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Next feature: SpaceHeater mode. Now your customers in cold climates can reduce their heating needs by running Intel CPUs at extra-high voltages, allowing even

Next feature: SpaceHeater mode. Now your customers in cold climates can reduce their heating needs by running Intel CPUs at extra-high voltages, allowing even seldom used cores to pump out heat as if they were running Edge 24/7. Your customer's software wont be stable, but their electricity bill sure will be.

jwestbury 4y ago
Years ago, Puget Systems actually ran some tests on using desktop PCs as space heaters. tl;dr, you can use your desktop as a space heater with identical efficiency to an actual space heater, but with the benefit of computing power to go along with it.
- Faaak 4y ago
  That's partly what I do, but by running Folding@Home during the day (I have solar panels, and I export a lot of electricity). Free heat + compute capacity science
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    I had to stay in a hotel recently where the thermostat wouldn't go above 68f. Left my laptop running a busy park in Planet Zoo on the nightstand. It's not a true space heater but it did warn the room a couple of extra degrees.
- shagie 4y ago
  There's an over priced "bitcoin space heater" out there that is apparently / unfortunately not a joke.
  - nicolaslem 4y ago
    Two main reasons this is stupid: - Heat pumps - Someone buying such expensive gear will want to run it all the time before it is severely outdated, not only a few months per year.
    - shagie 4y ago
      I find it absolutely absurd. It also creates moral hazards (yea, I'm using that phrase) for "I'll turn up the heat in the winter because BitCoin price is higher..." There's even a picture on the site (ok, the link https://www.heatbit.com https://www.heatbit.com - I don't want to encourage anyone to buy it) of someone using it on a open balcony.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      In an old apartment, I mined cryptocurrency for the heat. Your counterarguments didn't apply because: - I was in an apartment. I couldn't install a heat pump. - I'm a gamer. I wanted a high-end GPU anyways. It wasn't a dedicated mining rig, but I'd just adjust the mining intensity based on the game I was playing. When I wasn't using my computer at all, it'd go 100%. If I'm using my desktop, it'd run at 80%. Some games that didn't tax my GPU would still let me run at 80%. My cat loved the warmth, too. She'd lay down behind my computer where the GPU exhausted its heat.
      - nicolaslem 4y ago
        Sure but reusing your gaming GPU is a different scenario. You did not buy multiple extra GPUs for the sole purpose of mining, so you do not have the perverse incentive to run them even when you do not need the heat to have them pay for themselves.
- paulmd 4y ago
  Why wouldn't it be? There's no "work" being done by the processor in a mechanical sense, it's essentially just a giant resistor dumping all its energy to heat, in a useful way. As much as the guy was beloved by the community, Robert Hallock of AMD had a tendency to say some shit at times, and one of the worst was his "electrical watts are not thermal watts" spiel. Yeah, they kinda are, and if you they aren't then the FCC would like to talk to you about your spurious emissions. And if your magic formula doesn't match the observed characteristics of the chip... one of the terms in your formula is wrong, or the formula itself is wrong. It was a super lame justification for something that truly was as simple as "boost TDP", but, at that time Intel desktop TDPs actually did cover boost already (5960X, 7700K, etc would sustain boost within TDP on a worst-case load like prime95) and AMD were kinda downplaying the fact that they gave themselves a "cheat" factor on Ryzen TDPs for marketing purposes by calling it PPT instead. He did a huge disservice to public education there by spreading what I'd say were outright lies. Like it shouldn't be a surprise that ~100% of CPU power is turned into heat, but, we had the technical marketing director of one of the major CPU companies saying that it wasn't.
alex_duf 4y ago
I know it's a joke but running a heat pump will be two to three times more efficient a heating your space.
- shagie 4y ago
  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171013-where-data-centres-store-info---and-heat-homes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171013-where-data-centr... > ... > Stockholm Data Parks is expecting to generate enough heat to warm 2,500 residential apartments by 2018, but the long term goal is to meet 10% of the entire heating need of Stockholm by 2035. > According to Data Centres By Sweden – which is launching Stockholm-like projects across the country – only 10 MW of energy is needed to heat 20,000 modern residential apartments. The typical Facebook data centre, for example, uses 120 MW. > One of the main incentives for companies to join the programme in Stockholm is financial – they get to sell their waste heat. Fortum also provides free cold water for their cooling.
  - alex_duf 4y ago
    oh I get that, computing creates heat and we should totally re-use it. But where CPU heat is 1 kWh of electricity = 1kWh of heat, a heat pump will have 1 kWh of electricity = 3 kWh of heat, because it's "sucking" 2kWh of heat from a medium (air, water, ground whatever) and literally making it colder. Now OP was suggesting increasing the voltage of their computer as a way to generate more heat and "save" on heating, but it wouldn't be more economical than say, heat your home with a toaster (1 kWh electricity = 1kWh heat). It works, it's just not very efficient. So I was saying, assuming you have a heat pump, better send that little bit extra energy to the heat pump than increase the voltage of your CPU. (And yes that was tongue in cheek before anyone think I'm serious for a second) But yeah, if you have computer that produce heat, and you're having to get rid of that heat that's waste and ideally it should be used somewhere else.
- winter_blue 4y ago
  I'm more curious on how do Intel CPUs compare to space heaters? (I mean in comparison to the regular electric resistance heaters.) Heat pumps are ultra-efficient but even the cheapest heat pumps cost a few thousand dollars (and require expert installation – so they're not suitable if you're renting, for example).
jeffbee 4y ago
I know it's a popular way to get some HN points by repeating a "hurrdurr intel heat bad" meme, but in reality these things are absurdly efficient. At idle the entire i7-1270P SoC, including most of the system peripherals, that I happen to have on hand, draws much less than half a watt. % sudo turbostat -i 10 -Sq --show PkgTmp,PkgWatt,CorWatt | ts Apr 04 07:32:29 PkgTmp PkgWatt CorWatt Apr 04 07:32:29 32 0.31 0.05 Apr 04 07:32:39 31 0.24 0.04 Apr 04 07:32:49 31 0.30 0.05 Apr 04 07:32:59 32 0.27 0.04
- mycall 4y ago
  I wish at idle my i9-13980hx was half a watt too.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Have you checked? My 13700K idles at about 1.7W package power. It has more to do with software than with silicon.

jwestbury 4y ago

Years ago, Puget Systems actually ran some tests on using desktop PCs as space heaters. tl;dr, you can use your desktop as a space heater with identical efficiency to an actual space heater, but with the benefit of computing power to go along with it.

Faaak 4y ago
That's partly what I do, but by running Folding@Home during the day (I have solar panels, and I export a lot of electricity). Free heat + compute capacity science
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  I had to stay in a hotel recently where the thermostat wouldn't go above 68f. Left my laptop running a busy park in Planet Zoo on the nightstand. It's not a true space heater but it did warn the room a couple of extra degrees.
shagie 4y ago
There's an over priced "bitcoin space heater" out there that is apparently / unfortunately not a joke.
- nicolaslem 4y ago
  Two main reasons this is stupid: - Heat pumps - Someone buying such expensive gear will want to run it all the time before it is severely outdated, not only a few months per year.
  - shagie 4y ago
    I find it absolutely absurd. It also creates moral hazards (yea, I'm using that phrase) for "I'll turn up the heat in the winter because BitCoin price is higher..." There's even a picture on the site (ok, the link https://www.heatbit.com https://www.heatbit.com - I don't want to encourage anyone to buy it) of someone using it on a open balcony.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    In an old apartment, I mined cryptocurrency for the heat. Your counterarguments didn't apply because: - I was in an apartment. I couldn't install a heat pump. - I'm a gamer. I wanted a high-end GPU anyways. It wasn't a dedicated mining rig, but I'd just adjust the mining intensity based on the game I was playing. When I wasn't using my computer at all, it'd go 100%. If I'm using my desktop, it'd run at 80%. Some games that didn't tax my GPU would still let me run at 80%. My cat loved the warmth, too. She'd lay down behind my computer where the GPU exhausted its heat.
    - nicolaslem 4y ago
      Sure but reusing your gaming GPU is a different scenario. You did not buy multiple extra GPUs for the sole purpose of mining, so you do not have the perverse incentive to run them even when you do not need the heat to have them pay for themselves.
paulmd 4y ago
Why wouldn't it be? There's no "work" being done by the processor in a mechanical sense, it's essentially just a giant resistor dumping all its energy to heat, in a useful way. As much as the guy was beloved by the community, Robert Hallock of AMD had a tendency to say some shit at times, and one of the worst was his "electrical watts are not thermal watts" spiel. Yeah, they kinda are, and if you they aren't then the FCC would like to talk to you about your spurious emissions. And if your magic formula doesn't match the observed characteristics of the chip... one of the terms in your formula is wrong, or the formula itself is wrong. It was a super lame justification for something that truly was as simple as "boost TDP", but, at that time Intel desktop TDPs actually did cover boost already (5960X, 7700K, etc would sustain boost within TDP on a worst-case load like prime95) and AMD were kinda downplaying the fact that they gave themselves a "cheat" factor on Ryzen TDPs for marketing purposes by calling it PPT instead. He did a huge disservice to public education there by spreading what I'd say were outright lies. Like it shouldn't be a surprise that ~100% of CPU power is turned into heat, but, we had the technical marketing director of one of the major CPU companies saying that it wasn't.

alex_duf 4y ago

I know it's a joke but running a heat pump will be two to three times more efficient a heating your space.

shagie 4y ago
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171013-where-data-centres-store-info---and-heat-homes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171013-where-data-centr... > ... > Stockholm Data Parks is expecting to generate enough heat to warm 2,500 residential apartments by 2018, but the long term goal is to meet 10% of the entire heating need of Stockholm by 2035. > According to Data Centres By Sweden – which is launching Stockholm-like projects across the country – only 10 MW of energy is needed to heat 20,000 modern residential apartments. The typical Facebook data centre, for example, uses 120 MW. > One of the main incentives for companies to join the programme in Stockholm is financial – they get to sell their waste heat. Fortum also provides free cold water for their cooling.
- alex_duf 4y ago
  oh I get that, computing creates heat and we should totally re-use it. But where CPU heat is 1 kWh of electricity = 1kWh of heat, a heat pump will have 1 kWh of electricity = 3 kWh of heat, because it's "sucking" 2kWh of heat from a medium (air, water, ground whatever) and literally making it colder. Now OP was suggesting increasing the voltage of their computer as a way to generate more heat and "save" on heating, but it wouldn't be more economical than say, heat your home with a toaster (1 kWh electricity = 1kWh heat). It works, it's just not very efficient. So I was saying, assuming you have a heat pump, better send that little bit extra energy to the heat pump than increase the voltage of your CPU. (And yes that was tongue in cheek before anyone think I'm serious for a second) But yeah, if you have computer that produce heat, and you're having to get rid of that heat that's waste and ideally it should be used somewhere else.
winter_blue 4y ago
I'm more curious on how do Intel CPUs compare to space heaters? (I mean in comparison to the regular electric resistance heaters.) Heat pumps are ultra-efficient but even the cheapest heat pumps cost a few thousand dollars (and require expert installation – so they're not suitable if you're renting, for example).

jeffbee 4y ago

I know it's a popular way to get some HN points by repeating a "hurrdurr intel heat bad" meme, but in reality these things are absurdly efficient. At idle the entire i7-1270P SoC, including most of the system peripherals, that I happen to have on hand, draws much less than half a watt. % sudo turbostat -i 10 -Sq --show PkgTmp,PkgWatt,CorWatt | ts Apr 04 07:32:29 PkgTmp PkgWatt CorWatt Apr 04 07:32:29 32 0.31 0.05 Apr 04 07:32:39 31 0.24 0.04 Apr 04 07:32:49 31 0.30 0.05 Apr 04 07:32:59 32 0.27 0.04

mycall 4y ago
I wish at idle my i9-13980hx was half a watt too.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Have you checked? My 13700K idles at about 1.7W package power. It has more to do with software than with silicon.