Energy Consumption

Intel unveils Centrino 2 platform

Paul Mah — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:03:45 -0400

In the latest salvo against arch-rival AMD, Intel is releasing a total of five new processors as part of its Centrino 2 platform that is designed to do tasks like high-definition video playback, yet deliver improved battery power. Clock speeds range between 2.26 GHz and 3.06 GHz for the five processors, with a trio of them running on 25 watts of power instead of the typical 35 watts. The new Centrino 2 platform itself consists of a package that includes a processor, a related chipset, and another chip for wireless communications.

Where power consumption is concerned, Intel has the upper hand as it has shifted over to manufacturing processes that lower both the cost and energy consumption per chip. In fact, it appears that Intel plans to unveil additional processors within the next 90 days, including the first ever quad-core offerings targeted at the mobile segment

For more on Intel's new Centrino 2 platform:
- check out this eWeek article

Smart software could mean big energy savings in data centers

Paul Mah — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:23:33 -0400

A new software designed for use in the data center could well translate into huge energy--and hence monetary--savings. A one-year old company called Power Assure thinks its Holistic Power Management Services has the solution. Typically, even an idling server uses between 60 and 90 percent of the power required to operate at peak capacity. To cope with unexpected shifts in traffic and in required processing capacity, companies tend to leave them on--resulting in big losses.

By monitoring power usage data every minute, the software will dynamically power servers on or off to maximize energy consumption. If you take into consideration that a large server farm may spend up to $6 million yearly on electrical bills, this can add up to huge amounts of money that will be saved.

To read up more on the Holistic Power Management Services:
- check out this CNET News article

Seagate plans 2TB SSD for next year

Paul Mah — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:21:50 -0400

Seagate will be bringing in the company's first SSD (solid state drive) offering by next year. Not surprisingly, it will be targeted squarely at the enterprise where they can afford the premium of using flash memory as a hard disk. In this article in The Inquirer, CEO Bill Watkins reiterates Seagate's long-term commitment of targeting SSD toward top-tier enterprises eager for both its higher performance and low energy consumption. Yet all the talk about SSD in the enterprise avoids the fact that it remains a technology yet to prove itself in a transaction-intensive environment. Still, with Google also looking at SSD for use in its data centers, there definitely are niche applications out there perfectly suited for SSDs.

For more on Seagate's move toward SSD:
- check out this The Inquirer article

Dell pledges to be more energy efficient

Paul Mah — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:23:32 -0400

Dell is pledging to reduce the energy consumption of its notebooks and desktops by up to 25 percent. This is to happen within two years, and will be achieved by more energy-efficient circuit designs, fans, and more advanced power-management features. By working with suppliers, Dell also expects to leverage on lower power components in areas such as the chipsets, power supplies, and memories.

In the past, Dell had been criticized for bundling an excessive amount of unnecessary software--or bloatware--onto its systems. It has since announced that most of this pre-installed software will be offered as an option at the point of configuration.

For more on Dell's push to be more power efficient:
- check out the InformationWeek article