Study: AMD more power-efficient than Intel

AMD Opteron servers proved more energy efficient than those running Intel Xeon in a server-power-efficiency test performed by Neal Nelson and Associates.

Specifically, the independent computer-testing firm announced today that in the tests, “the AMD based server used 7.3 to 15.2 percent less power at five different user load levels and 44.1 percent less power while the systems were idle and waiting for work.”

That translates to annual electricity savings between $20.29 per server and $36.04 per server, depending on the workload, the study concluded. At idle speeds, it amounts to a $99.76 per-server, per year saving.

“AMD must have put a lot of energy into optimizing the power usage for their products and it appears that AMD’s customers will now realize significant energy savings,” said Neal Nelson, president of the testing group, in a written statement.

Neal Nelson and Associates took a new approach for this test, employing at client-server benchmark where Web transactions were processed against a server running Novell SUSE Linux, Apache2, and MySQL. The tests were run on similarly configured 3GHz Intel (Woodcrest) Xeon and AMD Opteron servers, according to Neal Nelson and Associates.

Not surprisingly, AMD was pleased with the test results, though as I write, no one at the company has had a chance to fully review the report. “While we did not review the methodology for these tests, we are not surprised by the results as they reiterate what we hear from customers and see in our own labs,” said John Fruehe, manager of worldwide market development for server/workstation products at AMD, in a written statement. “We appreciate Neal’s efforts to shed additional light on energy-efficient server computing, as it further validates what we’ve known is an important issue for our customers for some time. AMD is committed to delivering energy-efficient solutions to our customers, as you’ll see when we roll-out our native Quad-Core processor, codenamed ‘Barcelona,’ (with the same power and thermals as our dual-core processors) later this summer … .”

Intel issued this comment today: “We stand by all of our energy efficient claims, period. We also recommend that IT managers who don’t do their own in-house testing turn to the dozens to hundreds of independent and certifiable benchmark organizations for the best, most credible perspective.”

There is a thread on the subject below, and Neal Nelson has taken some time to address the specific questions and comments some of you have raised.

Also, there are discussions going on at Slashdot and Xtreme Systems.

For those of you who are interested in reading the specs on the servers and details of the test methodology, the report can be viewed here [PDF].