News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says. Parent comment

Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by vlovich123 on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:15PM (#29898925)
The typical drying machine pulls about 2-6 KW while running. A cryptomining rig pulls about ~1.2 KW while mining. A drying machine runs for an hour a week. Let's say 2 hours a week. That's 12kWh per week at the high end for drying. A cryptomining rig running 24/7 ends up using 201 KWh for the same time period. That's 16x more taking the most pessimistic clothes drying usage, so I'm not sure how you're concluding "uses as much if not more energy".
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by xhrpost on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:21PM (#29899006)
OP is probably talking cumulative energy. The vast majority of households probably have dryers in the US. The vast majority of households also DO NOT have crypto mining rigs.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by vlovich123 on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @09:27PM (#29901527)
It's currently close. Bitcoin alone uses 91 TWh globally [1]. US dryers consume ~60 TWh [2]. However, one of those is seeing exponential energy usage while the others is very mature and stable.

I'm also shocked that people do laundry so often. Not sure why people are doing more than one or two loads per week and that's a problem the government could look at tackling (not so much with PoW coins).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitco...

[2] https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ene_14060901a.pdf

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by xhrpost on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @11:40PM (#29902389)
Honestly surprised it's that close.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by BostonEnginerd on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @08:27PM (#29901143)
I just looked up how much energy my last dryer load used. It came in just shy of 6kWh. The unit is a standard electric dryer, around 10yr old. Just wanted to provide some additional data.

We do about 4 loads per week here. I hope that the newer heat pump based dryers are reliable!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by politician on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:20PM (#29898987)
Most people living in the suburbs in the US have a drying machine while not everyone has a cryptomining rig running 24/7, so we could _easily_ be in a situation where drying machines in a region use more power than cryptomining rigs. And a lot of things are like that: Netflix, furnaces, AC, freezers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by Scoundreller on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:20PM (#29898989)
You forgot to account for the cost of the damage a dryer does to clothing. And how much conditioned air it pumps outside that needs to get sucked back in through my home’s cracks and re-conditioned.

And the fires!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by pph on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:44PM (#29899407)
A household dryer is very unlikely to get anywhere near 6 kW even at peak. In Europe it's common to have 16 A at 220-240 V which gives you a maximum of roughly 3.5 kW.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by ars on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @06:45PM (#29900123)
A US dryer is 240V at 30A (actual usage is 24A - 80% of rating), which is 5.7kW.
[ Parent | on HN ]