Server Benchmarking Lone Wolf Bites Intel Again

Ian Lamont writes "Neal Nelson, the engineer who conducts independent server benchmarking, has nipped Intel again by reporting that AMD's Opteron chips 'delivered better power efficiency' than Xeon processors. Intel has discounted the findings, claiming that Nelson's methodology 'ignores performance,' but the company may not be able to ignore Nelson for much longer: the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp., a nonprofit company that develops computing benchmarks, is expected to publish a new test suite for comparing server efficiency that Nelson believes will be similar to his own benchmarks that measure server power usage directly from the wall plug."

We're three days from the AMD Barcelona launch

[Anonymous Coward]

So who cares about those ancient CPUs.

Re:She Cannot Be Fooled

[click2005]

OK, I'm intrigued. What kind of fudge do the current efficiency tests consist of? Measuring generated heat with a thermometer?

They used to but now they time how long it takes to toast a marshmallow. Its useful because you can use the melted mallows as thermal paste. Its not as efficient as Arctic Silver 5 but I hear its better than the standard ceramic stuff.

Re:Does it matter?

[moderatorrater]

Let's not forget the environmental factor of using less electricity. More electricity means more carbon, and even if it doesn't matter to your company, it matters to other companies that your company will deal with.