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Thread: Energy and CPUs

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    Senior Member j1979's Avatar
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    Energy and CPUs

    Ok so science was never my strongest subject! so help me out here, as i remember it from my GCSE days, energy is never lost just converted from its different forms to new forms.

    so we put electrical energy into a CPU and the output is heat, electrical and probably trace amounts of other types of energy. As the output from the CPU travels as electrical energy along the pipe / bus (or whatever they're called), it will also convert this electrical energy into more heat.

    and bear with me here.

    so the main output of the CPU is almost exclusively eventually heat.!? is this correct? or is data itself energy (chemical energy) !?!?

    if heat is the only energy conversion; then providing heat is needed / wanted CPUs are close to 100% efficient.

    why don't swimming pools house servers!? kind of a quid pro quo deal! just an idea i had for heating my fish tank while cooling my home server to save on the electricity bill.

    or

    have i had too much beer?
    Last edited by j1979; 20-09-2009 at 12:22 AM.

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    All things end in heat eventually

    But yes, CPUs manage to take power and concentrate it into heat energy in a very small space, making them efficient if you're talking about heat generated per area. Unfortunately they happen to be exquisite silicon carvings which are rather expensive to produce, meaning a bog standard heating element (while just as efficient in terms of power in, heat out) is a much better choice

    You could indeed use your fish tank as the reservoir for your CPU cooling system. Providing your CPU just so happened to produce exactly the right amount of constant heat then why not?

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by j1979 View Post
    have i had too much beer?
    After a few beers shouldn't you be thinking about more important things like

    Alexa Chung or Cheryl Cole ?

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Well strangely enough recent move in the server/big corprate sectors have been looking at the idea of water cooling servers by hooking them into a buildings heating/air con/environmental system

    Some of the energy in the form of electrical current put into a cpu is turned into heat and some flows through it.
    Data is turned into electrical pulses which are fed through the cpu, processed and fed out again.

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by j1979 View Post
    why don't swimming pools house servers!?
    Somebody tried swimming pool based cooling a while back

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    Pseudo-Mad Scientist Whiternoise's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quid pro quo deals like this are already in effect in sports centres.

    Ice Rinks take a lot of energy to keep cool, i assume by Peltier methods. The resulting heat is often used to heat nearby swimming pools.

    As for the CPU, well, it's hard to quantify efficiency. The purpose of a CPU is to crunch numbers, not to convert energy into another form - i.e. its primary purpose is not to turn electrical energy into kinetic/heat energy. The most obvious definition is processing "power" versus power consumed. A CPU that can whack out 3.0GHz at 50W compared to an identical CPU that takes 200W is obviously more efficient.

    This heat can be quite handy, if your room is a bit cold, having a high end PC can warm up things a bit. As for if it's actually practical? Well you need to look at the amount of power (rate of emission of energy) that the computer kicks out. Say it operates at maximum "efficiency" and converts ALL the input energy into heat, now at most that'll be 100-150W from the CPU (probably a lot less these days). That's not really that much at all, on a sunny day, you can get around a kilowatt per square meter (1350W/m^2 in space at the Earth's distance from the sun). So to get comparable figures you'd need a lot of computers or you would want to rig up your thing that wants heating to the graphics card too (which are much more power hungry). I.e. in most cases you'd be better off just installing some windows and getting the sun to do it for you.

    Interestingly most of the heat produced by server farms is not from the processing units but by the air conditioning systems designed to keep them cool...
    Last edited by Whiternoise; 20-09-2009 at 07:46 AM.

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    the reason CPUs get hot is like a transistor, when a PN junction switches, it momenterally dissipate a lot of charge. The only way it can do that is heat.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by Whiternoise View Post
    This heat can be quite handy, if your room is a bit cold, having a high end PC can warm up things a bit.
    This is very true.

    The last couple of times I've come back from offshore I've thought the flat was a little on the chilly side, by evening when I've had the PCs, monitors and music players on, the temperature is that couple of degrees higher and much more pleasant. Otherwise I might have had to put a heater on for a couple of hours.

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    The current trend in CPU's is to reduce energy consumption and consequently make them run cooler. I've had PC's in the past where you could almost burn your fingers on the heat sinks but many of the latest CPU's are barely warm by comparison.

    :¬}

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    Formerly known as Andehh Andeh13's Avatar
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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by just-me View Post
    The current trend in CPU's is to reduce energy consumption and consequently make them run cooler. I've had PC's in the past where you could almost burn your fingers on the heat sinks but many of the latest CPU's are barely warm by comparison.

    :¬}
    My 8800GTS 512mb has that ability, the visible heatsink gets scouldingly hot after a gaming session!

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Trivia - When IBM built it's new campus in Pennant Hills (Sydney), the surrounding grounds had a number of water features, brooks and ponds etc. These were used (via heat exchangers) to cool the huge machines in the computer room.
    Society's to blame,
    Or possibly Atari.

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by Funkstar View Post
    This is very true.

    The last couple of times I've come back from offshore I've thought the flat was a little on the chilly side, by evening when I've had the PCs, monitors and music players on, the temperature is that couple of degrees higher and much more pleasant. Otherwise I might have had to put a heater on for a couple of hours.
    i turned the heating off in my room 2 years ago and since then i just over clocked this, and the room is never chilly. tbh even the rest of the family is jelous that my room is always warm at no heating cost (i know, i know)
    Quote Originally Posted by MadduckUK View Post
    now that i think about the word "throttled" in a certain light... its not so far different to strangled really

    our boiler broke so we has no heating or hot water, this is the bloody result ^^

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by j1979 View Post
    so the main output of the CPU is almost exclusively eventually heat.!? is this correct? or is data itself energy (chemical energy) !?!?

    if heat is the only energy conversion; then providing heat is needed / wanted CPUs are close to 100% efficient
    since 'Heat' is simply the movement of particles, all 'energy conversions' will end up with particles moving so everything eventually leads to a 100% heat conversion. it just depends how many 'stages' before everything eventually leads to particles moving (which is defined as 'heat')

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    Quote Originally Posted by j1979 View Post
    Ok so science was never my strongest subject! so help me out here, as i remember it from my GCSE days, energy is never lost just converted from its different forms to new forms.

    so we put electrical energy into a CPU and the output is heat, electrical and probably trace amounts of other types of energy. As the output from the CPU travels as electrical energy along the pipe / bus (or whatever they're called), it will also convert this electrical energy into more heat.

    and bear with me here.

    so the main output of the CPU is almost exclusively eventually heat.!? is this correct? or is data itself energy (chemical energy) !?!?

    if heat is the only energy conversion; then providing heat is needed / wanted CPUs are close to 100% efficient.

    why don't swimming pools house servers!? kind of a quid pro quo deal! just an idea i had for heating my fish tank while cooling my home server to save on the electricity bill.

    or

    have i had too much beer?

    excellent post... excellent

    You#ve not had too much beer.. I'd say actually you've found the sweet spot.... the point where good musicians find the perfect riff, song writers hit upon the phrase to make your girlfriend kiss you , or when mad scientists invent something exceptional.

    The magical "not drunk" state where artists put the illusive brush stroke to a masterpiece for a warm sunset, the point where a PC gamer relaxes enough to kill the enemy 5 times on the trot and find his sweet revenge...

    the incredible point where your pool cue becomes a part of you and you can sink ball after ball while talking to your mates, and winking while looking away for the final black....

    where the darts sink into the horsehair board with resounding thumps and never touch the wire, but strike the double 8 to finish the game.. that point where you decide, "damn it YES, I WILL have that graphics card" and push the BUY button....

    Just hope your Gold Fish don't boil

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    Re: Energy and CPUs

    I shall post this again


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