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I had a couple of Alphas in my home lab up until about 9-10 years ago (a largish DEC3000, a 'generic' 164PC, a DS20). Even as elderly boxes they were astonishi
by kjs3 4y ago
I had a couple of Alphas in my home lab up until about 9-10 years ago (a largish DEC3000, a 'generic' 164PC, a DS20). Even as elderly boxes they were astonishingly well built, performant enough to do real work on, and gave a useful 'not an x86' check when I was testing for portability and such. However, I figured out they used a significant fraction of all the power consumed in the lab and generated heat like furnaces. When I did a tech refresh regrettably they needed to go. The 3000 in particular seemed like it was designed to go into combat.
- jacquesm 4y agoAh yes, the power consumption... don't get me started on that one. That box alone probably took more power than whatever else was living in that rack :) And now your average phone has more CPU power and more storage...
- kjs3 4y agoIndeed, my friend. I have a 64-core, 128GB RAM, 4TB raid-10 server in the basement that uses probably 1/3 the power of the DEC3000. Times, they are a changing...
- jacquesm 4y agoI switched to 100% solar power here a few months ago and have powered down all of the more beefy stuff, power consumption went from 30 KWh / day to < 10...