Wanna save energy on gpu crunshing ?

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The_Matrix
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Message 1765142 - Posted: 15 Feb 2016, 9:21:09 UTC
Last modified: 15 Feb 2016, 9:55:59 UTC

Well, i decided gpus crunshing is effectiver than cpu crunshing, first of all.

Now i am crunshing on 1 cpu core an 2 wus on a GTX 670, meanwhile at least.
I save up to 40-50watts on electricty, because on my IVY Bridge Quad now THREE cores are disabled, they are not necessary to crunsh.I dont trust this C6 thing.

Just writing this because , i hope someones else is out there to save energy.

Sorry cpu tasks ;) (not forever!?)

Greets

ok, i got on 1 core -> memory failures, threadsave exites, decided to run better 2 cores and see, dont know what happens at ur system...
still saveing 30 to 40 watts, but still not bad.
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Message 1765560 - Posted: 16 Feb 2016, 23:57:33 UTC - in response to Message 1765142.  

Well... you run it at 15W or something instead of 50W now - but you realise a decent GPU takes a LOT more power than a CPU? (mine takes ~150W when crunching, for example). I mean... ever thought about the reason why GPUs do the same calculations much faster? This is no magic force field, to do things you need to put effort in it. In this case... electricity.

However, we just learned the hard way (on Sunday, ask Murphy) that crunching at 100% load can take a LOT of power. We blew the fuse in one of our racks - by crunching Boinc projects. Loss: 1 server went junk, 3 hard disks and 1 SAS Raid controller broke. (Yes, we do have UPS, but there are also fuses BEHIND it of course)

Well, we imagined dedication to scientific projects somewhat... different *lol*
(on the other hand - we miscalculated power supply here, clearly our bad)

Back to topic:
If you want to save power, you need to do the math first. Take the power consumption of your GPU multiplied with the time to process a certain amount of WUs, compare that to the power usage of your CPUs multiplied with the time to process the same number of (comparable) WU's.

In plain theory the numbers won't even differ, but in real life they will. I propose to THEN decide how to save power based on evidence but gut feeling.

(to do it right, you need to measure your machines total power consumption using a plug meter or something, because other components will take power, too, and what really matters in this context is total system power to WUs per time ratio. Which, I presume, will probably be best when crunching at 100% on CPUs and GPUs in parallel)
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Message 1765593 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 2:21:57 UTC

Why worry about saving power , it the cash you need to save

So do what most people are now doing GO SOLAR then it wont matter how much power you use as it's free from the sun and the whole system will pay for itself in just 2-5 years depending on how much power you use

witch will be more than you used before going solar .

You will get 5kv for about $7,000 ozzie and seeing as my power bill last your was about $1300 and that was being frugal with the power it's worth going solar theses days

And of cause you can always go and buy the latest GPU witch don't use as much power as the GPU you already have

I.E my GTX 680 can use up to 190 watt the GTX 750 is 90 watt and only about 5% slower than a 680
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Message 1765599 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 2:47:47 UTC - in response to Message 1765560.  

There are a few factors to take in to account to determine the most efficient device to use for a specific application.

I'd do a quick example using my i5-4670K with a R9 390x. Also I am going to use TDP values for the devices to make things easy.
i5-4670K = 84W
R9 390x = 275W

SETI@home v8
CPU ~1 hr running 4 tasks at a time. Completion of ~4 tasks per hour.
GPU ~6 min running 1 task at a time. Completion of ~10 tasks per hour.
To complete 20 tasks
CPU = 5 hours & 420 Watts consumed.
GPU = 2 hours & 550 Watts consumed.

Astropulse v7
CPU ~4 hr running 4 tasks at a time. Completion of ~4 tasks every 4 hours.
GPU ~12 min running 1 task at a time. Completion of ~5 tasks per hour.
To complete 20 tasks
CPU = 20 hours & 1680 Watts consumed.
GPU = 4 hours & 1100 Watts consumed.

For a 24 hour period
CPU = 2016 Watts, 96 MB tasks or 24 AP tasks
GPU = 6600 Watts, 240 MB tasks or 120 AP tasks
I suppose this could also be expressed in watts per task
CPU = 21w per MB , 84w per AP
GPU = 27.5w per MB , 55w per AP

The GPU will always complete more work at a faster rate, but it is not always the most efficient device for a given task.

Also this doesn't take into account the required power consumed by the CPU to processes tasks. However we also know that the TDP value is generally higher than the actual power consumption by a device. GPUz shows me that my R9 390x has maxed out drawing 213.5w while processing MB & AP tasks. While playing games it has gone over 240w.
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Message 1765738 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 16:50:54 UTC - in response to Message 1765599.  

Just to clarify units because a lot of people seem to be confused:

The Watt is an instantaneous measurement of power = a rate of flow.
Energy is measured in joules which are watts per second = how much flowed in time.
1 kWh = 3,600,000 joules.

21 watts per task is meaningless without the time it took, so assuming 1 hour:

21wh or 0.021kWh is 75,600 joules (enough energy to lift 100 kg by 77 meters!)
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Message 1765762 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 18:14:30 UTC - in response to Message 1765738.  

Just to clarify units because a lot of people seem to be confused:

The Watt is an instantaneous measurement of power = a rate of flow.
Energy is measured in joules which are watts per second = how much flowed in time.
1 kWh = 3,600,000 joules.

21 watts per task is meaningless without the time it took, so assuming 1 hour:

21wh or 0.021kWh is 75,600 joules (enough energy to lift 100 kg by 77 meters!)

Thanks for catching that. The last portion was meant to be in watt hours, but I botched that up.

I was thinking about adding a portion after that for cost per task as well.
Using my average cost of $0.1841 per KW/h

CPU = $0.003866 per MB, $0.015464 per AP
GPU = $0.005063 per MB, $0.010126 per AP

A more common way to look it it would be power & cost running 24/7
	day		month		year
CPU = 2.016 KW/h	 61.32 KW/h	 735.84 KW/h
GPU = 6.600 KW/h	200.75 KW/h	2409 KW/h

CPU = $0.371146		$11.29		$135.47
GPU = $1.215060		$36.96		$443.50

Depending on what is desired there are different ways to run a GPU compared to a CPU.

Same power usage. Does not save energy usage compared to CPU. Might save money for people that have peak meter rates.
	Power		Time	 MB	AP
CPU = 2.016 KW/h	24.0hr	 96	24
GPU = 2.016 KW/h	 7.3hr	 73	36

Same MB a day. More energy usage than CPU for the same number of MB a day, but can do double the number of AP.
GPU = 2.640 KW/h	 9.6hr	 96	48

Same AP a day. In this scenario anything less than 7.3hr will save energy usage.
GPU = 1.320 KW/h	 4.8hr	 48	24

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Message 1765765 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 18:31:41 UTC

Nice exersise.

I pay about
$600.00 to do Seti every month.
Yeah, that would be about simple math, $2400.00 a year.

Now, I could either eat that or buy a nice used car for that.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1765767 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 18:36:49 UTC - in response to Message 1765765.  

I pay about
$600.00 to do Seti every month.
Yeah, that would be about simple math, $2400.00 a year..

Perhaps your calculator needs new batteries? $600 x 12 = $7,200.-

Unless your crunching year is just 4 months? :P
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Message 1765769 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 18:43:02 UTC
Last modified: 17 Feb 2016, 18:52:55 UTC

My details about this are limited.

I pay here US$0,31242 Dollars in € per kw/h. *glup*

Including taxes/VAT ...
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Message 1765795 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 20:40:21 UTC - in response to Message 1765769.  

I am now at 0.21 euro/kWh up to 225 kWh/month. Then 0.31 euro/kWh. But next month there will be a raise. I have just installed a Geforce GTX 750 on my Windows PC and I don't know if this will raise the power consumption.
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Message 1765798 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 20:48:07 UTC - in response to Message 1765769.  

My details about this are limited.

I pay here US$0,31242 Dollars in € per kw/h. *glup*

Including taxes/VAT ...

I would not want to pay that much for my electric costs.

For my average I divide the cost/usage. Over the past 56 months I have paid $6,475.62 & used 35457 KW/h or for 2015 $1,608.55 & 8738 KW/h. For 2016 I am aiming to use < 7500 KW/h or about 15% less electric.
The only good thing about higher energy costs is that is makes buying more efficient devices more logical.
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Message 1765801 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 20:55:59 UTC
Last modified: 17 Feb 2016, 21:22:26 UTC

uhh yeah, i am dreaming of a "Fiji Radeon R9 Nano" , if i got the money it hopefully will not cost not more than 300,-€ here.

At this time it´s to expensive, about 500 to 580,-€. I´ll better wait with crunshing.

The payamount is correctly, with a dot...

US$0.31242 Dollars

a "," will be used for a thousands in USA ? Aren´t right ?

But there is MORE , many MORE...

as seller (i wish i could sell my other cards) here in germany have to give more rights to the buyer.

Included is, 12 months warranty (if u realy wana sell it, its positive) , costfree replacement, and of course dont forget the FREE right to send it back, whenever he/she wants (within 90 days) AND drive the old stuff back to the dump for free.

For me, i´ll never sale again.
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Message 1765859 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 23:13:57 UTC - in response to Message 1765801.  

uhh yeah, i am dreaming of a "Fiji Radeon R9 Nano" , if i got the money it hopefully will not cost not more than 300,-€ here.

At this time it´s to expensive, about 500 to 580,-€. I´ll better wait with crunshing.

The payamount is correctly, with a dot...

US$0.31242 Dollars

a "," will be used for a thousands in USA ? Aren´t right ?

But there is MORE , many MORE...

as seller (i wish i could sell my other cards) here in germany have to give more rights to the buyer.

Included is, 12 months warranty (if u realy wana sell it, its positive) , costfree replacement, and of course dont forget the FREE right to send it back, whenever he/she wants (within 90 days) AND drive the old stuff back to the dump for free.

For me, i´ll never sale again.

I would like a R9 Nano to replace the HD6870 in my other machine, but they are still expensive like you mention. The one from Sappire right now is 480 USD or 430 Euro with today's conversion rates.

Yes the US, & I think most countries in North & South America, use , and . in numbers opposite many European countries. 1,000,000.00 vs 1.000.000,00

If you sell to people outside Germany do those same rules apply?
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Message 1765864 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 23:23:59 UTC - in response to Message 1765859.  

If you sell to people outside Germany do those same rules apply?


Very good question, but i´ll better not try. Then they will take extra border taxes i´ll have to pay, no way.
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Message 1765871 - Posted: 17 Feb 2016, 23:44:57 UTC

Some scary numbers there with the costs of power!

I guess one could buy another Arecibo antenna with what all participants have spent on energy in contributing to the project so far.

I use my remote webserver to crunch permanently as the electricity isn't counted in the rack rental.
At home I use the servers for heating so crunching is much more justifiable.

Costs are much more of a consideration than they used to be!
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Message 1766051 - Posted: 18 Feb 2016, 15:55:26 UTC - in response to Message 1765593.  


So do what most people are now doing GO SOLAR then it wont matter how much power you use as it's free from the sun and the whole system will pay for itself in just 2-5 years depending on how much power you use.

This sounds so nice! Especially if rigged so that crunchers automatically wake up at sunrise, power down at sunset. I suppose the initial costs to set the system up are rather high though, maybe someday..
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Message 1766057 - Posted: 18 Feb 2016, 16:35:45 UTC - in response to Message 1766051.  


So do what most people are now doing GO SOLAR then it wont matter how much power you use as it's free from the sun and the whole system will pay for itself in just 2-5 years depending on how much power you use.

This sounds so nice! Especially if rigged so that crunchers automatically wake up at sunrise, power down at sunset. I suppose the initial costs to set the system up are rather high though, maybe someday..

I have mostly seen solar panel systems setup where the aim is to offset electric used. If you have a 5KW of panels & average 5 sun hours a day then you are offsetting 25KW/h each day. If your PC uses 250W while crunching that is only 6KW/h a day.
If you wanted to be more green then you could setup systems to only crunch during peak solar hours.
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Message 1766058 - Posted: 18 Feb 2016, 16:44:05 UTC
Last modified: 18 Feb 2016, 16:44:35 UTC

Thought about a Raspberry Pi with solar collectors, and got failed. No payable solar panel around to supply the needed 1 Ampere 5 Volts constantly for 24 hours.

Don´t wanna run form left to the right, all day long, and observe the accumulators to get loaded.

Now its an Odroid-U3 , that needs 2 Amperes and 5 Volts constandly...
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Message boards : Number crunching : Wanna save energy on gpu crunshing ?


 
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