[Outlawed]

Just as the title says. I started folding a little over a week ago and have left my rig to do so pretty much 24/7.

I'm not sure why this thought never crossed my mind until now but what kind of increase in my electric bill can I expect on the average? Just because I have a nice rig doesn't mean im rich. I am actually a pretty freaking broke college student.

I realize this will change with every rig, folding on the sig rig. Again just looking for approximate average.

So if this is gonna really hit the bill hard I might need to chill out or stop all together.

 

[crystalhand]

Not sure what your particular setup will yield but for my 2500k +2 460s folding it uses about 500watts an hour. The price per kwh is also important. Mine if fairly cheap at .09$ so it costs me about 1$ a day to fold on my computer. I would recommend buying a kill a watt meter so that you can precisely gauge your power usage. They are only about 20$ on newegg

 

[Outlawed]

I will look into that, thanks! Anything over $30 extra a month and I will probably have to chill out.

 

[arvidab]

That rig would use 350-400W folding only on CPU (with a 4.6 OC). ~10kWh/day, ~300kWh/month, x$/month.

 

[crystalhand]

Ya check your energy bill to find out exactly what they charge and then go from there. If you are just trying to help out for the smallest out of pocket cost only fold on you CPU. That is better for the science in general, less chance of wear and tear on you hardware, and will be better for points vs cost.

 

[Alatar]

Depends on what you're using to fold and how much electricity costs over there. If I run mine 24/7 it's going to add about 60€/month.

 

[Outlawed]

I'm folding on the 680 as well but if that's the case might chill out on it. Is there any kind of software to monitor the approximate overall usage of power on your rig or does it need to be a physical meter hooked up externally to get any true indication?

 

[Alatar]

Software monitoring is a no go. Just buy a kill-a-watt or rig a amperage meter to your power cord and calculate the wattage from the amps and the volts.

 

[Outlawed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alatar

Software monitoring is a no go. Just buy a kill-a-watt or rig a amperage meter to your power cord and calculate the wattage from the amps and the volts.

Was hoping to avoid this because as you can see i'm trying to save $ lol.

Well guess we will see what this power bill looks like at the end of the month....

 

[juano]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outlawed

Was hoping to avoid this because as you can see i'm trying to save $ lol.
Well guess we will see what this power bill looks like at the end of the month....

You can get a rough estimate without buying anything just by asking people here. My 2c are that the 2011 CPU +mobo +misc will be pulling like 250W- 300W while folding and the 680 will be another 175W-200W on top of that.

 

[crystalhand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outlawed

Was hoping to avoid this because as you can see i'm trying to save $ lol.
Well guess we will see what this power bill looks like at the end of the month....

You can find your cost per kwh online if you know your electrical company. Might want to look into that to ensure you do not get a horrible shock. Some places power can be pretty pricey.

 

[Outlawed]

Edit: found this....

B. Energy Charge:
For the billing months of April through November
All kWh per billing month…………………12.600 cents per kWh
For the billing months of December through March
All kWh per billing month…………………11.514 cents per kWh

Seems a lot more expensive than anything anyone was saying :/

 

[arvidab]

If you only folded CPU that would be under 40 bucks a month, not too bad.

Haven and his 3930K:
Quote:

Originally Posted by no_safe_HAVEN
Running it OCed to 4.625 @ 1.42V, 8Gb 2133 ram, A basic X900 videocard (PCI-E powered only) and one HDD It pulled 364W at the plug

 

[TonyGrunt]

If you are using air conditioning, you will have to also calculate the extra power the air con will suck to keep you at the same room temperature.
My room without air con in the hot days becomes rather toasty.

 

[Outlawed]

Yea, well I will keep it running 24/7 on cpu/gpu through the chimp challenge then I will probably back it down to cpu only.

 

[crystalhand]

Thats not that bad to be honest. My .09$ is about as cheap as you are going to find. Some people have to pay .20$+ per kWh. From some quick googling it looks like the power draw of your CPU is about 230 watts and the 680 is about 200 (although that seems surprisingly low). For some quick estimation I would call use 600watts an hour to estimate power draw

 

[juano]

Quote:

Originally Posted by crystalhand

Thats not that bad to be honest. My .09$ is about as cheap as you are going to find. Some people have to pay .20$+ per kWh. From some quick googling it looks like the power draw of your CPU is about 230 watts and the 680 is about 200 (although that seems surprisingly low). For some quick estimation I would call use 600watts an hour to estimate power draw

I think 600 would be too high of an estimate. I would guess it'd be under 500W but if you want a conservative estimate then I think 500W would be that for you.

 

[Outlawed]

Well thanks for the replies guys! Like I said I guess I'll just keep the gpu running till after the chimp challenge and then make a final decision on what to do 24/7 after the power bill this month.