Shootouts

Showdown: Barcelona vs. Clovertown vs. Harpertown

By Vijay Anand - 13 Nov 2007

Results - Power Consumption

Results - Power Consumption

Having seen the performance results, we hooked up a power meter at the outlet to check out just how power efficient these systems were. Unlike desktop DIY components where we can acquire products to ensure that everything is closely matched as possible, you can't do so at the server level. Each of the rack systems has their own cooling ecosystem to fit the specific design needs, while the same applies to the specific component cooling like the CPU and others. Even the type of PSU used and their efficiency determines the total power draw of the system.

While that portion is out of our control, we did our best to control the other parameters like ensure the same single hard drive and optical drive is used as well as ensuring auxiliary peripheral cards were removed from the system. Even then, the Clovertown machine doesn't use on-board graphics like the Barcelona and Harpertown system, so we stuck a low-end GeForce 8400 GS to ensure low power draw from the card. Memory was another area where it was not quite 'fair' across the board. While all systems had 8GB of memory, the number of modules and the type used were different. The AMD platform naturally used registered DDR2 memory and there were four 2GB modules. The Harpertown system came with four pieces of 2GB FB-DIMM DDR2-667 memory, but the Clovertown machine was installed with eight pieces of 1GB FB-DIMM DDR2-533 memory. Now take note of these while deciphering the power readings below:-

Focusing on the AMD Opteron 2347 (Barcelona) and the Intel Xeon L5320 processors, Intel has a clear win in this area. Now before remarking anything further, do note that the Opteron 2347 is priced similarly to the Xeon L5320 and that both have similar performance in some tests while there are others which Intel picks up the win. So from a price-performance perspective, there's really nothing to dispute here. In addition to that, you have to factor in that the Clovertown systems were a little disadvantaged with a discrete graphics card versus those with on board graphics. Also, remember the common complaint that the FB-DIMM runs hot and consumes more power? Well, again the Clovertown machine is at a further 'disadvantage' as it had eight pieces of FB-DIMM memory, twice the number of modules on the Barcelona. Even in terms of heat output, we didn't find it unusually warm. And on the CPU side, both operated at reasonably low temperatures. Intel actually operated much cooler, but this could also be due to the thermal removal solution on the rack in addition to the low voltage processors.

So despite the mentioned drawbacks, the Intel Xeon L5320 machine has proven itself to have better performance, value and power consumption. With all the work that AMD had put in the processor for aggressive power savings, it was sad and unfortunate that we did not really see much of those technologies matching Intel's solution.

Over on the high-end performance solutions, Harpertown's new 45nm process technology is paying off big time as you can see the huge difference in power savings from that of a Clovertown. In fact this upcoming 3GHz, near-top-of-the-line SKU from Intel has lower peak power consumption than the Barcelona's near-top-of-the-line SKU, while the performance of the Xeon E5472 is miles and miles ahead.

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