News IBM heats university via supercomputer

Oh yeah! Awesome

I used to heat my room using my computer, but now that I have to pay my electricity bill and heating is included, I switch it off as much as possible!

Remember that gas heating is more efficient than making your computer waste energy (in terms of kW per £) if you are paying for both though!

 

Sorry to rain on your parade with nitpicking, but the pressure you would need would be much higher than what the blocks you would use would be rated for. Surely?

Tell me about it! My uni room was unbearable most days. 4870X2 and an OC'd Q9550 kept my room very toastie when it ran through my push-pull BI GTX 360. Since it is all in a Cosmos S as well, the heat is literally dumped right into my room with minimal chance to cool down or dissipate first.

I remember my little brother thinking that water cooling would make my room cooler, since the cooling was better. Clearly he didn't think it through before he said it

 

My room heats up unbearably with a GTX 295 in one PC and a 4890 in the other. I can only use one PC in the summer as I would pass out with any more heat. I would happily use them to heat the water in the house! I need an A/C unit very badly but need to work out costs and more importantly aesthethics...

 

If your computer is in your room, where would the heat go other than heating your room!?

 

Yes but a 1KW PC should produce 99% of the heat as a 1KW electric fire and your computer can do other things in the meantime. The only problem with this is that you are perhaps losing more money in shortening the lifespan of the components than form electricity however as enthusisasts this might not matter so much.

 

No.. you missed my point.

If you have a 1kW computer and leave it on for an hour, you are paying the electricity company for the gas to produce 1kWh of power- which is probably about 2kWh of gas-burning, plus their staffing costs plus infrastructure costs.

If you use your central heating to produce 1kWh of heat, you're just paying for 1kWh's worth of gas, plus a bit on infrastructure.

 

What happens in the summer?