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I thought this was the best of several possible places to put this. Moderators, if you disagree, shift it.
People have said that it's not economical to have a pc mine Bitcoin or other virtual currency due to power consumption; With this year's Halving, that would particularly be true for Bitcoin.
PC Economics: Typically 8 core cpu, 2×gpu etc needs a 650-800W PSU, fans, etc which with power supply (in)efficiency would consume over 1KW = 1 unit per hour. Capital outlay would be over €1000 (= $1100). That's uneconomic, so we're told.
I now propose a different scenario. Is this economic? The RazPi 4 has an A-72 Cortex 4 core running @1.5Ghz with a decent FPU & GPU allowing Hard Float compilation (= always use the FPU for Maths operations). Options include 4G, and now 8G Ram. A Flirc case is available with thermal conductivity from chips to case, eliminating the need for a fan.
Power Consumption is 5V3A = 15W with power supply (in)efficiency=20-30W, & capital outlay = €100 - €120. That's at least 8 of these units for the capital outlay of your pc, and 30 of them(!) for the running cost of one pc.
Last edited by business_kid; 06-02-2020 at 08:15 AM.
First, I freely admit that am quite clueless about hardware. But I have a hard time believing that 30 of those little things could challenge the raw power of an 8 core 2x gpu machine. If they were even close to that powerful wouldn't we see more desktops and servers based on arm > i386 / amd64? If the power is there then the entire industry has failed in that regard, and I really doubt that.
Last edited by jmgibson1981; 06-02-2020 at 10:20 PM.
This idea might be a runner, it might not. If you look at running costs only, it's a much poorer spec'ed 120core cpu with 30 x gpu. Even reducing that number to one third to adjust for frequency & efficiency, it's a 40 core cpu, with 10x gpu. The gpu isn't anything to write home about, although it claims 2 screens @4k hdmi @60Hz. It takes someone with more knowledge than me to say an 8 core, 2×gpu box is going to whup a 30 core, 10×gpu box on efficiency alone.
I now propose a different scenario. Is this economic? The RazPi 4 has an A-72 Cortex 4 core running @1.5Ghz with a decent FPU & GPU allowing Hard Float compilation (= always use the FPU for Maths operations). Options include 4G, and now 8G Ram. A Flirc case is available with thermal conductivity from chips to case, eliminating the need for a fan.
What you're suggesting there is shifting from a large general-purpose computer to a small general-purpose computer.
Even amateur miners stopped using general-purpose computers years ago, and switched to using specialized chips that are designed to do nothing else but the calculations required to mine bitcoin.
Power Consumption is 5V3A = 15W with power supply (in)efficiency=20-30W, & capital outlay = €100 - €120. That's at least 8 of these units for the capital outlay of your pc, and 30 of them(!) for the running cost of one pc.
30 x 25 Watt = 750 Watt. I doubt an 8 core machine with 2x GPU will consume THAT much power.
Sorry, my analysis was the Engineering 'worst-case' of 30² = 900W. You are quite correct, it's not that bad. Fully 1 Amp is dedicated to 2×usb-3.0 ports, so ignoring them drops power to 10W, making 20W a more reasonable worst case.
Well, I suppose I was thinking gamer class CPU, with 2 nvidia GPUs = 3 heatsink-melting cores being cooled be big fans. Inefficiency results in a power supply because some necessary lines (e.g. -5V) which are still supplied use no current whereas 5V & 3.3V use huge current, but all come from the same transformer. The Low voltages in particular are awkward as it supplies a variable and tightly controlled core voltage. There's hardware design challenges there, for which you usually pay a price in efficiency.
So let's say a 650W of power. At 70% efficiency (=good) = 928.57W; at 65% (more likely) = 1000W from the utility
What you're suggesting there is shifting from a large general-purpose computer to a small general-purpose computer.
Even amateur miners stopped using general-purpose computers years ago, and switched to using specialized chips that are designed to do nothing else but the calculations required to mine bitcoin.
ASIC is actually the way to go, most probably. I frankly didn't know they were there. FPGAs are general purpose devices configured to your VHDL and typically get you into the hundreds of Mhz. Application Specific Integrated Circuits involve a known good design manufactured by a specific company using a mask which you pay for. It's not for small volume, but that takes you into the Ghz, depending on your fab size.
I was just studying the instructions for <MY SPAM WEBSITE LINK> recently. Generally speaking, there are many optimists in the community. However, a rough comparison will show that mining will give much less in the end than a banal exchange. In general, you should not waste time assembling hardware if you can do btc using a regular smartphone.
PC Economics: Typically 8 core cpu, 2×gpu etc needs a 650-800W PSU, fans, etc which with power supply (in)efficiency would consume over 1KW = 1 unit per hour. Capital outlay would be over €1000 (= $1100).
I know it's an old thread revived by a spammer, but I have recently done some "anecdotal research" into this.
I wanted to know how much electricity my machines actually consume.
I borrowed a professional grade watt meter and started measuring.
I then compared the measurements to the recommendations made by online PSU calculators.
Without going into too much detail, the actual consumption comes nowhere near these sites recommend.
Equipped with a fairly normal 400W PSU, I couldn't get my desktop PC to consume more than 67W. That's full stress on i/o, CPU, memory. Fan screeching.
Full usage (browsing, video, music etc.) is about half that.
That's with 1 SSD and 2 HDs, a cheap intel quad-core CPU and no dedicated graphics card.
I repeated the measurements with 2 more PC-compatibles and the results where equal.
I often see people compare desktop computers' consumption to ARM SOCs' consumption, using the label of the PSU as a base - that's completely wrong.
ARM SOCs use less electricity, yes, but not by orders of magnitude.
[ And if you want to connect a spinning hard drive to your raspi, it will consume significantly more. ]
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