Poweroptimized Crunching boxes

Winterknight
Winterknight
Joined: 4 Jun 05
Posts: 1220
Credit: 311979618
RAC: 679316

RE: Would you like to

Message 40994 in response to message 40992

Quote:

Would you like to determine the power/cost efficiency of your system for einstein@home?

I can suggest this form: e = r / t / ( p * r * c + s )

e = efficieny
p = power consumption ( kW )
s = system price ( USD )
c = cost of electricity ( USD / kWh )
t = time of reference WU ( hour / WU )
r = run-time of the project ( hour )

c ~ 0,25 USD / kWh
r ~ 362 days = 8688 hours

If the reference wu takes 1 hour on a 65 wattage system that costed 200 USD:
e = 8688 / 1 / ( 0,065 * 8688 * 0,25 + 200 ) = 25,46 WU/USD

If the reference wu takes 0,5 hour on a 100 wattage system that costed 400 USD:
e = 8688 / 0,5 / ( 0,100 * 8688 * 0,25 + 400 ) = 28,15 WU/USD

So, the second system is a bit more efficient.

edit: Of course, we need a reference WU and application for the exact measuring.


These formula's are ok if the computer was bought only for the purpose of crunching for BOINC. But one assumes that most computers are purchased for other reasons, work, hobbies etc. In that case the cost is of the system is probably zero, and even if the computer runs BOINC 24/7 at least part of the time it will be doing its primary function, so therefore the cost of power could be altered.

And what is the system cost if it a system retired from it original function. Do we consider that zero, or the cost we think we could sell it for?

Thought I'd just complicate it a little.

Andy

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
Moderator
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 5842
Credit: 109377449546
RAC: 35982134

RE: edit: Of course, we

Message 40995 in response to message 40992

Quote:

edit: Of course, we need a reference WU and application for the exact measuring.

I think this is a really great idea to show the tradeoff between the cost of electricity and the capital cost of a fast system in the first place.

We could make the assumption that the developers know what they are doing and equate a reference result to one that would return 100 credits. So a short result returning 19.65 credits is a .1965 WU and a long result returning 176.5 credits is a 1.765 WU.

As far as machine cost is concerned, it shouldn't be the full amount. The project life is approximately 1 year so the figure we should use is annual depreciation. This will have the desirable effect of convincing those who feel inclined to purchase a new and fast beast which still has a significant value left at the end of the year to do just that. Let's assume that your $USD 400 machine was still worth $USD 300 at the end of the project. Leaving every other figure the same, that machine now has an efficiency of 54.8 Akoses rather than the 28.15 Akoses that you quoted.

BTW: The name of efficiency in terms of WU/$US, as proposed by Mike and seconded by me is the Akos. Motion carried on the voices without dissent :).

Cheers,
Gary.

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
Moderator
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 5842
Credit: 109377449546
RAC: 35982134

RE: These formula's are ok

Message 40996 in response to message 40994

Quote:

These formula's are ok if the computer was bought only for the purpose of crunching for BOINC. But one assumes that most computers are purchased for other reasons, work, hobbies etc. In that case the cost is of the system is probably zero, and even if the computer runs BOINC 24/7 at least part of the time it will be doing its primary function, so therefore the cost of power could be altered.

Whilst that may be true in general, it is probably not true of the readership here, or more specifically that portion of the readership that would be bothered in calculating their Akoses :). For those, I think that we can safely assume that the entire depreciation component is attributable to BOINC and any "work" they need to do is free, being made up of the spare cycles that BOINC didn't really need anyway :).

Quote:
And what is the system cost if it a system retired from it original function. Do we consider that zero, or the cost we think we could sell it for?

The system value should always be Project Start value - Project End value. Your work or other interests get to use their cycles for free :).

Quote:

Thought I'd just complicate it a little.

Andy

I thought you probably would :).

Cheers,
Gary.

_heinz
_heinz
Joined: 4 Jan 06
Posts: 79
Credit: 130476
RAC: 0

We will go on with the

We will go on with the optimization. I think its a good idee to wait a little till the prices are down for the Athlon X2 3800+ EE with 35W
---------------------------------------------------------------
what do you think about the idea to save energy by not using disks in the computers?
The new SD-Cards are able to read and write 20MB/s. It is possible with a adapter to use these SD-Cards as disks, directly plugged on the IDE port.
SD-Cards are availabel as
1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB
I think 1GB or 2GB are big enough to run a crunching box with win or Linux.

_heinz
_heinz
Joined: 4 Jan 06
Posts: 79
Credit: 130476
RAC: 0

Use SD-Cards as diskshere you

Use SD-Cards as disks
here you can see the adapter
there you can see a 2GB Highspeed SD-Card
advantage: no noise, no heat, small, light

Akos Fekete
Akos Fekete
Joined: 13 Nov 05
Posts: 561
Credit: 4527270
RAC: 0

RE: what do you think about

Message 40999 in response to message 40997

Quote:
what do you think about the idea to save energy by not using disks in the computers?

I used a RAMDISK program for SETI classic.

Pepperammi
Pepperammi
Joined: 20 Feb 05
Posts: 131
Credit: 437943
RAC: 0

RE: RE: what do you think

Message 41000 in response to message 40999

Quote:
Quote:
what do you think about the idea to save energy by not using disks in the computers?
I used a RAMDISK program for SETI classic.


With this you can also set to turn of the HDD or what ever pysical drive your using after a while.
Another strange idea, water cooling if your going for every watt you can save. Saw somewhere some passive water coolers pumps can use less power than fans to do the same job but water coolers will set you back a bit. Depends if your machine would need lot of fans. Also running cooler can sometimes increase power efficiency but is it measureable?

Steve Cressman
Steve Cressman
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 104
Credit: 139654
RAC: 0

I too remember the days when

I too remember the days when i used to set up drives in memory. I used ramdrive to place the virtual drive in extended memory. Really got a lot of use out of it back in the day when hdd had a hard time supplying enough data to my games. And that brings back memories of dreaded messages that said you did not have enough convention memory to run this program......
:)

98SE XP2500+ @ 2.1 GHz Boinc v5.8.8

Winterknight
Winterknight
Joined: 4 Jun 05
Posts: 1220
Credit: 311979618
RAC: 679316

RE: I too remember the days

Message 41002 in response to message 41001

Quote:
I too remember the days when i used to set up drives in memory. I used ramdrive to place the virtual drive in extended memory. Really got a lot of use out of it back in the day when hdd had a hard time supplying enough data to my games. And that brings back memories of dreaded messages that said you did not have enough convention memory to run this program......
:)


The joys of optimising autoexec.bat and config.sys. Those were the days, finding the right floopy to boot from for the right game.

Andy

_heinz
_heinz
Joined: 4 Jan 06
Posts: 79
Credit: 130476
RAC: 0

Here is a great list of the

Here is a great list of the real power consumption of lot of processor, Intel Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium D, AMD Sempron, Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2:

power consumtion

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.