[ydl-gen] Mac mini vs Powerpc 8600=energy consumption

[Derick Centeno]

Hi Jim:
It so happens that Eric Dunbar brought up a very important factor of 
consideration of what "cheaper" actually means -- power 
consumption/expenditure.  He also brings out an interesting measurement 
which could be useful as a means of considering how much one is losing 
or spending in terms of power.  From this measurement, usually but not 
always, the most efficient system is the newest system one can possibly 
acquire.

Basic Physics: Find and take note of the power requirements of all the 
items connected to one power outlet.  In other words, remember that 
each device necessary to run together with the computer adds to your 
total power expenditure.  So remember to consider and add the power 
used by the monitor or screen or external hard drive or anything else 
connected to the computer.  You'll notice that Mr. Dunbar omitted these 
additions; do yourself the favor and consider the total cost and 
expenditure and you'll see very quickly which system becomes more 
"efficient" in your particular situation.  Mr. Dunbar's contribution 
follows:

	From: 	  eric.dunbar at gmail.com
	Subject: 	Re: [ydl-gen] Re: 4 old macs
	Date: 	January 7, 2006 8:58:48 AM EST
	To: 	  yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com, 
rbthomas55 at pobox.com
	Reply-To: 	  yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com

Hi, just a plug for my favourite distributed computing project,
Folding at Home, http://folding.stanford.edu/ (Unlike SETI Folding at Home
has a number of publications to its name... though, I guess SETI was
the grand-daddy of the distributed computing projects :-)

Anyway, just a comment about the economics of running all these "old"
computers, and it's something about which I am conflicted (the
environmental damage of producing computers/disposing of them vs. the
environmental damage of the electricity used by them).

Four "old style" (hardware energy efficiency), Old World, and one
NuBus Mac (6500s are PCI, right?) running 24/7 chew up a lot of
energy. For the sake of argument (and, simplicity of calculation ;-),
let's assume each uses 100 W/h. That's 400 W/h.

Per day that's 24 h x 400 W/h = 9.6 kWh. Per year (365.25 d) that's
3506.4 kWh. At $0.10/kWh that's $350.64.

Let's assume subsidised power (most electricity is (and is fossil
fuel-produced) since the environmental costs aren't paid by
coal/fossil fuel producers or electricity users, but are "paid" by all
through the "tradgedy of the commons") at $0.075/kWh (very realistic
price in NA) and that's $262.98/a.

If you were to replace all four computers with one that'd be $65.75
and you'd save $197.24/a on the other three.

For $200 USD you can pick yourself up a 400-500 MHz G4 on eBay (not
shipped, granted), and it would do everything... run Seti faster than
all of the OldWorld Macs together (or Folding at Home :-) :-) :-), act as
a server, DHCP server, firewall and wouldn't require BootX fiddling.

If your box is a dedicated DHCP server, it's far more economical to
purchase a cheap router (you can get them for $10 or $20 US). My
wireless/wired router (which will consume more power than a wired
router only) costs $10/a at $0.075/kWH if I assume that it draws the
MAXIMUM 16 W its powersupply is rated for (it's doubtful it does) vs.
my estimated $65.75 for a 100 W desktop.

Anyway, that's my environmental-economics post for the day. It's a
tragedy that "reuse" isn't always the best option in computers :-( :-(
(especially when you consider how damaging it is to produce them and
dispose of them).

Eric.

On 1/5/06, Rick Thomas <rbthomas55 at pobox.com> wrote:
> My reply is located at the end of this post.
>
> On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:03 PM, Dombi, George wrote:
>
>> Hi Rick,
>>
>> Help me Obi-won Kenobi, Help me.
>>
>> I'm hoping I can trouble you with a bunch of questions about running
>> linux on mac.
>>
>> I have 4 old world macs (three 6500 mac (603e chip) and one 6100 mac
>> (G3 upgrade chip) ). All run OS 9.1 nicely. And all were running
>> Seti at home. They were connected on a switch by Den Mother and Puppies
>> clustering software, which is an AppleSoft method of message passing
>> to connects Mac. It was OK but I had no software to run so I didn't
>> use it. Even Seti has changed away from OS 9.
>>
>> Now I want to go to Linux and run BOINC/Seti at home and Mpich for my
>> cluster software. So here are my questions. How do I do all of that?
_______________________________________________

On Jan 7, 2006, at 9:58 PM, Jim Ricken wrote:

> Hi all !
> Hey I know that this is a stupid question to ask but what would be 
> cheaper to let run all day long
> the Mac mini or my old world powerpc 8600 w/G4 upgrade?
> sometimes I just turn on the old 8600 which has ydl 3.0 installed on 
> it boot into ydl 3.0.and reminise about the good old days with ydl 
> 3.0.
> _______________________________________________
>