UC Davis HPC rates
Citation
UC Davis High Performance Computing (HPC) Core Facility. “Rates.” HPC@UCD website, rates “effective May 1, 2023”, page last updated Aug. 26, 2026. https://hpc.ucdavis.edu/rates. Read 2026-10-28.
Bottom line
- UC Davis charges for HPC by recharge: a researcher pays for CPU (central processing unit) cores, storage and staff time. On Hive, one CPU core costs $3.09 a month at the “UC Davis Affiliate Rate”.
- Only UC Davis investigators get these rates. The page lists no GPU (graphics processing unit) rate and no free access.
- The rates rest on “a five-year system resource lifetime”.
Background
UC Davis is an exception: this page publishes rates and says they “remain valid”.
This page lists only charged Hive resources.
It names no free access. Another UC Davis page may describe a free tier.
Key claims
All prices are as the page states them (section in brackets).
| Item | Price | Unit and terms |
|---|---|---|
| Farm storage | $100 | per TB, for five years; “does not include backups” (Rates for Farm) |
| Farm equipment bought by the researcher | actual cost | “Equipment quote available upon request” (Rates for Farm) |
| Hive CPU core | $3.09 | per month, UC Davis Affiliate Rate (Rates for Hive) |
| System administration | $86.50 | per hour, “to cover associated FTE costs for special projects” (Rates for Hive) |
| System administration, from July 1 | $117.50 | per hour; the page gives no year (Rates for Hive) |
- Node rates (section “Rates”): “Please note that node, partial node, and CPU rates are not currently available due to the uncertainty of RAM availability.” This applies to purchases on Farm, Hive, HPC2 and Franklin. The same page still lists the Hive per-core rate.
- Approval (Rates for Hive): “The Office of Research (OR) Vice Chancellor’s Office has approved establishing the HPC@UCD recharge rates, effective May 1, 2023, and they remain valid.”
- Eligibility (Rates for Hive): “Affiliate rates are only available to UC Davis investigators.”
- Billing period (Rates for Hive): “Resources are charged in perpetuity until HPC@UCD is notified that the PI no longer needs them.”
- Changes (Rates for Hive): the rates “are subject to change with approval of the UC Davis Rate Committee”.
- Basis (Rates for Hive): “These rates are based on a five-year system resource lifetime (five-year warranty).”
- Farm storage buy-in (Rates for Farm): “each buy-in guarantees access for 5 years”. Farm purchases go through the Hippo portal.
- Wiki arithmetic: one Hive CPU core costs $37.08 a year, or $185.40 over the five-year lifetime.
Evidence and method
The facility’s own rate page. The rates have campus approval, and the page names the approving office. The page does not show how the facility computed the rates.
Limits
- The page has no GPU rate.
- The page gives no rate for users outside UC Davis.
- “As of July 1” has no year. The page does not say if the $117.50 rate is in effect.
- The page says node and CPU rates are “not currently available”, but lists a per-core rate. The two statements do not agree in full.