 16 hours a day for work and reasons other than SETI so the real cost is the additional power used to run SETI - about 60 watts of power while the computer is on. Power used to be 11 cents a kilowatt hour but our power company is going green and adding wind power so it's now up to 14.6 cents a kilowatt hour.

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Too much!! I have never bought anything specifically to run Seti, but I have been running it for a long time, not as long as some others though.

Recently I have stopped running it at my home, electricy here is expensive and I noticed a HUGE drop in my bill when I stoped running it cpu/gpu. I do still run it at my work, electricity is cheaper there.

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Quite a bit as most upgrades were seti related and my video surely is. Quite a bit of power use also. Would have to be 1000's....

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

$159 for 2 CUDA cards plus whatever the upcharge is on 5% busy CPU vs 100% busy for 2-4 CPUs. For all the fun over 10+ years ... cost = "a drop in the bucket"

Ed F

$2000. US for my Mac intel dou core 2 back in 2008
$1756. US for my Seti built HP i7 with Nvidia GeForce gts 250 card.
The old P4 was a replacement for the other family computer so i wont count that.

I run all 3 24/7. About 5 years ago I Replaced all but 2 of my light bulbs with those energy saving bulbs. But National Greed, my powwer company recently upped their delivery charge so my bill went up 30 dollars.

I enjoy crunching, If the old P4 dies, I will get another i7 for sure.

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Old James

£13,881 (approx $21k) for my farm
£6k (approx $9k) for power for last 3 years.

Reduced crunching due to high power costs.

Just running 3 quads 24/7 atm.

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I spent a lot in the past setting up Quads and running a small farm, but have also had to cut back due to increased power costs. Electricity just about doubled in price in a few years which did it for me :(

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Over $3500 New Zealand Dollars. Add $500 more if you count my future solar panel project to offset my computers electricity use. And Add $200 if you count the cans of compressed air. And don't forget the donations.

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- Luke.

New Hardware for S@H cruncher --> $700 (but use it for far more than just S@H, so not totally fair to amortize it to just that).

Actually, S@H is probably my cheapest hobby ever! I spent more on fireworks growing up. More importantly, in crash course fashion I updated my hardware knowledge & build skills in the process --> sincere interest has a way of raising the bar in a way that 9-to-5 jobs just can't, it was cheap tuition.

So it's been a ton of fun (challenging, enjoyable), and keeps me out of jail (ok, that was never a risk, but you get the point ... if you don't get out what you put into a hobby, find another hobby, or be happy with jail).

PS: @Luke, don't forget, invested time is money too ;-)

Over $3500 New Zealand Dollars. Add $500 more if you count my future solar panel project to offset my computers electricity use. And Add $200 if you count the cans of compressed air. And don't forget the donations.

Yep that compressor was really worth it....

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Hi, ayear ago, I build two identical QUAD's, only switched 1 Q6600, with an QX9650 (cost, then €1000, but got it for €150).
Cost's €2375, but I still see this as a great hobby, only thing, got fired, NO work and not easy to find anything, where I live. Which makes it hard,
to add some CUDA-card's(NVidia), as they're quite expensive, in Europe, compaired to ATI-cards.
Don't add the costs of electricity, cause I'll use them as heating, too.
Only in the, sometimes hot summerday's, it does add, to the total cost's, when I have to run an AC unit. (which is quite absurd, too, in costs!)
Should win the lottery :)

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I paid 700 euros for my SUN M20 workstation, plus around 50 euros to increase its RAM to 5 GB and another 50 euros for a DVD RW unit; LCD display, printer, scanner and DSL modem already in use, Linux OS. Bur I use it for 4 other BOINC projects. My total electricity bill is about 80 euros for 3 months, no AC. I have no graphic cards.
Tullio

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A 1,000 watts of crunch was about $785US last year.

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All of the hardware I have was purchased for reasons other than SETI so they don't count. The computer is on about 16 hours a day for work and reasons other than SETI so the real cost is the additional power used to run SETI - about 60 watts of power while the computer is on. Power used to be 11 cents a kilowatt hour but our power company is going green and adding wind power so it's now up to 14.6 cents a kilowatt hour.

That's just typical, Dena!

Your power company goes green so it costs you more to buy power! They can't improve the infrastructure from the profits, they have to charge you more! Don't you just love 'em!

My electricity cost is about £70 per month running 2 rigs 24/7, but includes all of the other electric costs too, lights, cooking etc... Heating is gas tho, and much cheaper.

regards, Gizbar.

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A proud GPU User Server Donor!

Many thousands of kibbles, and about $300.00 a month for the juice to run the lot.
During the winter, some of that is offset by the furnace not running, but with the weather warming up, I have had to start shedding some heat by leaving the door to the garage open.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster