The Cost of Folding Posted by XanTium | 28-3-2007 20:10 EST

From ps3.ign.com: [QUOTE] With the help of Stanford University, Sony recently made a version of Folding@Home available to PlayStation 3 owners worldwide. Helping out science is as simple as pressing X a couple times or even just letting your console standby for a bit. While this requires little to no work on your end, it does cost you a little cash out of your pocket each month to pay for the electricity. How much, you ask? That's what we're here for. We've taken a few bits of information and compiled a rough and estimated chart of how much it would cost you to run Folding@Home on a PlayStation 3 for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These are estimates in the truest sense of the word. For instance, according to Stanford University's Folding@Home FAQ for PS3, a PlayStation 3 should use about 200W of power while running the application. For our electrical costs, we borrowed a chart from Nebraska's website that breaks down the average electricity costs for each state during December 2006. lowest: Idaho | 4.78 Cent/kWh | $6.88/month US average: 8.49 Cent/kWh | $12.23/month highest: Hawaii | 19.28 Cent/kWh | $27.76/month [/QUOTE] If you use Folding@Home on your PS3, feel free to join our group 'ps3scene' with ID# 56516. Full Story: ps3.ign.com

That is a lot of money. I would like to see a yearly chart though because a lot of places charge different amounts based on the time of year.

I.E. AZ charges more during the summer months so that people use the A/C less.

Wow. More expensive than XBL even. I'm glad I didn't set up my PS3 to do powereating@home.

Another pointless bash on the PS3. That 200W is likely the same or better than your average PC running F@H. Then factor in that the Cell is roughly 14X faster than a P4 and and 8X faster than a Core Duo at these F@H calculations it's running and suddenly you realize it's actually incredibly efficient as a F@H machine. Now, if you think F@H is a waste of time either way, that's a different argument, but the PS3 is NOT wasting energy compared to a PC running F@H. I'm going to have to give up on the media completely, it's simply longer possible for anything to be portrayed fairly when it comes to Sony. They keep creating garbage stories like this to fuel the Sony hate train.

i've been running folding@home since it came out and will continue to do so, 24/7. i don't use my ps3 for anything, i never even turned it on besides a couple times so this is giving my ps3 something to do. it is for a good cause and it makes me happy that my $600 is doing something of worth.

Please explain how posting factual numbers in relation to wattage usage and cost is a 'pointless bash on the PS3'?? So by calling this a created garbage story, are you saying it *doesn't* cost this much to run?

It is entirely relevent to point out that a games console has found itself being used as a number cruncher instead of it's primary purpose. All IGN have done is inform those running F@H how much their contribution is costing.

Well, my PC doesn't do folding at home either, and it isn't on 24 hours a day.

Basically, I just don't see the point. They could have at least pointed out how efficient it was at running F@H compared to your average PC. As presented, all you get are a bunch of responses like we've seen in this thread.


But what's your point? No one is forcing you to leave your PS3 on all day either. But if you were going to leave either your PC or PS3 on all day crunching numbers for F@H, the PS3 would get the most work done by far... unless you own a quad core or something similar.

24/7... hopefully you also conclude the higher rate of wear your PS3 has. According to a press release of one of the major manufacturers of blue laser diodes the mean time before failure is 1000 hours on power. Since the diode on any optical device is always on if the device is on power your 600$ PS3 is exhausted very soon.

Let us see how much sense you see in the folding@home project if you now take note of this fact.

I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that the lasers in optical devices are only on when a disc is in the tray.

Agreed, although 200W is alot for a console, no one is forcing anyone to keep their consoles on 24/7. It probably wouldn't be the best thing for the console anyway, my n64 froze every time it was on for longer than 6 hours, and i wouldn't dare leave my beloved 360 on overnight.

If your electricity bill is a concern, then turn off all the other lights in your house, or use battery clocks instead of plug-in clocks. hehe, Al Gore.