Heat Output of a Mining Rig

[SparkyU]

I have a 1500w oil heater I use to keep a spare room warm in the winter.  I was wondering if it would make sense to just replace it altogether with an equivalent wattage mining rig?  I'm not sure how much heat a rig of that scope would put out, but I'd be interested to know if anyone has any data if it's comparable?  If it's somewhat in the neighborhood then a bit of the money spent on electricity could be earned back instead of just letting it go to waste with a oil heater.  Thoughts?

[kotarius]

All power usage of all computer hardware is entropic.

To have an equivalent of a 1500W heater, you would need a mining rig that uses 1500W (or two that use 750W each).

[AlphaSun]

You can mine Ethereum or other coins with a mining rig using 6-8 GPUs. But that will be noisy. It is only good for winter.

[XERES]

I Have 3 GAW Furies running in a windowed room over night. They are running with 3 other computers which are all on idle.
Upon entering the room in the morning i would say its around 4-5 degrees hotter than the other rooms.
Using a miner with a bigger power requirement would increase the temperature of your room much like a heater.
I would recommend an Antminer s7
EDIT (s7)

[QuintLeo]

There never was an Antminer S6.

 While the heat output of a miner isn't equal to the electric input, it's close enough it MIGHT AS WELL be the same for practical purposes.

 3 Antminer S5 would be a bit more than your 1500 watts, but if you downclock them a bit....


 This is one way to achieve "effectively" free electricity, as long as you need the heat.

[SparkyU]

All power usage of all computer hardware is entropic.

To have an equivalent of a 1500W heater, you would need a mining rig that uses 1500W (or two that use 750W each).

So you're saying the heat output would be equivalent as far as keeping a room warm goes?

While the heat output of a miner isn't equal to the electric input, it's close enough it MIGHT AS WELL be the same for practical purposes.

 3 Antminer S5 would be a bit more than your 1500 watts, but if you downclock them a bit....


 This is one way to achieve "effectively" free electricity, as long as you need the heat.

I assumed as much, thank you for the confirmation and feedback everyone.  Looks like a swap to a miner instead of generic electric heater isn't such a bad idea.

[QuintLeo]

So you're saying the heat output would be equivalent as far as keeping a room warm goes?

 Pretty much. You might lose a watt, but more likely milliwatts, in usefull work done communication with your ISP that doesn't turn into heat in your home somewhere.

 You'll never notice the difference.

 (excessively picky mode disabled)

[RustyNoman]

When you have the miner to generate heat in winter, will you turn off the miner in summer? It might not ROI.

[Grout]

As said above, so much of the rig's power use ends up in heat that you can consider a 100% transformation. I had one of my rigs in my bedroom for a while and it heated it fine.
The main issues to consider are the noise and light. Poorly built GPUs can make a lot of noise when running at full speed (I won't even talk about ASICs!). A blinking ethernet light can also be really annoying.

[SparkyU]

When you have the miner to generate heat in winter, will you turn off the miner in summer? It might not ROI.

Yeah I plan to turn it off in the summer, but it's not that big of a deal.  We have fairly long winters here.  As long as nothing explodes on the rig it should be worthwhile money wise if it runs for a few years.  I'm kind of just thinking about doing it for the fun of it, not really expecting to become rich or anything.

A blinking ethernet light can also be really annoying.

I've subdued many a blinking light with black electrical tape over the years. lol

[Ossidalm]

As said above, so much of the rig's power use ends up in heat that you can consider a 100% transformation. I had one of my rigs in my bedroom for a while and it heated it fine.
The main issues to consider are the noise and light. Poorly built GPUs can make a lot of noise when running at full speed (I won't even talk about ASICs!). A blinking ethernet light can also be really annoying.

You can cover the LED if you wish. I think the noise problem is a big one. It is not feasible to mine in summer.