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Raise your hand if a gaming PC is currently heating your home

Raise your hand if a gaming PC is currently heating your home

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Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

A few weeks ago, our furnace (technically a ductless heat pump) stopped working at the worst possible time of the year. But at least one room stays nice and toasty all winter long — thanks to my gaming PC.

Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting this might actually be a trend: some bitcoin miners and gamers are warming their rooms, growing tomatoes, and even heating a chicken coop during the pandemic.

It made me wonder: how many Verge readers are doing the same?

Poll

Are you (intentionally) heating your home with gaming hardware?

This poll is closed

  • 52%
    No
    (3221 votes)
  • 33%
    Yes, with my gaming PC
    (2007 votes)
  • 12%
    Yes, with my mining rig
    (739 votes)
  • 3%
    Yes, with something else (share in the comments!)
    (190 votes)
6157 votes total

Me, I keep my PC running all night long, folding proteins to help study COVID-19, which I highly recommend. (I just crossed 175 million points this week.) But I have to admit the room hasn’t been as warm since I swapped my own GeForce GTX 1080 back in. The impossible-to-find AMD Radeon RX 6800 definitely put out more heat, and we actually had to crack a window when I had an Nvidia RTX 3080 folding those proteins. I can’t speak for every model, but the Founder’s Edition runs hot.

Here’s hoping Mitsubishi delivers a new control board for my heat pump soon.