Multi-tasking computers diminish energy needs

‘ ‘ ‘ Computers are great at multitasking, but with many jobs comes little energy. And that’s… ‘ ‘ ‘ Computers are great at multitasking, but with many jobs comes little energy. And that’s just your home computer ‘mdash; not to mention large corporations who have enormous and pressing computing needs. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Companies like Google, which runs thousands ‘mdash; perhaps millions ‘mdash; of servers constantly to provide critical services like 7-gigabyte e-mail, RSS news feeds, online document processing and driving directions, are finding energy bills continually demanding a large chunk of their budget. Smaller companies, which may have grand computing requirements but limited’ budgets, might find the power consumption of large, high-performance computing clusters prohibitive. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Power consumption concerns are also a problem for individuals who run laptops, which are rather pointless if they shut down after 10 minutes of use. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Both Intel and AMD realize that power is a concern, and both have made pushes to develop power-efficient and low-power processors. AMD has made the next decisive move, however. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ AMD’s line of server processors, the Opterons, is designed for high-intensity processing. Now obtainable with five cores, large on-chip processor caches and speedy internal clocks, the Opterons are designed to sit in an air-conditioned room and crunch through an exorbitant amount of data. Before a few weeks ago, the Cadillac Opteron required about 75 Watts of power to function. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ AMD announced the roll out of a new Opteron processor, part of the Shanghai iteration of the Opteron family. During heavy load, the processor requires 55 watts. If an entire server farm is replaced using the new Shanghai Opteron processors, the change in 20 Watts of power consumption per processor quickly adds up to large savings. Where there is more savings, there is the possibility of adding more computers and expanding overall processing capabilities. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ This is all very exciting, but the new technology will rarely touch the consumer market. Online retailers sell the original Opterons for a minimum of $389.99 for only a modest processor. To make matters more expensive, the more powerful processors also require a step-up in motherboard and memory technology in order to work. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Before you completely write off a reduction in processor oomph, think about your usual computing day. You may check your e-mail, surf the Internet a little and watch a video online. A large, power-hungry multi-core processor is a little overkill for these applications. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ A cut-down PC or laptop ‘mdash; perhaps even a netbook ‘mdash; could be used for the everyday, processor non-intensive applications, while your power-hungry desktop remains off. That desktop can be booted up for high-intensity applications ‘mdash; like games or software development ‘mdash; only when it is needed. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Intel’s offering to the netbook world is the small Atom processor. The Atom processors commonly run at a much slower clock rate than their large desktop and multi-core brethren. You can buy a netbook now that runs at 1 gHz. The performance and response time of the netbook or small desktop is kept acceptable by reducing the complexity of the machine at large and by running tea-totaling Linux operating systems. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Although Intel and the much smaller company Via have led netbook technology, AMD has not been sitting quietly. It is adding to its Opteron announcement by mentioning the release of its answer to the Atom processor designed for embedded and netbook and small desktop applications. The new AMD processor will be designed, as its much bigger Opteron brother was, to give netbook users significantly longer battery life. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ The world is moving toward much more energy-efficient processors. AMD may be catching up to Intel, but Intel will assuredly work hard to stay on top in the field.