Movieman,

We have ~ 600 Intel Harperton 2.8Ghz, Dual socket/Quad Core machines with 8GB ram, and ~300 Intel Woodcrest 3.0Ghz Dual socket/Dual Core Machines with 8GB ram.

All the systems are in maintenance mode at the moment, so I thought I'd kick it up a notch over here while we wait on a few fixes from misc. vendors We'll be largely out of skewing the WCG numbers by the end of the month.

In total run time we aren't as competitive, but in Results and Points I think we are above average, so pretty good efficiency node for node. Still in all, on a cost per WU I would bet most of the other teams out there would look much more efficient. It's like showing up to the Solar Races with a Charged up Tesla and acting like you're in the race fair and square :)

We're glad we can help a bunch of good causes and put UIUC in the limelight for a bit. If some of our larger plans work out this year we may be able to help more soon.

Cheers!

I like the sound of that! I know I'm not alone in wishing you the best so all works out well.

Just for grins.. What is your normal power bill running all out?

I was explaining grid computing to my daughter (age 11) the other day. I was telling her how all the computers & cores around our house average 5-6 days worth of computing per day. After telling her that she clicked on the statistics tab & saw that you did 12 years in one day (we need a fainting smilie here...). Once I was able to pick my jaw up off the floor I knew I had to dig into it further & found your profile & this thread...

Congrats & thank yous are due to you (& the university). In one day you managed to accomplish 2.5 times what I've been able to do in 2+ years. You said that it wouldn't be a constant contribution, but at that level anything you can do is a great contribution. Hopefully (for WCG anyway) there will be plenty of down time at the school & I can continue to watch your stats spiral up at an incredible rate

I'm glad to hear you've got your daughter involved with WCG; it's really amazing that the "time" our computers waste running screen savers and warming our houses can actually do some good for people who may not even have houses! Kinda helps show that little things to any one of us can be combined to be a huge thing for all of us.

So the really interresting question is efficiency to me. Given the sophisticated power and cooling it takes to run all these systems in the same room at the same time at full speed, what systems are getting the most bang for our collective bucks (and energy)? It is entirely possible, that my computers are less cost effective than a swarm of "WCG" users because they are specialized and require special environments, more expensive to run on day one and every day after than a home computer. My favorite list is the "Top500" fastest computers in the world (www.top500.org). More important is the "Green500", a relist of those same computers based on known or assumed power costs... it's a real eye opener (http://www.green500.org).

For me, the environmental cost of building and deploying these machines ethically requires they do useful work their entire lives to make up for their ecological impacts, and hopefully the research accomplished makes the world a better place. Sadly, by the time these systems are 4 or 5 years old they won't be worth the power they consume today... which is the paradox. The power they consume today in some way helps make the capability of tomorrow's machines and research codes possible.

For the Record, these machines are not affiliated with or supported in any way by the University. The power bill, machines, and facilities are privately owned and paid for. No one's tuition is going up on account of them, but we're hoping we might help keep costs down for researchers. I don't want anyone chasing through UIUC labs looking to see where the compute power is coming from... it's not there. The University is a great neighbor, and the talent coming through there is key to our location, but no taxpayers were harmed in the making of these cycles :)