3 ms·

Even if you don't care about the environmental side, power consumption is still very important. When I'm playing games, the temperature at my desk is 2-3 degree

by pdpi 4y ago

Even if you don't care about the environmental side, power consumption is still very important. When I'm playing games, the temperature at my desk is 2-3 degrees higher than the other end of the room, and the fans get pretty damn loud. I'm actively trying to figure out how to at least keep my current performance while getting that heat under control.

bowsamic 4y ago
> Even if you don't care about the environmental side Why wouldn’t you?
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Is there an IT equivalent of coal rolling?
  - iasay 4y ago
    I think this entire thread is about doing that. My MacBook I’m typing this on is sitting here at 9.2W (battery full, running off mains).
  - 2III7 4y ago
    Running all cores on turbo even when idle.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Crypto mining.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - elteto 4y ago
    Yes, programming in dynamic languages like Python.
- pdpi 4y ago
  I thought that was a more polite than saying "even if you're a selfish asshole, there's still a reason to do it out of pure self-interest".
  - junofan 4y ago
    Wow, fifty years of oil company rhetoric has really gotten to people. Individual behavior change hasn’t worked at scale, nor should anyone expect it to. I’ll continue to use as much electricity as I’d like while advocating for nuclear and renewables.
- ipdashc 4y ago
  I mean, on the scale of things, typical computer usage is just not that much energy, right? Compared to stuff like air conditioning and transportation. My server, which is old and probably somewhat power-hungry, uses ~125W. A house-sized AC unit is in the kilowatts range, that's 10x more (of course, the AC is only on for parts of the day). If I operate that 125W computer for a year, that's ~1,000 kWh. EVs use around 0.3 kWh/mi, so running that computer for a year is the equivalent of driving an EV 3,333 miles. (Most people drive 10,000 miles a year or more.) And if your gas gar gets 34 MPG, then it gets (via MPGe) about 1 mile per kWh. So using the 125W computer for a year is like driving a gas car 1,000 miles - and that ignores, of course, that the gas car spews pollution, while electricity can be gotten from renewables or nuclear. So it's not like the energy usage of computing doesn't matter, but it's somewhat insignificant. Like someone else said above, it costs energy to manufacture new chips and computers too, so you might be better off just staying on old ones.
n4bz0r 4y ago
Have you considered water cooling? The heat is, of course, still going to get dissipated, but the noise should become much less of an issue. As a bonus, idle temps should drop close to room temperature. I don't like the idea of maintaining an open loop myself (changing the liquid every 6-12 months), but there are also half-measure options like all-in-one (AIO) coolers. Most of them aren't serviceable (can't refill them), but they should still last for five years or so. That mostly for CPUs, though, AIO GPUs are somewhat rare (but they do exist!). edit: confused open and closed loops
- iasay 4y ago
  You can use a fan to cool a computer or you can introduce a Rube Goldberg machine to cool a computer with a fan. Bar some extreme cooling requirements liquid cooling is about showing off.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Isn't liquid cooling much higher performance? I've seen some liquid cooled PCs with parts below 40 C under load and very quiet fans. I wonder if we could take it even further by placing the radiators out of the air conditioned room or even outside the house.
    - iasay 4y ago
      I was running my air cooled parts at 60oC without the complexity. If you use large fans it makes the same noise. And approximately the same energy is burned off. Ultimately I moved to M1 because it did the same workload with less watts. Either way you’re paying money for compute. Do you want to spend that on compute or heat as a side effect?
  - phs2501 4y ago
    Or overall less noise, especially in smaller cases where you can't fit an extremely large (read: large fan) direct attached air cooler. Larger fans mean more cooling per dB. Also, water coolers have a lot more thermal mass (because, water), which means that the fan noise that remains can be less annoying as it doesn't ramp up and down as fast with CPU usage, assuming you're driving your fan curve from water temp and not CPU temp. So it's not fair to say they're just about "showing off" IMHO. There's actual quality of life benefits if you care about noise.
greggyb 4y ago
If you are near a window or other hole in the wall, you can duct your exhaust outside pretty easily. If you are near a lesser used room, you can shove your desktop on the other side of the wall and run the cables you need through. Or you can combine these by putting the desktop in a closet and ducting the exhaust outside.

by pdpi 4y ago

bowsamic 4y ago

> Even if you don't care about the environmental side Why wouldn’t you?

wizofaus 4y ago
Is there an IT equivalent of coal rolling?
- iasay 4y ago
  I think this entire thread is about doing that. My MacBook I’m typing this on is sitting here at 9.2W (battery full, running off mains).
- 2III7 4y ago
  Running all cores on turbo even when idle.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Crypto mining.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- elteto 4y ago
  Yes, programming in dynamic languages like Python.
pdpi 4y ago
I thought that was a more polite than saying "even if you're a selfish asshole, there's still a reason to do it out of pure self-interest".
- junofan 4y ago
  Wow, fifty years of oil company rhetoric has really gotten to people. Individual behavior change hasn’t worked at scale, nor should anyone expect it to. I’ll continue to use as much electricity as I’d like while advocating for nuclear and renewables.
ipdashc 4y ago
I mean, on the scale of things, typical computer usage is just not that much energy, right? Compared to stuff like air conditioning and transportation. My server, which is old and probably somewhat power-hungry, uses ~125W. A house-sized AC unit is in the kilowatts range, that's 10x more (of course, the AC is only on for parts of the day). If I operate that 125W computer for a year, that's ~1,000 kWh. EVs use around 0.3 kWh/mi, so running that computer for a year is the equivalent of driving an EV 3,333 miles. (Most people drive 10,000 miles a year or more.) And if your gas gar gets 34 MPG, then it gets (via MPGe) about 1 mile per kWh. So using the 125W computer for a year is like driving a gas car 1,000 miles - and that ignores, of course, that the gas car spews pollution, while electricity can be gotten from renewables or nuclear. So it's not like the energy usage of computing doesn't matter, but it's somewhat insignificant. Like someone else said above, it costs energy to manufacture new chips and computers too, so you might be better off just staying on old ones.

n4bz0r 4y ago

Have you considered water cooling? The heat is, of course, still going to get dissipated, but the noise should become much less of an issue. As a bonus, idle temps should drop close to room temperature. I don't like the idea of maintaining an open loop myself (changing the liquid every 6-12 months), but there are also half-measure options like all-in-one (AIO) coolers. Most of them aren't serviceable (can't refill them), but they should still last for five years or so. That mostly for CPUs, though, AIO GPUs are somewhat rare (but they do exist!). edit: confused open and closed loops

iasay 4y ago
You can use a fan to cool a computer or you can introduce a Rube Goldberg machine to cool a computer with a fan. Bar some extreme cooling requirements liquid cooling is about showing off.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Isn't liquid cooling much higher performance? I've seen some liquid cooled PCs with parts below 40 C under load and very quiet fans. I wonder if we could take it even further by placing the radiators out of the air conditioned room or even outside the house.
  - iasay 4y ago
    I was running my air cooled parts at 60oC without the complexity. If you use large fans it makes the same noise. And approximately the same energy is burned off. Ultimately I moved to M1 because it did the same workload with less watts. Either way you’re paying money for compute. Do you want to spend that on compute or heat as a side effect?
- phs2501 4y ago
  Or overall less noise, especially in smaller cases where you can't fit an extremely large (read: large fan) direct attached air cooler. Larger fans mean more cooling per dB. Also, water coolers have a lot more thermal mass (because, water), which means that the fan noise that remains can be less annoying as it doesn't ramp up and down as fast with CPU usage, assuming you're driving your fan curve from water temp and not CPU temp. So it's not fair to say they're just about "showing off" IMHO. There's actual quality of life benefits if you care about noise.

greggyb 4y ago

If you are near a window or other hole in the wall, you can duct your exhaust outside pretty easily. If you are near a lesser used room, you can shove your desktop on the other side of the wall and run the cables you need through. Or you can combine these by putting the desktop in a closet and ducting the exhaust outside.