How do you deal with the energy/electricity costs and running your gear?

[mclane]

Using an 8 core ryzen laptop that needs 33 watt and is run by solar electricity

[JohnW]

My wife and I both work from home, we both have multiple monitors for our computers. I have a 34" ultrawide and a 27" for my work PC and a 50" tv\monitor for my personal PC, my wife has a similar setup for her work pc. These are all on 5 days a week for at least 12 hours a day and some are on during the weekend. My son also has a PC with dual monitors that he plays videos games all night on(and I mean all night). To compensate for all this, I unscrew the tiny lightbulb in our refrigerator.

[Modern Times]

Laptops can be a very good answer to keep costs under control. Latest Intel, AMD and Apple mobile CPUs use very little energy and give really good performance.

[smatovic]

...computer chess yesterday:



computer chess tomorrow:





Seriously, I think Stockfish ~21 on a Raspberry Pi ~7 will be sufficient in future.

--
Srdja

[MikeB]

I am currently not active in developing an engine and laptop+desktop are @~200 kWh/year @33.36 eurocent/kWh, new tariffs are @~50 eurocent/kWh here, guess if we reach some day 1 euro/kWh, or if I restart programming, I have to consider some actions in this regard.

How do you deal with the energy/electricity costs and running your gear?

--
Srdja

Wow. I am locked in at $.11/kwh with adm fees of about $15/mo. My bills runs under $125/mo, that includes charging a Plug-in Hybrid and a full electric vehicle. I do have to use a UPS with my desktop , due to periodic electrical spikes.

[lithander]

I am currently not active in developing an engine and laptop+desktop are @~200 kWh/year @33.36 eurocent/kWh, new tariffs are @~50 eurocent/kWh here, guess if we reach some day 1 euro/kWh, or if I restart programming, I have to consider some actions in this regard.

How do you deal with the energy/electricity costs and running your gear?
Srdja

I feel you! and great question!

I'm currently using idle cores on the computer while it's running anyway. E.g when I do some work from home my desktop computer is often mostly idle. But just running it without any load already takes 220W (Monitors included) and running it with a chess-workload is 270W. So I fire up some engine matches and it's just an extra 50W.

Also gas is not much cheaper per kW/h then electricity and I'm more focused on saving gas atm. It's damn cold in the room where my desk is and I'm sitting there huddled in blankets. So when I want to justify keeping the computer running with chess I bill it as "electrical heating with benefits"

Last but not least I'm going to gift myself a Raspberry Pi 400 for christmas that is running on about ~5W only. I plan to keep it online at all time to run lichess bots on it.

[Ozymandias]

I didn't see the poll.

I would've voted "I lower usage to spare watt hours", with the addition: only when the price is below 0.10 €/kWh for a sufficient number of hours (it seldom happens).

[smatovic]

Got an raise today, 42,03 eurocent/kWh, my brother is already at 60,-....

...

Hehe, I invested in some decent sheep's wool pullovers keep it at 16°C room temperature atm.

[---]
Last but not least I'm going to gift myself a Raspberry Pi 400 for christmas that is running on about ~5W only. I plan to keep it online at all time to run lichess bots on it.

Raspberry Pi - seriously, someone should consider to open up an Raspberry Pi rating list, just one Pi running 24/7 engines-engine games, or alike.

--
Srdja

[Chessqueen]

I simply pay my Electrical Bills, by the way GM Wesley So is finally getting married tomorrow, WOW I thought he was Gay

[Hai]

I am currently not active in developing an engine and laptop+desktop are @~200 kWh/year @33.36 eurocent/kWh, new tariffs are @~50 eurocent/kWh here, guess if we reach some day 1 euro/kWh, or if I restart programming, I have to consider some actions in this regard.

How do you deal with the energy/electricity costs and running your gear?

--
Srdja

I'm fine.
Buy a MacBook Pro M1 Max and you will be fine too.