7 ms·
> Also my gaming PC in the winter. It feels like free compute given I’m heating anyways. Totally. If it's cold and you have an idle rig, you might as well use
by bigyikes 3y ago
> Also my gaming PC in the winter. It feels like free compute given I’m heating anyways.
Totally. If it's cold and you have an idle rig, you might as well use it to run a crypto miner before reaching for an actual heater.
- xur17 3y agoAssuming you use electric resistive heat. The math changes a bit for gas or heat pumps.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoActual heating systems can be better than 100% efficient, while crypto mining or cinebench or whatever is <100%
- koverda 3y agowhat do you mean?
- kalleboo 3y agoHeat pumps which use energy to move heat around are more efficient than using energy to generate heat directly.
- vGPU 3y agoHeat pumps can provide an “efficiency” of some 300-400%+. The “trick” is that they use electricity to move heat instead of creating heat, which is why heat pumps stop working well under a certain temperature. They kinda work like a reverse refrigerator. A fridge takes heat out from the inside and moves it to the outside. A heat pump does the opposite.
- stephen_g 3y agoYou’ve completely failed to answer their actual question, it was the claim of less than 100% efficient heating they were asking about…
- vGPU 3y agoNo. He was replying to this post: > Actual heating systems can be better than 100% efficient, while crypto mining or cinebench or whatever is <100%. The intricacies of why a crypto minor is less than 100% efficient when working as a heater are easily deduced, unless you’re precisely the sort of midwit that likes to leave replies such as the one you left.
- josephcsible 3y agoHow can anything be <100% if producing heat is the goal? Where would the rest of the energy be going?
- wardedVibe 3y agoThey mean a heat pump. You apply work to transfer heat, getting more inside than if you had just turned the energy into heat directly; the outside gets colder of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Principle_of_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Principle_of_operati...
- josephcsible 3y agoYes, heat pumps are over 100%, but isn't turning the energy into heat directly exactly 100%?
- Adverblessly 3y agoAs a random thought, for resistive heating some energy is definitely "lost" as light.
- krallja 3y agoEven light will eventually be absorbed by some surface and become heat.
- stephen_g 3y agoI’m not sure what they mean about crypto miners or computers (mentioning cinebench), basically all the energy going in should be turned into heat so that should be near enough to 100% efficient. Where else would the energy be going? Sure, there will be a bit of RF power (Wi-Fi and some EMI) and depending on the device, a bit of light (LED indicators, monitor backlight) but that should be tiny compared to the energy that will end up as heat… In terms of heating systems though, it’s normal for fuel based systems to be <100% because you need to vent exhaust, and a lot of your heat your fuel produced can be rejected away from where you want it with that. For example, older gas boilers might only be 80% efficient or so, and even the much more efficient condensing boilers are still only in the low 90s.
- jowea 3y agoWon't you damage your GPU faster by doing that?