Folding power consumption

[Alwaysrun]

I've been wanting a power meter ever since SKYMTL mentioned awhile back about a cheap $20 one at Canadian Tire. I'm very curious to know how much juice my rig takes while folding on my single XFX GTX 260 216sp Black edition. I've had discussions with some folders regarding this and the replies I've gotten back estimate my monthly cost between $20-$80 and the high range estimate seems hard to swallow as I've never seen that sort of increase in my Hydro bill since I've started folding. I have no idea how I'll separate the video cards power consumption from all the other components I have plugged into my power bar so for this test I just plugged the power bar into the meter and will be testing the entire rigs power consumption.

Everything in my sig will be tested at once including my logitech 2.1 sound system (cheapo 2 speaker system, no subwoofer) and a logitech MX duo cordless rechargable kb/mouse, 40watt energy efficient pigtail lightbulb in my desk lamp, wifi router, and cable modem. I think all these components combine should be representative of an average system, or at least give a good ballpark for a single card GPU folder.

First off the meter itself is a Blueplant Energy Meter from Canadian Tire which retails for $19.99. Its a great deal but upon further inspection I notice the input for what you pay per kWh only goes to 3 decimal places and my power bill shows rates to 5 decimal places so already I find myself having to round up the $/kWh. Another complication thanks to BC Hydros billing is the fact that I have two rates. One rate is $0.05980 /kWh for the first 688 KWs and then the rate raises to $0.07210 for everything after that. This makes me have to average my input based on the two rates together taking into account my % consumption at each rate. (I'm sure I could explain this better but those of you who pay the power bill probably know what I'm taking about). So anyways I enter into the meter my resulting average $/kWh which I figured is $0.0672.

Heres some peliminary results after folding a tuff 511 WU with my graphics card OC'd for about a hour 15minutes.



So..2.5 cents to fold so far sounds pretty good and if my math is good (which it ussually isn't) works out to be...1440 minutes in a day divided by 76minutes = 18.947368 times 2.5 cents = $0.4736842. Times by 30 days = $14.21 per month to fold with my highly OC'd GTX 260. Thats GREAT news. Pfft to all those who said it would be $60-$80 per month to fold.

Now my next tests which I'll do in the next couple of days once I OC my CPU and get the folding SMP client up and running should really show what I suspect will be a terrible $/ppd compared to GPU folding alone. But who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly suprised like I am now with these GPU folding results.

[3.0charlie]

My i7 / 260 rig pulls 388W while folding / crunching, including a Sammy 22" LCD.
My Q6600 / dual 260s rig pulls 458W while folding only, including a HP 19" LCD.

[Alwaysrun]

I love this meter! It really puts into perspective how much things in your home cost to run. My big freezer and my entertainment system both cost more to run per month than my computer. My fish tank is about the same but the one thing that really shouldn't have suprised me is my new electric fireplace insert...1004watts!!! I knew it would high but thats rediculous lol. suffice it to say I don't use that very much anymore. But it is a nice looking stand for my TV.


I know my garage looks like crap but I'm in the process of renovatig it into a media room. Got some sweet ass leather theatre seats on order. *flex

[Jake_HT]

Very cool thanks for the writeup!

[LCB001]

Originally Posted by Alwaysrun

I love this meter! It really puts into perspective how much things in your home cost to run. My big freezer and my entertainment system both cost more to run per month than my computer. My fish tank is about the same but the one thing that really shouldn't have suprised me is my new electric fireplace insert...1004watts!!! I knew it would high but thats rediculous lol. suffice it to say I don't use that very much anymore. But it is a nice looking stand for my TV.

I know my garage looks like crap but I'm in the process of renovatig it into a media room. Got some sweet ass leather theatre seats on order. *flex

Good info, nice to have an idea what the actual cost is, guess it's time to hook-up my APC and check mine.

You could run a couple of nice multi-gpu F@H boxen with that power, just have them vent through the back of the fireplace and nobody will know the difference...

[Phobia]

Apparently electric fireplaces, and those mini electric heaters are super expensive to run, as always run has proved ;)

[SKYMTL]

That power meter from Canadian Tire is a great thing.

Just remember: 2 cents an hour for 24 hours a day equals $18 / month. It adds up.

[BrainEater]

Good work !

I have some data to add......eventually.....

[4DoorGTZ]

I just put my Dual GX2 folder onto an apc battery backup. As is its drawing 565w. Thats a Phenom II 9350e (65w) a single 36gb raptor 5x120mm fans and 2x 9800gx2 video card. Folding with 4 GPU cores and the Phenom running smp (@90% cpu usage). I fully expect it to jump to 950w when I add the other 2 GX2's. But its running off 2x Corsair 620w psu's.

[Alwaysrun]

E8400 overclocked to 3.852Ghz(428x9) @1.26Vcore folding MPICH SMP (92%) @ 1802ppd (1720 point WU). Also GPU client running at OC settings folding. Both CPU and GPU temps are a mild 63C.


Bit of a jump as expected.
Cost per day is 59 cents
Cost per month $17.72
Old cost @ stock$14.21

So for an increase of 28.33% on the CPU I pay 24.7% more per month on power.
The extra $3.51 I pay gets me ~400ppd or 12,000 points in a month more than @ stock.