SETI was started with the idea of exploiting unused cycles in common PCs. Now people are building supercomputers in order to run BOINC programs. One SETI user has put 8 graphic boards in his rack and is complaining of not getting enough results. I am wondering about his power bill.
Tullio
I wonder a little bit also, but "Thank God, not mine!" is a more prevalent thought. :)
I believe that the power-hungry video card is merely a hype.
Take a look at the example with a computer running an GTX 285 card at full load, as you can see above it uses 316 Watt.
While the same computer running 3 GTX 285 cards at full load are using 612 Watt, a difference of 296 Watt.
That indicates that each card use 296/2 = 148 Watt. If that are going to have a major impact on your power bill you probably don't use any electric equipment at all.
For a real-world figure, I've left my Q9300 - host 1226365 here, host 4292666 at SETI - connected to a UK version of a Kill-a-Watt since I last had occasion to fully reboot it.
Tonight's reading shows 184 KWh used over 891 hours, or a sustained average of 206.5 watts. That's for the complete system unit (Q9300, cooling fans, and 9800GTX+ CUDA card), but not the monitor - which is shared with 3 other machines, and usually off anyway.
Instantaneous readings as the machine was powering up were approximately 93W when idle and 150W when fully loaded with BOINC on the CPU only. So I would say roughly 55W for crunching on the CPU, and another 55W for the CUDA card. CPU runs at stock speed, GPU has a small (factory-set) overclock.
You can see that I have a RAC of over 8,000 at SETI (using optimised CPU apps whith a resource share of 300, plus the stock CUDA app), plus a resource share of 100 each here and at CPDN. I would say that the CUDA card, which turns out a mid-range SETI task every 15 minutes, probably does more work than the whole quad-core CPU for much the same power consumption.
I am using 5 kWh/day with a SUN WS running 24/7. fluorescent lightbulbs, refrigerator with freezer, TV, radio with phonograph, vacuum cleaner and a mowing machine once in a while. No air conditioning. Heating and cooking by methane gas. I am paying 20 eurocents/kWh. My CPU is an Opteron 1210 at 1.8 GHz running Linux with 2 160 GB disks, a DVD writer/reader. 2 GB RAM. no graphic card, only on board Radeon ES1000 chip. I am running 6 BOINC projects on it, meeting all deadlines.
Tullio
I have looked at several sources of information on the internet about CUDA programming and found that there is quite a long list of nVidia cards with CUDA technology. If I have understood all I read correctly, as English is not my native language, then “green†CUDA cards do not exists.
The cards that gave the most acceleration with the calculations are Tesla, Quadro and GTX cards. However they use between 100-210W at maximum load and according to nVidia.com they demand a power supply of at least 480W or more. When using PC-builder at different brands and suppliers, I saw that when I start with the processor, the memory and the graphics card(s), then power supplies from 500W and higher are the only option. The mentioned cards are expensive as well.
Well, there are a few CUDA cards with decent performance AND reduced power consumption. Any card card just draws power from the PCIe slot and does not require an extra power connector will draw a max of 75 W.
The NVIDIA GT 9800 "ECO" or "Green Line" cards are now available, I guess I'll order one.
Well, there are a few CUDA cards with decent performance AND reduced power consumption. Any card card just draws power from the PCIe slot and does not require an extra power connector will draw a max of 75 W.
The NVIDIA GT 9800 "ECO" or "Green Line" cards are now available, I guess I'll order one.
CU
Bikeman
I will be real interested in the results as in how fast the card is at say GPU Grid tasks which seem to stress the cards far more than SaH does. My regular 9800GT takes about 17 hours to run an average task ... which is why I would love to ditch it for a GTX260 at least ...
I have looked at several sources of information on the internet about CUDA programming and found that there is quite a long list of nVidia cards with CUDA technology. If I have understood all I read correctly, as English is not my native language, then “green†CUDA cards do not exists.
The cards that gave the most acceleration with the calculations are Tesla, Quadro and GTX cards. However they use between 100-210W at maximum load and according to nVidia.com they demand a power supply of at least 480W or more. When using PC-builder at different brands and suppliers, I saw that when I start with the processor, the memory and the graphics card(s), then power supplies from 500W and higher are the only option. The mentioned cards are expensive as well.
Sorry for the long link, it is TigerDirect.com and then video cards and then gtx in the search box if it doesn't work. Now I would NEVER buy anything from them if it involved a rebate, they are TERRIBLE about getting your money back to you!!!! But it is an example of what can be gotten, at least here in the US.
Well, there are a few CUDA cards with decent performance AND reduced power consumption. Any card card just draws power from the PCIe slot and does not require an extra power connector will draw a max of 75 W.
The NVIDIA GT 9800 "ECO" or "Green Line" cards are now available, I guess I'll order one.
CU
Bikeman
I will be real interested in the results as in how fast the card is at say GPU Grid tasks which seem to stress the cards far more than SaH does. My regular 9800GT takes about 17 hours to run an average task ... which is why I would love to ditch it for a GTX260 at least ...
Go on ditch it. After all you seem to have an abundance of i7's now :-)
I pulled my 2 9800GT's out and replaced them with GTS250's, plus another pair for good measure. A definate speed improvement there with GPUgrid and Seti. Now just waiting for the Einstein cuda app to be released...
@Bikeman: Have you got a card yet or are we just confusing you even more? It would be interesting to find out how fast the 9800GT "green" cards are. Plus you can use it to practise your cuda programming skills :-)
RE: SETI was started with
)
I wonder a little bit also, but "Thank God, not mine!" is a more prevalent thought. :)
I believe that the
)
I believe that the power-hungry video card is merely a hype.
Take a look at the example with a computer running an GTX 285 card at full load, as you can see above it uses 316 Watt.
While the same computer running 3 GTX 285 cards at full load are using 612 Watt, a difference of 296 Watt.
That indicates that each card use 296/2 = 148 Watt. If that are going to have a major impact on your power bill you probably don't use any electric equipment at all.
For a real-world figure, I've
)
For a real-world figure, I've left my Q9300 - host 1226365 here, host 4292666 at SETI - connected to a UK version of a Kill-a-Watt since I last had occasion to fully reboot it.
Tonight's reading shows 184 KWh used over 891 hours, or a sustained average of 206.5 watts. That's for the complete system unit (Q9300, cooling fans, and 9800GTX+ CUDA card), but not the monitor - which is shared with 3 other machines, and usually off anyway.
Instantaneous readings as the machine was powering up were approximately 93W when idle and 150W when fully loaded with BOINC on the CPU only. So I would say roughly 55W for crunching on the CPU, and another 55W for the CUDA card. CPU runs at stock speed, GPU has a small (factory-set) overclock.
You can see that I have a RAC of over 8,000 at SETI (using optimised CPU apps whith a resource share of 300, plus the stock CUDA app), plus a resource share of 100 each here and at CPDN. I would say that the CUDA card, which turns out a mid-range SETI task every 15 minutes, probably does more work than the whole quad-core CPU for much the same power consumption.
I am using 5 kWh/day with a
)
I am using 5 kWh/day with a SUN WS running 24/7. fluorescent lightbulbs, refrigerator with freezer, TV, radio with phonograph, vacuum cleaner and a mowing machine once in a while. No air conditioning. Heating and cooking by methane gas. I am paying 20 eurocents/kWh. My CPU is an Opteron 1210 at 1.8 GHz running Linux with 2 160 GB disks, a DVD writer/reader. 2 GB RAM. no graphic card, only on board Radeon ES1000 chip. I am running 6 BOINC projects on it, meeting all deadlines.
Tullio
My little farm is pulling
)
My little farm is pulling 1380 watts at the moment or 5.67 amps. The farm consists of:
4 x Q6600's with one GTS250 card in each
1 x Core i7 with two GTX260 cards
All running at stock speed.
BOINC blog
I have looked at several
)
I have looked at several sources of information on the internet about CUDA programming and found that there is quite a long list of nVidia cards with CUDA technology. If I have understood all I read correctly, as English is not my native language, then “green†CUDA cards do not exists.
The cards that gave the most acceleration with the calculations are Tesla, Quadro and GTX cards. However they use between 100-210W at maximum load and according to nVidia.com they demand a power supply of at least 480W or more. When using PC-builder at different brands and suppliers, I saw that when I start with the processor, the memory and the graphics card(s), then power supplies from 500W and higher are the only option. The mentioned cards are expensive as well.
Greetings from
TJ
Well, there are a few CUDA
)
Well, there are a few CUDA cards with decent performance AND reduced power consumption. Any card card just draws power from the PCIe slot and does not require an extra power connector will draw a max of 75 W.
The NVIDIA GT 9800 "ECO" or "Green Line" cards are now available, I guess I'll order one.
CU
Bikeman
RE: Well, there are a few
)
I will be real interested in the results as in how fast the card is at say GPU Grid tasks which seem to stress the cards far more than SaH does. My regular 9800GT takes about 17 hours to run an average task ... which is why I would love to ditch it for a GTX260 at least ...
RE: I have looked at
)
GTX cards can be gotten for somewhere in the mid 100 dollar US range from herhttp://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=gtx&searchbtn.x=0&searchbtn.y=0
Sorry for the long link, it is TigerDirect.com and then video cards and then gtx in the search box if it doesn't work. Now I would NEVER buy anything from them if it involved a rebate, they are TERRIBLE about getting your money back to you!!!! But it is an example of what can be gotten, at least here in the US.
RE: RE: Well, there are a
)
Go on ditch it. After all you seem to have an abundance of i7's now :-)
I pulled my 2 9800GT's out and replaced them with GTS250's, plus another pair for good measure. A definate speed improvement there with GPUgrid and Seti. Now just waiting for the Einstein cuda app to be released...
@Bikeman: Have you got a card yet or are we just confusing you even more? It would be interesting to find out how fast the 9800GT "green" cards are. Plus you can use it to practise your cuda programming skills :-)
BOINC blog