To build or not to build... that is the question.

[STMahlberg]

Understood. So maybe put the system on the back burner, invest available monies into project/New Career with a return on investment potential and go have some fun.

Yeah, that is what I am going to do. I'll be pulling the plug on 2 of my rigs in the next few days; I will run my main rig but it will only be on a limited basis. I'll be selling all of my spare parts to help fund my endeavor. I should have a list put together in a couple of days of what I have and then post them on the board. I'm not sure what I can get for them; I was kind of thinking highest bidder at the moment.

[DrPop]

Honestly, that is what I would do too, in your shoes. Keep your big rig, and just be happy with what it can crunch. I know it can pack a wallop!
Then sell all your other parts you can, and put the funds into your other hobby which can actually make you money. Not to mention bring close proximity with fabulous looking babes!

[John P. Myers]

The price for this new rig would be ~$500. Now for the big issue that is really preventing me from doing all of this... the cost of the power. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it costs be $107 a month to power what I have running now. This new rig would push that higher even though I would be eliminating my other 2 rigs. Spending $1200+ a year on power for something that only gives me imaginary internet credits is a lot of money. I like doing the whole crunching thing but like I said, I have other projects that could really us that money.

Thus my quandary...

Actually!

ok 3 rigs costing you $107/month right now. If you put all your GPUs into a single rig, retired the other 2 rigs, you'd actually be paying less than that. A noticeable amount less. By using 1 rig, you eliminate having to power 2 southbridges, 2 northbridges, 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, 2 sets of RAM, however many fans are in the 2 rigs, and, the biggest chunk of them all, it's 2 CPUs you no longer have to power. Also, the 1 rig will create less heat, saving additional money on home cooling (though requiring more heat in the winter). I'm betting by combining everything into 1 rig, you save at least 30% per month off that bill. Maybe 40% since you're tossing dells

[DrPop]

Actually! . . . Maybe 40% since you're tossing dells

LOL! I love that line!

[Slicker]

I need to convince "she who holds the checkbook" that it would be more ecconomical to replace an AMD 4000, Q6600, and Q9540 (the latter two with ATI 3870 GPUs) with a new i7 CPU and newer GPU given that our power bill is over $300/month - especially since I quite my second job. Any stats would be appreciated...

[STMahlberg]

Actually!

ok 3 rigs costing you $107/month right now. If you put all your GPUs into a single rig, retired the other 2 rigs, you'd actually be paying less than that. A noticeable amount less. By using 1 rig, you eliminate having to power 2 southbridges, 2 northbridges, 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, 2 sets of RAM, however many fans are in the 2 rigs, and, the biggest chunk of them all, it's 2 CPUs you no longer have to power. Also, the 1 rig will create less heat, saving additional money on home cooling (though requiring more heat in the winter). I'm betting by combining everything into 1 rig, you save at least 30% per month off that bill. Maybe 40% since you're tossing dells

I'm not sure I would agree with your hypothesis. The current configuration of the Dells are such:

Total for both Dell GX-280s

1300 w (1 - 600 W PSU & 1 - 700 W PSU)
2 - GTX460 GPUs
2 - Cores
2 - N Bridge
2 - S Bridge
2 - Fan
2 - HDD
2 - CDD
4 - 1 GB RAM

The new configuration using the AMD 1100T

1450 w (1 - 850 W PSU & 1 - 600 W PSU)
2 - GT460 GPUs
2 - HD5830 GPUs
6 - Cores
1 - N Bridge
1 - S Bridge
1 - HDD
1 - DVD
2 - 4 GB RAM

I still need to use 2 PSUs to power the 4 GPUs; I'd be doubling the power usage with the GPUs alone. The AMD chip is going to use more power and create more heat than the 2 Dells. My main rig has the AMD 1100T and 3 HD5870s in it; I might as well be running a space heater. Just using a data logger to calculate my main rig usage shows $50 a month cost. I took a 24 hour reading from my power meter running just my main rig and it shows that it would actually cost me $96 a month. The data logger accounts only for actual rig usage. The meter reading accounts for HVAC usage as well; however, I had to 'weather normalize' the data since the first day I took a meter read it was 108° day and the second time it was a 111° day. Although the rig only costs $50 a month to run, it costs another $46 in cooling a month.

Since the original calculation of $107 a month for 3 rigs and most of that is my main rig and considering a new build would use more power and cooling than my main rig, it simply isn't possible to use less power by consolidating.

Edit:

One thing that is not taken into consideration is that these rigs were not all running the same apps. We all know different apps put different demands on the CPUs and GPUs. Also the numbers here would only represent summer months and the HVAC cooling cost is based on the assumption that it remains 111° for a billing period of 29 days. These costs are based on my location and kWh cost. So someone on the east coast might pay more per kWh but I doubt they see many 111° days if any.

With that in mind to compare usage it would probably be better to eliminate dollar cost and make only either kWh or BTU comparisons... but I'm sure I have bored you to death already.

[STMahlberg]

I need to convince "she who holds the checkbook" that it would be more economical to replace an AMD 4000, Q6600, and Q9540 (the latter two with ATI 3870 GPUs) with a new i7 CPU and newer GPU given that our power bill is over $300/month - especially since I quite my second job. Any stats would be appreciated...

Since I have never run any of those types, I'm afraid that I would not be much help.

Have you considered bribing the CFO with expensive jewelry or fragrances like rose oil?

[DrPop]

I'll give it a shot
AMD 4000+ = 65W
Intel Q6600 = 105W
Intel Q9540 = 95W
Mobo NB + SB = 30W x3 = 90W
ATI HD3870 = 106W x2 = 212W (@496GFLOPs ea. = 4.68Gflops/W)
HDD = 20W x3 = 60W
Optical Drive = 5W x3 = 15W
1 stick RAM = 10W x 6? = 60W
80mm fan = 2W x3 = 6W
120mm fan = 2W x3 = 6W
TOTAL for 3 rigs: 714W x 1.2 (for Min. inefficiency of PSU) = 857W pulled from wall.
Total processing power (CPU + GPU) = 66.5 + 992 = 1058.5 GFLOPs
Your current combined Efficiency: 1.24GFLOPs /Watt

*** *** *** *** ***
Sandy Bridge i7-2600K Sandy Bridge = 95W
mobo NB + SB = 30W
HDD = 20W
Optical Drive = 5W
2 sticks RAM = 20W
80mm fan = 2W
120mm fan = 2W
ATI HD5870 = 188W (@2720GFLOPs = 14.5GFLOPs/W!!!)
TOTAL for new rig: 362W x 1.2 = 434W pulled from wall.
Total processing power (CPU + GPU) = 83.3 + 2720 = 2803.3 GFLOPs
Your NEW combined Efficiency: 6.46GFLOPs /Watt

I think that might be enough to convince her - new rig is 5.2 x MORE efficient than running the 3 old rigs put together. In other words, it has 2.6x the processing power, and uses exactly half of the electricity to do it.
Hope that helps!

[Fire$torm]

Ahhh hey guys....

I think you are confusing CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) with electrical power consumption. TDP refers to the max. amount of heat in Watts a CPU is designed to generate. All current CPUs use a lot more electrical power then their TDP rating.

Take a look at this ---> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...5,2278-11.html

[DrPop]

In that case, the equation will be even MORE lopsided in favor of the new rig!

However, most of those times, like for example in the link you posted, that is the total watts of the rig tested, not watts of the CPU.