4 ms·

I used to think this way as well, but then I started doing the actual math. My last power bill was ~$103 for exactly 256kw, or put another way about $0.40/kwh.

I used to think this way as well, but then I started doing the actual math. My last power bill was ~$103 for exactly 256kw, or put another way about $0.40/kwh. For context this is in NYC. I'm sure other people have cheaper power elsewhere. 0.01kw * 24 hours * 30 days * 0.4 $/kwh = $2.88 a month or about $35 a year. If something is going to be on constantly, the ROI on a 10watts savings can quickly out pace the initial investment. And that is every 10 watts. Something using 100watts continuously is 10 times that. This affected a bunch of my other thinking as well. Having a raspberry pi in my home as always on server costs as much a small linode instance and much less reliable.

Macha 3y ago
Similarly, I upgraded the GPU in my server from a decade old formerly high end gaming GPU to a modern lower-mid range because I wanted new video encoders, and a smoother Linux driver experience. But it's idle 99% of the time. The difference in idle consumption (80% lower on the new GPU) works out to €50/year, which means even if I didn't use any of the other features of the GPU, it would pay for itself in 3 years. Video encoding power draw is also 86% lower and even if I found something to max the new card out, it's still 40% lower than maxing out the old card (for a lot more compute power than the ten year old card).
- paulmd 3y ago
  Note that this trend isn’t always downwards - upgrading from rdna2 to 3 or from intel CPUs to AMD CPUs could result in increased idle power, sometimes significantly so. Things like higher PCIe lane configurations, higher generation/transfer rate, or higher memory channel count/frequency are likely going to represent higher power expenditures at all levels. PCIe 5.0 is a very fast link (a PCIe 5.0 channel is about equivalent to a DDR5 memory channel) and the trend is already upwards in terms of PCIe 4.0 requiring much more than PCIe 3.0. And turning the link speed down doesn't mean you get all the power back either. (From what I remember, ASPM is sometimes still a mess especially with consumer chips with their own frequency transitions and OC'd fabric/System Agents, and devices don't all wake up reliably all the time and return to high-power state, so iirc the enthusiast advice is "it's only a couple watts, it's a hassle, leave it off". I fear this may become "it's a hassle and it's also a significant power expenditure". I hope it's improved like other frequency transition things. :\) Also, just in general, the product focus on efficiency varies between vendors. NUCs are quite efficient, because they put a lot of focus into it to win those corporate contracts back in the day. A random minisforum mini pc probably is less efficient than an old nuc. Connectx-5 is much less efficient than connectx-4 even when running at lower pcie speeds. Ssds generally pull much more power than the HDDs they replaced, and pcie5 pulls much more than pcie4 which pulls much more than PCIe 3. Most laptop or other power bricks don't hit 80+ cert and if you are switching off a fancy brick that does, you'll use more. Etc. Not saying you didn’t look at it, but you have to look at it specifically and newer is not automatically better, sometimes product tiers increase over time too. And it’s certainly always a product-by-product thing. The exact way products are built or cut down doesn't just matter for performance, it affects power too.
unethical_ban 3y ago
Wow, that's a lot of money. I thought my electricity was high because it's gone up a lot to 0.12 in South Texas.
- oakesm9 3y ago
  That’s amazingly cheap to me if it’s a unit price per kWh. In the UK for me unit prices from April to July last year were £0.50/kWh (USD$0.64) and that was with the government implementing a price cap and subsidising it. It’s down dropped to a more reasonable £0.29 (USD$0.37) but that’s still with the government capping the maximum rates that can be charged, but no longer subsidising energy companies as the UK wholesale rate is lower than the cap.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    The most expensive states (except Hawaii) for electricity like Massachusetts and New Hampshire have electricity at about 18 cents per kWh. Hawaii has it at about 30 cents per kWh but they're an island so I imagine that complicates things. In most states it ranges from 9 to 14 cents per kWh.
    - freeAgent 3y ago
      Connecticut and California really have some explaining to do regarding their electric rates. https://www.statista.com/statistics/630090/states-with-the-average-electricity-price-for-the-residential-sector-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/630090/states-with-the-a...
      - inferiorhuman 3y ago
        California will vary quite a bit. The municipal power companies are quite reasonable (in the Bay Area: Alameda, Palo Alto, Santa Clara?). PG&E (the dominant player in northern california): - lobbied hard against muni power - spent its safety budget on executive compensation - is recouping its maintenance costs and criminal penalties from its ratepayers instead of from its shareholders - got Newsom to stack the regulatory body (CPUC) with PG&E sycophants - is back to paying its shareholders dividends - has one of the most influential California politicians (Willie Brown) on their payroll Yes, it's obscene that in a climate as mild as the Bay Area, $400+ utility bills are the norm. Short of some major revolt, rates are set to go up in March as well.
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
> or put another way about $0.40/kwh. I pay $0.16/kwh net of everything (all taxes + fees). That's insane.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- blagie 3y ago
  I seriously doubt that. "net of everything" would include HVAC. * In the winter, my computer means I run my space heater less by every watt it puts out. It's free. * In the summer, the costs are several times higher. Every watt put out by my computer means several watts of running the AC. It's actually a rather large difference. If I were in Alaska, computer power would be nearly free. If I were in Mexico, it'd be very, very expensive.
tonymet 3y ago
You're right to account for TCO. It's another good reason to try to sleep devices, use WOL. also minding the cpu power state of the device , making sure it's running efficiently and going to sleep whenever possible.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
evanreichard 3y ago
That’s wild. I’m right outside DC and last month I used 2066kWh for a total bill of $258.85. So, 0.13c/kWh. I’m all electric heat pump. That ran for about 300hrs last month, so accounts for around 800kWh.
- korhojoa 3y ago
  I don't understand how hours run equates to your calculation unless it was always pulling 2,7 kW. Is this some 30 year old setup that doesn't have an inverter-driven compressor? Also, wow your electricity is really cheap.

Macha 3y ago

Similarly, I upgraded the GPU in my server from a decade old formerly high end gaming GPU to a modern lower-mid range because I wanted new video encoders, and a smoother Linux driver experience. But it's idle 99% of the time. The difference in idle consumption (80% lower on the new GPU) works out to €50/year, which means even if I didn't use any of the other features of the GPU, it would pay for itself in 3 years. Video encoding power draw is also 86% lower and even if I found something to max the new card out, it's still 40% lower than maxing out the old card (for a lot more compute power than the ten year old card).

paulmd 3y ago
Note that this trend isn’t always downwards - upgrading from rdna2 to 3 or from intel CPUs to AMD CPUs could result in increased idle power, sometimes significantly so. Things like higher PCIe lane configurations, higher generation/transfer rate, or higher memory channel count/frequency are likely going to represent higher power expenditures at all levels. PCIe 5.0 is a very fast link (a PCIe 5.0 channel is about equivalent to a DDR5 memory channel) and the trend is already upwards in terms of PCIe 4.0 requiring much more than PCIe 3.0. And turning the link speed down doesn't mean you get all the power back either. (From what I remember, ASPM is sometimes still a mess especially with consumer chips with their own frequency transitions and OC'd fabric/System Agents, and devices don't all wake up reliably all the time and return to high-power state, so iirc the enthusiast advice is "it's only a couple watts, it's a hassle, leave it off". I fear this may become "it's a hassle and it's also a significant power expenditure". I hope it's improved like other frequency transition things. :\) Also, just in general, the product focus on efficiency varies between vendors. NUCs are quite efficient, because they put a lot of focus into it to win those corporate contracts back in the day. A random minisforum mini pc probably is less efficient than an old nuc. Connectx-5 is much less efficient than connectx-4 even when running at lower pcie speeds. Ssds generally pull much more power than the HDDs they replaced, and pcie5 pulls much more than pcie4 which pulls much more than PCIe 3. Most laptop or other power bricks don't hit 80+ cert and if you are switching off a fancy brick that does, you'll use more. Etc. Not saying you didn’t look at it, but you have to look at it specifically and newer is not automatically better, sometimes product tiers increase over time too. And it’s certainly always a product-by-product thing. The exact way products are built or cut down doesn't just matter for performance, it affects power too.

unethical_ban 3y ago

Wow, that's a lot of money. I thought my electricity was high because it's gone up a lot to 0.12 in South Texas.

oakesm9 3y ago
That’s amazingly cheap to me if it’s a unit price per kWh. In the UK for me unit prices from April to July last year were £0.50/kWh (USD$0.64) and that was with the government implementing a price cap and subsidising it. It’s down dropped to a more reasonable £0.29 (USD$0.37) but that’s still with the government capping the maximum rates that can be charged, but no longer subsidising energy companies as the UK wholesale rate is lower than the cap.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  The most expensive states (except Hawaii) for electricity like Massachusetts and New Hampshire have electricity at about 18 cents per kWh. Hawaii has it at about 30 cents per kWh but they're an island so I imagine that complicates things. In most states it ranges from 9 to 14 cents per kWh.
  - freeAgent 3y ago
    Connecticut and California really have some explaining to do regarding their electric rates. https://www.statista.com/statistics/630090/states-with-the-average-electricity-price-for-the-residential-sector-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/630090/states-with-the-a...
    - inferiorhuman 3y ago
      California will vary quite a bit. The municipal power companies are quite reasonable (in the Bay Area: Alameda, Palo Alto, Santa Clara?). PG&E (the dominant player in northern california): - lobbied hard against muni power - spent its safety budget on executive compensation - is recouping its maintenance costs and criminal penalties from its ratepayers instead of from its shareholders - got Newsom to stack the regulatory body (CPUC) with PG&E sycophants - is back to paying its shareholders dividends - has one of the most influential California politicians (Willie Brown) on their payroll Yes, it's obscene that in a climate as mild as the Bay Area, $400+ utility bills are the norm. Short of some major revolt, rates are set to go up in March as well.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

> or put another way about $0.40/kwh. I pay $0.16/kwh net of everything (all taxes + fees). That's insane.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
blagie 3y ago
I seriously doubt that. "net of everything" would include HVAC. * In the winter, my computer means I run my space heater less by every watt it puts out. It's free. * In the summer, the costs are several times higher. Every watt put out by my computer means several watts of running the AC. It's actually a rather large difference. If I were in Alaska, computer power would be nearly free. If I were in Mexico, it'd be very, very expensive.

tonymet 3y ago

You're right to account for TCO. It's another good reason to try to sleep devices, use WOL. also minding the cpu power state of the device , making sure it's running efficiently and going to sleep whenever possible.

aaron695 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

evanreichard 3y ago

That’s wild. I’m right outside DC and last month I used 2066kWh for a total bill of $258.85. So, 0.13c/kWh. I’m all electric heat pump. That ran for about 300hrs last month, so accounts for around 800kWh.

korhojoa 3y ago
I don't understand how hours run equates to your calculation unless it was always pulling 2,7 kW. Is this some 30 year old setup that doesn't have an inverter-driven compressor? Also, wow your electricity is really cheap.