Who has the upper hand on Energy Efficiency? AMD or Intel?
Summary: AMD has dominated the Energy Efficiency debate on the desktop and server platforms for the last 2 years until Intel opened up a significant lead with its Core 2 desktop and server products. The only thing in dispute is the size of Intel's performance and energy efficiency lead.
AMD has dominated the Energy Efficiency debate on the desktop and server platforms for the last 2 years until Intel opened up a significant lead with its Core 2 desktop and server products. The only thing in dispute is the size of Intel's performance and energy efficiency lead. AMD still has a highway marketing campaign on Highway 101 in the Silicon Valley talking about the billions of dollars being saved when AMD processors are used in place of Intel NetBurst architecture CPUs, but is this even relevant? Apparently it is still half relevant since Intel continues to sell and produce its older line of less efficient processors and will continue to do so for a few more quarters.
Normally I would have people post comments, questions, and disagreements in my talkback but this is a unique situation. We have Dr. Dileep Bhandarkar who is the Architect at Large at Intel. Everyone is welcome to ask Dr. Bhandarkar questions. So I invite you to ask an Intel Architect any questions pertaining to processors, performance, and energy efficiency in this TechRepublic forum. For our ZDNet readers, TechRepublic is a sister organization and your ZDNet credentials can be used in TechRepublic so you can participate right away.
Energy efficiency isn't just something that should matter to the energy conservationist, it's serious money. For example, every 1000 watts running round the clock costs an average $65 per month in the USA (based on 9 cents per kilowatt*hour), and that doesn't begin to include the electricity needed to run the air conditioning to remove the heat generated from all of the computer equipment. One hundred servers for example would consume $2,160 per month and 600 desktop PCs would consume $6,480 in electricity, again not counting air conditioning costs. If energy consumption can be cut by 30% (which is easily doable), an organization using 100 servers and 600 desktops would save $2,592 per month plus a lower air conditioning bill which could easily double the savings. For a mid-sized company with a mid-sized IT department, saving $4000 per month is significant. If the company were ten times this size, the savings would be ten times as large.
So just how does IT cut power consumption and what makes a more energy efficient computer and data center? There are many factors that dramatically affect energy efficiency and they are.
- CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) (example here)
- Mobile computer components
- Power supply efficiency (example here and here)
- LCD versus CRT monitor (on the desktop)
- Virtualization and server consolidation (introduction)
- More power full multi-core CPUs enable virtualization (arrival of quad core)
- Enabling power saving mode on energy star equipment
- DC power distribution, data center level, rack level, or blade chassis level
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Talkback
My simple question for the Dr.
What is it?
Not here
oh, well, another registation on another site
As I mentioned, no need to re-register
Blame M$ for part of that problem..
As a result many sites partition critical functions across several servers and keep them limited to one function. (Increasing the number of 24x7 file servers in operation.)
Linux doesn't have this problem of leaking kernel resources. Thus many different functions can be reliabily hosted by one server, yielding corresponding energy savings.
As for AMD verses INTEL..
I'll give the power advantage to AMD. They've been shipping power sipping designs for some time now. Intel has only RECENTLY got back into that game and we've yet to find out if they goofed in some way. (Like forgetting to license certain critical patents.)
Two years ago, I had to downgrade power supplies in newly built AMD Athlon-64 systems (380w ->250w) because they weren't drawing enough power to keep the PS in regulation. (~70watts AC with typical server load of perpherials).
Microsoft is responsible for all problems
It is well known that Microsoft sold software to the North Koreans, with complete knowledge that they were developing nuclear technology. And the PCs used contained Intel processors.
Powerpoint is the presentation tool of choice for Al-Qaeda. There have been numerous studies which have proven that terrorists that use Linux, specifically the Ubuntu distro, and Open Office frequently turn away from their evil ways, move to the United States, and join the Republican party.
The introduction of the Xbox 360 can be directly correlated to a rise in teenage drug use.
Several Microsoft executives, including Steve Ballmer, were recently spotted participating in Satanic worship rituals.
Talk about the entire package.
Ya gotta love the shilling if you an Intel fanboy
SOS, DD.
What does it matter???
WOW...
Does a shill mention the fact that Intel still produces inefficient chips?
That's, Intel still MAINLY produces inefficient chips
If I get this right, the buying choice should be, Core-2, Opteron/Athlon 64/Sempron, all other Intel chips in that order.
I'm not sure how this works into the "AMD is doomed" picture that you like to paint.
No, it's around 50% now and shrinking
At this point, people who want a lot of bang/buck will still buy the sub-hundred dollar Pentium Ds especially when they're bundled with nearly free mother boards. I wouldn't recommend it since the system uses a lot of power and you'll end up paying more in electricity but there are people who see the dualcore Pentium Ds that are relatively powerful for the price as good deals. I don't see them that way but many people do.
As for AMD, it makes absolutely no sense to buy any AMD processor that's over one hundred dollars that doesn't come with a motherboard and is dual core. The X2 processors have the absolute worst performance per dollar. While they're much better than Intel NetBurst CPUs in power consumption and slightly better in performance, they're much worse in performance and use more power than Intel's newer Core 2 CPUs.
AMD might become more competitive in the power race with their 65 nm die shrink but they will still lag far behind in performance. I don't see AMD catching up in performance for the next year. They might close the gap but they won't catch up.
Power Consumption: Let's do the math
Just for comparison, let's use the following assumptions:
-A computer is on 10 hours a day
-The power difference between Pentium-D and a Conroe is 50 watts. It's something around 65 watts at load, and 15 at idle, although its tough to get good numbers.
-The price of a kilowatt-hour is 10 cents.
So, every month you use the Conroe instead of a Pentium-D, you save $1.50. Every year, you save $18. If the life of the computer is 3 years, you save about $50.
Certainly there are applications the computer is on for more hours, or areas where you pay more for power, etc. but this should ballpark the real difference between the 2.
For a client where the CPU power is not a high priority, you can certainly make a good economic case for the older Pentium-D.
Uh...George?
We'll look in to that, thanks
Two years, eh?
Also, what about the poor 75% of Intel purchases that are non Core 2?