Need advice for eco pc/gaming using solar

[c4mpbell]

Hey I'm new around here and thought this might be a good place to have a discussion about something I've been thinking about lately.

 

So in the next couple of years I want to transition my life to 'Tiny House' off grid living. This includes wanting to run entirely on renewable energy and attempting to optimize all systems of living for extreme efficiency in a variety of aspects. However, I am also an avid ex-pro competitive gamer who doesn't like to sacrifice performance. I've had gaming laptops in the past after i quit playing semi professionally and they were ok, but I did notice decline in performance and since I've come back to a desktop in the past year or two I'm trying not to give it up again, especially since I got a vive and am loving VR gaming as of late (VR space shouldn't be a problem, I could always play outside, use a tent or something etc).

 

Anyway, If I'm going to attempt to keep a desktop and run it off solar in a tiny house, there's some things I need to consider, the main ones of which I think will be power usage, space, silence and heat (It's very hot in Australia and I don't want a PC egregiously taking up/heating up a small space and making a racket.

 

I was inspired by this video:

 

So I'm trying to think of more ideas to limit power consumption. There will be no electricity bills so cost is not why I'm doing this, I think saving even small amount of power for a theoretically optimal system is at least a cool thought experiment that I'm keen on trying out and I'm more than ok with spending a little extra to achieve this than going full budget mode.

 

I have an outdated system from years ago that I recently put a new RTX 2070S in - I want to upgrade pretty much the entire rest, but I'm wondering if the whole project is worth it/should I just buy a laptop when the time comes if they can handle VR well.

 

A few questions/thoughts I have to converge this ramble:

 

All I want to do is play current first person shooters and some other random games on lowest settings with at least ~120fps and VR on high/est settings with ~90fps.

 

Any recommendations for parts? - Mainly looking for PSU/CPU recommendations, obviously I'm trying to lower the RGB as much as humanly possible and go with some sort of minimalist monolith, so case recommendations would also be nice if anyone has got this idea to look nice, which brings me to-

 

- What would be the optimal form factor for this situation? I've been looking to upgrade my rig and have liked the idea of mATX form factor, but will this increase heat which would then require more power to cool or make the space a lot hotter? (I don't mind a little bit of heat if the heat to power saved ratio is high, but I don't like heat because it suggests inefficiency) Should I attempt to make as open air build as possible?

 

- Would air cooling or water cooling be a less power intensive system? Are there any other power saving cooling options for this I'm missing?

 

- Would running Linux reduce power consumption? what about other general software tips and tricks?

 

- Would running a PC from solar have potential to damage/reduce longevity of parts any more than running from mains?

 

- Are there any other wacky/cool engineering experiments I can try in relation to this to achieve what I want?

 

- Is this idea even worth thinking about? Is the power I'd be saving (I'm mainly trying to reduce the cost of the solar system) completely not in relation to how much I would be drawing giving the performance parameters I want? Are they unreasonable?

 

Also feel free to let me know whatever your thoughts are

 

Thanks guys for reading this messy tome - I'm still in early stages of thinking about it in case you can't tell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[burh4n]

I'll start by saying this is a very lofty goal. When I worked as a contractor in the States, there was a saying always shared with customers: "In any project, there's a triangle of options that will direct your project. It's only possible to pick two of the corners, Best, Fast, or Cheap." Best in this case would be ticking all the boxes you listed. Cheap is tricky here, because you're aiming for efficiency/cost reduction, but it doesn't sound like it's directly related to your build but more towards utilizing solar power and keeping the cost of the solar collection system down. My perspective is that you may spend a decent amount on the PC to get the Best and it probably won't be a Fast project.

That part out of the way, let's look at the solar aspect first. Here you'll need a solid battery to run your rig, no question. This means a laptop could be a good choice since it has one built in. If going desktop, that might complicate things a bit, as you'll likely need to limit and track your play time to ensure you don't use too much of the stored energy, or you end up not having power to run other appliances/electronics in the house. Either way, you're looking at a limited play time, make sure you understand and accept what your upper limit will be. As long as you have a reasonable battery system, there shouldn't be any issues with damage to your gaming rig.

Desktop:
For power, you gotta go with high power efficiency, probably 80 plus Gold or Platinum. Cooling options can get tricky quick. Air cooling will (generally) be less maintenance and longer lifespan, but will be impacted by your environment more directly. If the ambient air (in the house) is 20-25 C or below year round, you'll probably be okay. If it fluctuates greatly, it will complicate things. If the ambient air gets hotter, are you going to cool the house? If so, anytime the PC runs, you'll be using more electricity to cool the house on top of running the PC. Additionally air cooling doesn't cool well with high temperature ambient air, this might benefit from water cooling, but water cooling does still increase the temperature of the air in the house. There might be some aspects of home layout and airflow you could optimize, but could be a whole other rabbit hole to get lost in. It will probably be good to do some serious research into MOBO power delivery and CPU/Power ratio.

Your question about OS is tricky, and I'm definitely not well versed in the realm of power optimization with that respect, but it's likely that a less resource hungry/dependent OS will be less power hungry. You could probably run a test on this now, setup a dual boot system and monitor the power draw (at the outlet) to see which uses more power during use. The big caveat here is that Windows is the best option for running installing or running games with little fuss, Linux may have limitations when it comes to drivers or game availability; do your research and figure out what you're comfortable with. 

Laptop:
Simplifies a lot of aspects, but will limit your performance and does come with a portability premium. Certainly gaming laptops will draw power, but with built in battery you'll have some independence from your home power and can control when you charge it.

Other questions to consider:
- Will you be online gaming or offline only? Online gaming will probably increase your router's power draw as there will be more traffic to handle.
- I know you're aiming for using VR, but have you considered checking out a game streaming service? This could be a use case for it since you could get a very low spec device and use GeForce Now, Stadia, or whatever to play on a server elsewhere (significant reduction of power cost to you). It could be reasonable to look for anywhere you can go to game locally (I know it's not the same) on someone else's hardware.
- How much time are you ready to invest in this project? A tiny house seems like a big project alone, but adding a gaming PC might further complicate the house project.

[c4mpbell]

Wow! Thanks for the thoughtful and helpful reply! 

 

I like your decision triangle concept, I’m ready to sacrifice quite a bit of time figuring out a solution for me- I think for a lot of people gaming is probably the most power intensive thing they do and it’s a shame this might limit their options for becoming off grid.

 

i had no idea game streaming services existed, I’ll have to look into them since that might be an elegant solution. 

 

As for gaming elsewhere, that’s for sure an option, but for purposes of this thought experiment let’s just say that’s not in the cards.

 

Your input on cooling is really useful, Australia can get much hotter than those temps, and although I might include an AC of some sort, there’s no way I’m turning it on just to game; also a small pump to run liquid cooling would take much less power than AC+fans. I think I’ll just have to go with liquid cooling here or get lost in a rabbit hole of layout and airflow, I love rabbit holes!

 

ill start doing some tests of different OS and software power usage just need to buy power monitor shouldn’t be hard. 

 

I suspect that a laptop is probably superior option here but going to keep researching since I do love the performance when I need it. Online is a seperate rabbit hole, since I’ll have to figure out how I connect to reliable internet with decent ping, so let’s say for now I’m just looking to play offline.

 

the tiny house is going to be my main project in general here, but the solar setup is extremely important to get sorted before I start. I expect if I were to have a gaming rig and game even occasionally, it would be the largest power consumer in the system by far and would have to design around it, so that’s why I’m thinking about this.

 

 

 

 

[Blue4130]

Solar is DC, so you are switching DC to ac back to DC using an atx power supply in a desktop off solar. Each time you loose some efficiency. I am not sure if any exist, but a pure DC-DC powersupply will gain you some efficiency. 

[c4mpbell]

I’m curious if they exist now also, I saw a video of someone doing the former and he also suggested that DC-DC would improve his system, yet said the the efficiency of the 12v PSU’s he’s seen were low, so I’ll for sure do some research on trying to find one with 80+ gold/platinum - hopefully they exist. Thanks for the tip! 

[burh4n]

@Blue4130 has a good point that I didn't even consider, if there are DC-DC power supplies, that would absolutely be a great way to go, but check if there are any specs listed for nominal operating temperature (if there's not a solid efficiency rating). 

The more I think about the game streaming option, the more I think it would be a good idea (if I were in your shoes). Another reason why is future proofing/upgrading. I don't know how long your planning to live off the grid (perhaps it's indefinite, I try not to assume), but if you want to keep playing modern games for let's say the next 8-10 years, you'll probably have to go thru this all once more. With game streaming (assuming it is or will be available), you'll never have to worry about upgrading the major hardware. It's not a perfect solution by any means, so it might not fit for you, but again considering myself attempting the same thing, it's an option I would consider heavily.

Another LTT video to check out for inspiration (even tho it's a few years old) would be this guy

Finally, your idea might actually make a decent LTT video idea. You should pitch it over in the Video Ideas Thread. No guarantees that it'll be made into a video, but it is a novel idea and fits into the type of content they like to make.

[c4mpbell]

I'm having a little trouble finding a DC-DC PSU with reasonable wattage, but there's a couple of non-consumer grade ones that will probably work fine at doable wattage. However if you or anyone else know any consumer/reputable brands that make a DC-DC PSU I'd love to know about it.

 

The game streaming setup is a great option and one I will for sure consider seriously. Although, a large part of why I'm going off grid is to escape reoccurring bills and payments, but I'm ok with cheap ones as long as it's the best option. Just want to make sure I can't do something better - although the future proofing might be worth the payment, especially if I'm transitioning between builds. Maybe I can use a rig of my own that I can set up - let's say at family or friends place - that I can remotely turn on and off and use for game streaming - I imagine if I could do this effectively it would be cheaper than paying google or whatever other service is available in Aus and I wouldn't run any data privacy risk (maybe I just like self contained solutions), but you do make a good point that I wouldn't ever need to upgrade, probably offsetting this cost long term (I plan to be off grid permanently and giving up high performance gaming seems to be the saddest part)- but it would still be using fossil fuels to power which is for sure not ideal for me.

 

This video is pretty great, Linus suggests that a laptop might be a good option even for VR, and has some interesting options with generators etc Maybe I can consider a UPS if i get really lazy about giving up the DC-DC power supply option, but atm the idea of that is a really interesting side-quest. I can for sure imagine my idea becoming a video pretty similar to a mix between the 2 posted here, especially since I'm not really interested in non-green solutions like gas powered generators, and also not really about pure power efficiency since I actually would like a competitive performance so I'll post it in the ideas thread. Thanks for suggestion

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Why not spend more up front for increased solar power production.  Build the solar grid to suit your power needs, include a battery storage system to store excess power produced by the day.

 

In the grand scheme of things, a computer really doesn't suck down that much power compared to a fridge, or microwave.

 

You can try and make it more efficient, but you are will be expending more effort on tiny gains.

[c4mpbell]

I definitely plan to get a solar grid that produces more power than I need and have a battery setup. Part of the reason I’m thinking about the pc is to see exactly how much I should expect it to draw under load, so I could calculate how much time gaming per day I can optimise for etc whilst saving as much on solar cost as I can- solar is going to probably be 1/3-1/4 of the entire cost, so reducing this as much as I can is of interest, even if it’s only by reducing the system by 1 panel or something. 

 

i also admit that I’m an idealist and a fan of extremely efficient systems, so theorising about saving as much power as possible isn’t a chore to me. 

 

I’m not really planning on running a conventional fridge or other power hungry appliances and optimising any ones I do use. I know that all power I would use would be green, but I still like to act as if it’s not and not be in excess (as much as someone can’t be whilst saying they want to game with good specs and in VR). I guess I’m just all about not contributing to entropy.

 

Having said this, you could be completely right that I could be focusing on the wrong things and spending the majority of my effort in tiny gains, if it’s a trivial cost to increase power generation to the point where grabbing a high end, rgb sporting, heavily overclocked machine optimised for performance off the shelf vs any power saving methods I could do then I should do as you suggest and just get the better solar setup and then just reduce power consumption for fun/science later

[Roswell]

The main roadblock would be cost and space, in my opinion. The people you watch in YouTube videos living in tiny houses have very limited solar array systems that are sitting idle most of the time.

 

Say you game for 4-5 hours one day, that's going to deplete close to everything your run of the mill 300w 4 panel system stored for the day, on average after accounting for DC to AC to DC conversion.

 

A quality 4 panel system is going to run you $15,000 to $20,000 AUD... But that's not enough if you need to run other appliances or want to keep reserves for winter or cloudy days. At minimum you'd likely need at least a decent 8 panel setup, probably in the neighborhood of $35,000 AUD.

 

... It's way more economically feasible to just connect to the grid and buy your power from a provider that uses green energy.