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Data Centre Efficiency

Data Center Efficiency

Data centre efficiency

Intel innovations in data center efficiency focus on performance metrics and delivering precise instrumentation that can help your business gain efficiency at the processor, platform, and data center levels – without negatively impacting performance.

Developing better performance metrics

In collaboration with industry standards organizations, Intel is helping to develop a more reliable industry-accepted metric. This helps measure energy consumption and performance at all levels of utilization, from idle to peak, that a server experiences in a typical day, week, or month.

More reliable performance metrics give server manufacturers:

  • Better guidelines for designing energy-efficient servers
  • Better ways to demonstrate energy efficiency to customers
  • Fairer product comparisons on the basis of energy efficiency

Driving energy efficiency at the processor level

Year after year, Intel has developed more efficient server technologies without compromising performance. Now, recent breakthroughs in silicon process and microarchitecture are delivering revolutionary server processor speeds while reducing costly electrical leakage from transistors that can hamper chip and server design, size, power consumption, noise, and costs.

Here are some energy-efficient, high-performance Intel server technologies your business can use to increase productivity and lower overhead costs:

  • The Intel® Xeon® E7 processor can achieve up to 20x the performance of older four-socket single-core servers1 and up to 90% lower operating costs2
  • The Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 delivers up to a 15x performance gain over single-core Intel® Xeon® processors3 and uses up to 30% less operating power than the Intel® Xeon® processor 55004

Improving energy efficiency at the platform level

By thinking beyond just the processor, Intel is increasing energy efficiency across the entire server ecosystem with innovations such as the Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager. Available on compliant Intel® Xeon® processor 5600– and E7 –based servers, it uses precise instrumentation to monitor, report, and cap system power, enabling you to increase performance density, improve availability, and lower your total cost of operation. Oracle was recently successful in increasing rack density and lowering costs with Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager.

Hardware-assisted Intel® Virtualisation Technology (Intel VT)

5 also helps provide maximum system utilization by consolidating multiple environments into a single server, workstation, or PC.

Other strides in energy efficiency at the platform level include improved server utilization and energy-efficient platform components.

Promoting data centre efficiency

Data center efficiency is good for your business and for the environment. Below are several other ways Intel is helping promote data center efficiency within our business as well as yours.

  • Intel is a board member of the Green Grid, a non-profit consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe.
  • Enabling simplified management for large data centers using our Data Center Management Interface, derived from IPMI 2.0, reduces the cost and complexity of server platform management in high-density data centers.
  • See how a server refresh could impact your ROI. Register to use our server refresh ROI analysis tool. It’s just another way Intel hopes to keep your data center running more efficiently.

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Product and Performance Information

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1. Intel measurements as of March 2010 of Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 and single-core 4-socket systems. Performance comparison using SPECint_rate_base 2006. Results have been estimated based on internal Intel analysis and are provided for informational purposes only. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.


2. Intel performance comparison using SPECint_rate_base2006* performance results between 5-year-old single-core Intel® Xeon® processor 3.33 Hz based servers and one new Intel® Xeon® processor X7560 based server. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing.


3. Source:Intel estimates as of Jan 2010. Performance comparison using SPECjbb2005 bops (business operations per second). Results have been estimated based on internal Intel analysis and are provided for informational purposes only. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.


4. Source: Fujitsu Performance measurements comparing Intel® Xeon® processor L5650 vs X5570 SKUs using SPECint_rate_base2006. See docs.ts.fujitsu.com/dl.aspx?id=0140b19d-56e3-4b24-a01e-26b8a80cfe53 and docs.ts.fujitsu.com/dl.aspx?id=4af74e10-24b1-4cf8-bb3b-9c4f5f177389.


5. Intel® Virtualization Technology requires a computer system with an enabled Intel® processor, BIOS, virtual machine monitor (VMM) and, for some uses, certain platform software enabled for it. Functionality, performance or other benefits will vary depending on hardware and software configurations and may require a BIOS update. Software applications may not be compatible with all operating systems. Please check with your application vendor.