Hi Forum!

I am thinking about buying a small (netbook or mini ITX or smaller, something that fits into the edge of a cupboard shelf) and silent (fanless, SSD) PC that will be used only for BOINC 24/7. What would be the best choice to have as much FLOPs per Watt as possible?

FYI: Currently, I am running BOINC on my laptop. The noise of the CPU fan is not acceptable. If I reduce the BOINC share of the CPU time on this laptop, it takes ages to finish a work unit. As far as I understand it, the most FLOPs/W are yielded by custom built tower PCs with many CPUs or a high-end GPU. So that would be the best way to make a power-efficient contribution to BOINC. The aspect of green computing is very important to me. However, my wife would kill me, if I put an expensive noisy BOINC-only-tower-PC into our small apartment ...

Hi Forum!

I am thinking about buying a small (netbook or mini ITX or smaller, something that fits into the edge of a cupboard shelf) and silent (fanless, SSD) PC that will be used only for BOINC 24/7. What would be the best choice to have as much FLOPs per Watt as possible?

BOINC produces heat no matter what.
What you can do: Don't let BOINC run full throttle.
Set BOINC to use 25% of the CPU time.

The other option is to use TThrottle
http://www.efmer.eu/boinc/index.html
Type in a lower CPU temperature and the fan will run a lot slower.

About green, BOINC can't be considered green. Because is uses extra power.
You are using more electricity than you would otherwise. Unless the project offsets the extra use off course.

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TThrottle The way to control your CPU and GPU temperature.
BoincTasks The best view of BOINC.
My other activities

The offset is, that no new computer center has to be build which requires on top mass dedicated cooling using twice the power of the computers themselves. In that sense distributed computing of many lone machines, that exist anyhow, just utilizing their otherwise gone to waste cycles is substantially green.

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The offset is, that no new computer center has to be build which requires on top mass dedicated cooling using twice the power of the computers themselves. In that sense distributed computing of many lone machines, that exist anyhow, just utilizing their otherwise gone to waste cycles is substantially green.
--//--

If these cycles where wasted, you had a point.
But they are not. Modern CPU's use far less power, when mostly idle and use a lot more power when in heavy use, as with BOINC.

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TThrottle The way to control your CPU and GPU temperature.
BoincTasks The best view of BOINC.
My other activities

The other option is to use TThrottle

Thanks for this hint! I didn't know TThrottle. Sounds like a proper solution for running BOINC on my laptop at the highest CPU share that doesn't produce an annoyingly loud fan noise. However, as I already tried to explain, this highest acceptable CPU share on my laptop is so low that it won't provide a satisfactory WU crunching rate. But I will try it out.

It was not my intention to start a discussion about the ecological impact of distributed computing. Generally, I think it is very hard to judge which of the two approaches, centralized or distributed computing, is more sustainable, e.g. regarding climate change. In such a comparison you have to include the industrial production and shipping process of the computing devices, the ecological impact of their disposal (or recycling) when the devices are broken, the infrastructure that is necessary to build and run a centralized computing facility and the kind of project the computers contribute to (climateprediction vs. prime number calculating), just to name a few.

What I ment with "green computing is very important to me." is just this: "as much FLOPs per Watt as possible".

Any ideas about which kind of computer I should buy?

What I ment with "green computing is very important to me." is just this: "as much FLOPs per Watt as possible".

Any ideas about which kind of computer I should buy?

I don't thing you will find anything in these small computers worth while to have any impact even running 24/7.

If I where You, a faster computer with a GPU would be an option.
Running it an hour or more at night or another time you are not around.
Start the computer at the internal timer and let it shut down by itself some time later.

This will get you way way more work done that on a small silent computer.
More Flops / Watt.

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TThrottle The way to control your CPU and GPU temperature.
BoincTasks The best view of BOINC.
My other activities

I don't thing you will find anything in these small computers worth while to have any impact even running 24/7. If I where You, a faster computer with a GPU would be an option. ... This will get you way way more work done that on a small silent computer.

Is this really true? There are quite powerful fanless Mini PCs out there with cuda capability (just as an example: XS 35GTV2).

Is this really true? There are quite powerful fanless Mini PCs out there with cuda capability (just as an example: XS 35GTV2).

I'm not the expert, but this Mini seems to have 8 cuda cores (218GT) and a mobile version as well. That's a very very slow cuda card.

Expect a $100 card to be 20-100 as fast.
So money and flops/power wise a regular card will outperform the mini by far.

Because the Mini is all about power, you don't want heat.
And flops = heat.......

And to compare cards, this is not a cuda comparison, but should do.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

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TThrottle The way to control your CPU and GPU temperature.
BoincTasks The best view of BOINC.
My other activities

As far as I know, it has 16 cores.

I agree that big expensive graphic cards are much more powerful than small GPUs that are designed for mobile devices and Mini PCs. But a big expensive graphic card is not what I am looking for.

As far as I know, it has 16 cores.

I agree that big expensive graphic cards are much more powerful than small GPUs that are designed for mobile devices and Mini PCs. But a big expensive graphic card is not what I am looking for.

What I'm meaning, a mini PC does almost nothing, so it's not well suited for BOINC no matter what you do.
Letting another desktop computer run for 1/2 an hour will bring you just as much.

But if you want some more computer that is still not noisy and small.

Go for a Shuttle I5, but what are these things expensive.

Build yourself for half the price, just as nice looking.

Like a SilverStone SST-SG06BB-450, a Asrock H67M-ITX, with a I5.
It has the extra option to add a small GPU later on if you change your mind.

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TThrottle The way to control your CPU and GPU temperature.
BoincTasks The best view of BOINC.
My other activities

Thank you for the info and the help! Maybe I discard my plan about having a small and silent Boinc pc ... Or I really go for one of the larger Mini-ITX solutions with still a relatively silent fan ... Have to think about this ...

The offset is, that no new computer center has to be build which requires on top mass dedicated cooling using twice the power of the computers themselves. In that sense distributed computing of many lone machines, that exist anyhow, just utilizing their otherwise gone to waste cycles is substantially green.
--//--

If these cycles where wasted, you had a point.
But they are not. Modern CPU's use far less power, when mostly idle and use a lot more power when in heavy use, as with BOINC.

Then I take it, you're actually in favor of building a dedicated computer center, rather than the use of [strike]wasted[/strike] spare cycles of existing hardware [not up front creating a substantial additional carbon footprint]. All depends where one comes from and what POV one has on what's green and what's conserving. Per definition, hardware use is maximized for the least investment, which is the only reason DC computing can exist.

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