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I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#371

Post by LTL_FTC »

chermi wrote: post #232
LTL_FTC wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have definitely increased but not all of California is like this. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, it's about $0.15/kWh. Having Data Centers nearby helps, I suppose.

I'm guessing the parent is talking about total bill (transmission, demand charges..) $.15/kwH is probably just the usage, and I am very skeptical that's accurate for residential.

Correct. $0.15/kwh is usage. There are a few small fees but that’s likely the case in most places. This is residential use. If skeptical, a quick online search is all it takes…

Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#372

Post by LTL_FTC »

favorited wrote: post #266
LTL_FTC wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have definitely increased but not all of California is like this. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, it's about $0.15/kWh. Having Data Centers nearby helps, I suppose.

Santa Clara's energy rates are an outlier among neighboring municipalities, and should not be used as an example of energy cost in the Bay Area. Santa Clara residents are served by city-owned Silicon Valley Power, which has lower rates than PG&E or SVCE, which service almost all of the South Bay.

Well the discussion was California as a whole and averages, so I decided to share. As with averages, data is above and bellow the mean, so when a commenter above said $.30/kwh was much too low for California, I decided to lend some support the the argument as I’m in California paying bellow the average. It’s a just a data point. A counter example to the claim made by parent. Maybe it helps fellow nerds pick a spot in the bay if they want to run their homelabs.

Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#373

Post by kbenson »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #154
kllrnohj wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the E5-2690V4 is a 10 year old CPU, they are talking about used servers. You can find those on ebay or whatever as well as stores specializing in that. Depending on where you live, you might even find them free as they are often considered literal ewaste by the companies decommissioning them. It also means it performs like a 10 year old server CPU, so those 28 threads are not exactly worth a lot. The geekbench r…

This is the correct analysis - there's a reason you see this stuff cheap or free. The homelab group on Reddit is full of people who don't understand any of this - they have full racks in their house that could be replaced with one high-end desktop.

I have a couple units of free colocation cabinet space space and free bandwidth and power to go with it waiting to be used, so inefficient hardware is less of an issue for me. I've just been fairly lazy in sourcing it myself.

Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#374

Post by kbenson »

kllrnohj wrote: post #117
kbenson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? That seems like something I would want to take advantage if at the moment...

Note the E5-2690V4 is a 10 year old CPU, they are talking about used servers. You can find those on ebay or whatever as well as stores specializing in that. Depending on where you live, you might even find them free as they are often considered literal ewaste by the companies decommissioning them. It also means it performs like a 10 year old server CPU, so those 28 threads are not exactly worth a lot. The geekbench r…

Which is mostly irrelevant because I have a few rack units of free space, with free power and bandwidth I can use if I want, but I haven't bothered because I don't have a need worth shelling out the money for a modern platform to put in it.

I'm well aware of the costs of power and the lgostics of colocation, this is purely about how I'm more willing to spend $100-$200 for a toy than I am $1000-$2000.

Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#375

Post by greenavocado »

jaredhallen wrote: post #321
greenavocado wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N100s absolutely curb stomp Pis and have very good video hardware encoders/decoders to boot

A different thread on here the other day seemed to come to the consensus that if you're considering an N100, you may as well go with a low end Ryzen. And for much the same reasoning being used here. Seems to be a little bit of a slippery slope.

Low end Ryzens are too big.

Re: I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

#377

Post by theodric »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #370
theodric wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's brutal. Was €0.39 right after Mad Vlad kicked off his vanity conflict.

That’s rough. What’s your progress on renewables? Wind has made electricity really cheap in my state and I would think Ireland would be pretty windy (esp offshore)?

Ireland has had hydro for a century[1], and wind and tidal are productive here. There are wind farms EVERYWHERE around where I live (mountains, Cork/Limerick border). There are solar farms, as well, but sun is not our strong suit. Trouble for individuals is that small, affordable wind turbines are basically useless, and most people don't have hundreds of thousands of Euros plus planning permission to erect megawatt-scale units, so solar is pretty much it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_hydroelectric_scheme

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