PC Building - general topic

[Astaroth]

I'm so sad, I haven't had a proper PC in years. I was looking forward to afford a really nice computer once I started my job, but now that I'm here, I can barely afford anything. It's really disappointing lol

[RefluxSemantic]

I believe scientists over some random guy on the internet with no actual credibility

[Goodspeed]

You'll believe whatever you want to believe, and with complex subjects like this there are often studies you can find that confirm whatever you want to believe, especially if you include the ones where the writers' English is grade-school level and especially if you take some liberties interpreting the conclusions.

When we look at the design of PoW vs PoS, the difference in energy consumption is obvious. PoW necessitates high energy cost because it's how network participants prove that they are trustworthy. What's funny about that is that if/when energy ever becomes too cheap or efficient, it's no longer secure. It literally needs energy to be expensive.
In PoS on the other hand, network participants prove their trustworhtiness by putting up part of their "stake" (their holdings in the coin in question) as collateral. In theory, if they cheat they lose the collateral.

Of course a PoS network still needs computers to run it, but it just needs to be enough computers to calculate the transactions, which depending on the algorithm doesn't necessarily cost a lot of energy. PoW on the other hand costs a lot of energy by design.

There are currently 1672 stake pools running on the ADA network. Going by this guide we can assume you need about 3 servers per pool, and per server you'd probably be using about 100W. 1672 * 3 * 100 = 501600W which is about 4.4 million KWh per year. Side note: A household in the US uses about 4500 KWh per year so the entire ADA network is using the equivalent of 1000 US households of energy.

BTC on the other hand uses 130 TWh per year. 4 400 000 / 130 000 000 000 =~ 0.000034.

So theory aside, real-world data tells us the ADA network uses around 0.0034% of the energy used by the BTC network.

[RefluxSemantic]

I clicked on the wikipedia's source. If it is wrong, you should easily be able to find a peer reviewed article that shows it is wrong. 'Poor grammar' is not a relevant argument in this context.

I'll believe scientific articles. I dont really think you have much credibility. You dont have an education or any relevant expertise, and in my eyes you have a tendency to pretend you know more about things than you do. Yeah, no reason to believe you.

[Goodspeed]

Your prerogative. I am curious where you think my maths are wrong then, though.

[Dolan]

I'm so sad, I haven't had a proper PC in years. I was looking forward to afford a really nice computer once I started my job, but now that I'm here, I can barely afford anything. It's really disappointing lol

Try building it piece by piece. Like start by getting a case this month. Then a power source next month. Then save for a motherboard. Then for a CPU. Etc.
You don't really need a GPU or the newest one, if you don't play triple A on the highest graphics. For AOE3 even integrated graphics should be enough.

[Goodspeed]

I hope my RX 570 can handle AoE4. Guess it should be fine on low settings at least

[Dolan]

Yes, RX 570 is actually better than even a GTX 1650, which was considered good in 2019.

[princeofcarthage]

@Goodspeed I am used to Jerom doing this, it's okay.

[Goodspeed]

Doing what? Making uninformed statements based on very liberal interpretations of scientific studies he doesn't understand and then doubling down even though real-world data proves him wrong? He's definitely no stranger to it, but from what I've seen he was mostly right in your discussions. I think the issue there is your impressive amount of really bad takes.

[RefluxSemantic]

Your prerogative. I am curious where you think my maths are wrong then, though.

I dont really know the specifics and find you to be an untrustworthy source so theres no point in going over your maths when I cant tell whether you blatantly ignore things or just do some silly stuffs or whether its correct. Thats why science is awesome. You can actually trust those articles because they are peer reviewed. Instead of me doing some silly review on a subject I dont understand, experts do a real review.

[princeofcarthage]

Doing what? Making uninformed statements based on very liberal interpretations of scientific studies he doesn't understand and then doubling down even though real-world data proves him wrong? He's definitely no stranger to it, but from what I've seen he was mostly right in your discussions. I think the issue there is your impressive amount of really bad takes.

Actually on the contrary, I can prove all my takes with verifiable sources. I just don't in many cases because of many different reasons. When I do he usually has no response to it because he can't dispute that. Take the nuclear energy vs wind/solar for ex. My last post knocked him out of the park. Issue isn't with my takes, you can say they are subjective at best and maybe I am in minority side but that's about it. You can't literally say "Prince is wrong" in most cases. Jerom just likes to nitpick words, and twist statements or infer things as he likes to believe them and make arguments based on it. For ex. When he refused to believe/infer what was written in plain most basic English cuz that won't allow him to paint a bad picture of me.

[Goodspeed]

Your prerogative. I am curious where you think my maths are wrong then, though.

I dont really know the specifics and find you to be an untrustworthy source so theres no point in going over your maths when I cant tell whether you blatantly ignore things or just do some silly stuffs or whether its correct. Thats why science is awesome. You can actually trust those articles because they are peer reviewed. Instead of me doing some silly review on a subject I dont understand, experts do a real review.

Here's some other people doing basically the same maths.

You found one number in one article. The amount of weight you are placing on that one number is unreasonable, considering the amount of evidence that proves the contrary. We don't need theoretical simulations when we have real-world data.

Besides, idk how you could think a couple of scientists could just replicate an entire crypto network and have it be representative (anyone paying attention knows it's not). It's especially funny how they merged the two protocols by starting off with one and then switching to the other, as if it would be that simple, and just concluded "both together use even less energy!". It's frankly a really bad article, scientific or no.

[RefluxSemantic]

I would like some peer reviewed evidence.. the 'sources' you provide would get you a big fat F on a high school report..

I tried looking for other articles. I only found one other number, a 99% reduction in power usage, which refers back to the wikipedia page so that must have changed or something, so still havent found an original source for more than 75% power consumption reduction.

[Goodspeed]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 20-00656-x

Accordingly, based on our arguments regarding the energy consumption associated with operating transactions in Sect. 2, the energy consumption of PoS blockchains is several orders of magnitude lower than that of PoW.

Anyway this isn't a high school project. We're in search of the truth, and the truth is right in front of you. Simply look at the energy consumption of the ADA network compared to the BTC network: ~4 GWh vs ~130 TWh.

[Goodspeed]

A more layman-friendly list of relatively energy-efficient cryptos, many of which use PoS: https://www.leafscore.com/blog/the-9-mo ... -for-2021/
SolarCoin is a nice project, hope it gets traction, probably won't.

[RefluxSemantic]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 20-00656-x

Accordingly, based on our arguments regarding the energy consumption associated with operating transactions in Sect. 2, the energy consumption of PoS blockchains is several orders of magnitude lower than that of PoW.

Anyway this isn't a high school project. We're in search of the truth, and the truth is right in front of you. Simply look at the energy consumption of the ADA network compared to the BTC network: ~4 GWh vs ~130 TWh.

I saw this article. Doesnt their argument boil down to 'PoS requires less energy'. Obviously true, but I think its pretty relevant it requires less energy. Id even argue it needs to require ~3 orders of magnitude less energy at least, so Im interested in this number.

[RefluxSemantic]

A more layman-friendly list of relatively energy-efficient cryptos, many of which use PoS: https://www.leafscore.com/blog/the-9-mo ... -for-2021/
SolarCoin is a nice project, hope it gets traction, probably won't.

Looks like there are some different technologies that do offer competitive energy consumption, though they dont seem to be PoS either.

[Goodspeed]

I'd interpret several as more than 2, personally. But you can choose not to. In that case, probably just look at the actual data. Seriously, why are you so against simply looking at the numbers? ADA is consuming 30000 times less energy than BTC, which is more than your 3 orders of magnitude less.

[Goodspeed]

A more layman-friendly list of relatively energy-efficient cryptos, many of which use PoS: https://www.leafscore.com/blog/the-9-mo ... -for-2021/
SolarCoin is a nice project, hope it gets traction, probably won't.

Looks like there are some different technologies that do offer competitive energy consumption, though they dont seem to be PoS either.

2 out of the top 3 on that list use PoS?
In any case, my initial point was that high energy consumption is not inherent to crypto. Glad we can finally agree on that.

[RefluxSemantic]

A more layman-friendly list of relatively energy-efficient cryptos, many of which use PoS: https://www.leafscore.com/blog/the-9-mo ... -for-2021/
SolarCoin is a nice project, hope it gets traction, probably won't.

Looks like there are some different technologies that do offer competitive energy consumption, though they dont seem to be PoS either.

#2 and #3 on that list use PoS?
In any case, my initial point was that high energy consumption is not inherent to crypto. Glad we can finally agree on that.

Increased energy consumption is theoretically pretty much inherent to crypto though. Its based on doing something extra on top of a simple transaction. But there is a point where the increase in energy consumption is small enough for it to be reasonable (as in, doesnt have to be banned outright like bitcoin) even if I still dont see a benefit.

[Goodspeed]

Energy consumption is inherent to anything digital, but as long as high energy cost isn't literally in your design (see: PoW), there is no reason why it would necessarily be a problem. Many cryptos have managed to set up high-performance, scalable networks without consuming excessive amounts of energy.

I really wouldn't mind a ban on PoW tbh. Sucks for all those BTC maximalists but they fucking deserve it supporting that piece of garbage

[RefluxSemantic]

Energy consumption is inherent to anything digital, but as long as high energy cost isn't literally in your design (see: PoW), there is no reason why it would necessarily be a problem. Many cryptos have managed to set up high-performance, scalable networks without consuming excessive amounts of energy.

I really wouldn't mind a ban on PoW tbh. Sucks for all those BTC maximalists but they fucking deserve it supporting that piece of garbage

It is still an extra energy cost associated with a transaction, vs the simplicity of normal transactions. I like governments and such so at least for the western world I think even 1 extra mW associated with a transaction is bad (actually I dislike the entire concept in general for people in countries like the NL, its just only negatives for me). But some of these things dont seem outrageous in energy consumption.

Still kinda want to see some other simulations that show PoS is like 3-4 orders of magnitude more energy efficient.

[Goodspeed]

Just look at the ADA vs BTC network? Why do you need someone to simulate it when it's literally happening in front of our eyes right now? Simulating that kind of tech on a large scale is not easy.

It is still an extra energy cost associated with a transaction, vs the simplicity of normal transactions.

Normal transactions cost energy. Credit card companies and banks have server farms too.

[Goodspeed]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/881 ... ison-visa/

BTC apparently uses about 600000 times more energy per transaction than VISA. The ADA network currently uses 30000 times less energy than BTC, so it's safe to say ADA would use significantly more energy than a credit card company (between 10-100x the amount), but definitely not even close to 1 MW per transaction more. One thing to note as well is that as the network grows in size, it gets more energy-efficient.

It is true that any decentralized platform will always use more energy than a centralized one. After all, transactions need to be validated by the network and that necessitates trust between the network nodes. In a centralized platform like VISA, any VISA transaction is inherently trustworthy because we trust the company.
The creation and maintenance of trust between network nodes will always cost some energy. However it can be an effectively negligible amount, and there are significant benefits to decentralization as well.