Gtx 480 vs electric heater

[Mikesamo]

Hello forum . The summer is over and with it cold returns . My room in a finished basement tends to freeze up a lot. I am thinking about buying a gtx 480 and run furmark while turning down the cpu clock and keeping the monitor off while I sleep. Would that be more power efficient than using a hardwired space heater hooked up to a panel .
The 480 only is 50 usd on ebay. Cards I have in my arsenal are an msi 660ti . A 560ti and a 460

 

[EarthDog]

Lolololololol...

Clearly it would be more power efficient...it uses 250w. Typical electric heaters are in the area of 1kw. That said, it will also be 4x less effective in heating that large area...

.... let the space heater do its work.

 

[mackerel]

Assuming you have sufficient cooling on them, use your existing hardware and run distributed computing projects on them, so they're doing something useful while they produce heat. There are all sorts to choose from, but if you're new, for starters I'd suggest folding@home for GPU, and World Community Grid for CPU.

 

[Mikesamo]

Assuming you have sufficient cooling on them, use your existing hardware and run distributed computing projects on them, so they're doing something useful while they produce heat. There are all sorts to choose from, but if you're new, for starters I'd suggest folding@home for GPU, and World Community Grid for CPU.

I don't want to wear my cpu out but Ill try the 480 as a heater just for ****s and giggles. Earthdog is most likely correct but it'll be fun to test regardless

 

[Mandrake4565]

I don't want to wear my cpu out

You're not going to wear you Cpu out. You'll be replacing it because it's outdated way before it dies from using it.

 

[Scout]

Buy a 1kw worth of 290x's and mine with them, heat and helps pay electric costs lol.

 

[wagex]

i was going to say, mine or fold with the gpu andh eat that way so its not a waste like runing furmark that's gonna roast ur stuff.

 

[deathman20]

If you want a space heater mine with 1-2 GPU's. I know I was playing around with it and sure enough CPU idles and GPU at 100% cranking away no issues. Instant GPU space heater and profiting from it. Get another GPU and double that heat output and profit and tweak it so it can do it more efficiently.

 

[Alaric]

Summer is over???

 

[Mikesamo]

Summer is over???

View attachment 193108

LOLOL. well here in North nj is getting chilly . Are 3x 290x reference enough to mine anything

 

[myndlessdayz]

Summer is over???

View attachment 193108

I know what you mean.... still got ~2 months of this

 

[NiHaoMike]

If you can find a 5000BTU or so window A/C, you can use it as the equivalent of a 2kW or so heater that only uses 500W or so. The trick is to set it in the room with the outdoor (hot) side facing you.

As far as buying GPUs for mining, the key factor to look at is how long they would take to pay for the investment.

 

[Mpegger]

If you can find a 5000BTU or so window A/C, you can use it as the equivalent of a 2kW or so heater that only uses 500W or so. The trick is to set it in the room with the outdoor (hot) side facing you.

One of the reasons this works so well is because of the large surface area for heat transfer. My single 780Ti on a 3x120 rad after a hour or two of gaming makes a noticeable difference in the adjacent area to the PC. Keep it going for 24 hours even without gaming, and it will raise the room temperture. My old home was a old home (100+ years old), and temps of 50F in the middle of winter even with the heat of the radiator in the room, was not uncommon. So very often I would leave my main PC running 24/7 just for the added heat.

 

[deathman20]

As far as buying GPUs for mining, the key factor to look at is how long they would take to pay for the investment.

Its all profit for him if he is just considering running it to generate heat but to take less power than the space heater.

 

[Mikesamo]

I'll get cf 290x thanks guys

 

[SF101]

I still have a 480GTX in my office under my desk... in the winter its a decent space heater keeps my feet warmer.

 

[deathman20]

I still have a 480GTX in my office under my desk... in the winter its a decent space heater keeps my feet warmer.

Considering bringing my old rig into work and shoving it under my desk.

 

[SPL Tech]

This thread is a perfect example of circular reasoning. You cannot overcome the laws of thermodynamics. A room takes a specific amount of energy to heat to a certain temperature and it does not matter in the slightest what device you use to heat it, you still need the same amount of energy to get it done. Thus, buying a 250w heater means you're going to need to leave it on 4x as longer as a 1000w one to heat the room by the same amount. You cannot overcome the physics. Using a computer to heat a room is in fact less efficient than a heater because some of the power used by a computer is not converted to heat and thus does not serve your purpose of heating the room, whereas a space heater is 99.9% efficient at converting electricity to heat.

 

[mackerel]

Using a computer to heat a room is in fact less efficient than a heater because some of the power used by a computer is not converted to heat and thus does not serve your purpose of heating the room, whereas a space heater is 99.9% efficient at converting electricity to heat.

So where is that computer energy going?

Noise (that doesn't escape the room) > heat
Light (that doesn't escape the room) > heat
Calculations > heat
Air movement > heat

It might go through more steps in conversion to heat, but it still degrades to heat. If you have the computer anyway, might as well use that compute facility to create heat.

 

[deathman20]

This thread is a perfect example of circular reasoning. You cannot overcome the laws of thermodynamics. A room takes a specific amount of energy to heat to a certain temperature and it does not matter in the slightest what device you use to heat it, you still need the same amount of energy to get it done. Thus, buying a 250w heater means you're going to need to leave it on 4x as longer as a 1000w one to heat the room by the same amount. You cannot overcome the physics. Using a computer to heat a room is in fact less efficient than a heater because some of the power used by a computer is not converted to heat and thus does not serve your purpose of heating the room, whereas a space heater is 99.9% efficient at converting electricity to heat.

While yes a heater might be more efficient at spreading the heat into the room, last time I checked the heater only has a few settings a low, med and/or a med/high setting. I have a unit at home, low uses roughly 850W, high is closer to 1300W. Thats the heating element + fan. Extra up to 60W if I want the fancy fire place look. It does a very good job heating a room, I don't disagree with that. Though if you don't need all that heat (yes most can have a set point in temp and turn off and turn back on when needed) but you can use a PC to do similar. Its not going to blow air efficiently into the room I will agree with that but, its lower wattage if you have concerns on your power consumption and if you use it does work. That being said if your mining with it not only are you making heat, but your making money no mater the electric cost. Only reason I say that is last time I checked a space heater doesn't have a form of making money just using it