AMD Knocks Intel on Power?

Now this is interesting. Even though Intel is said to be faster than AMD in many respects, it seems that is some cases, AMD chips can get more done per clock cycle. Very interesting, very interesting indeed…

Even with Intel Corp.’s new focus on delivering higher processor performance per watt of energy, unveiled here at its fall Intel Developer Forum, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. maintains that its Opteron server chips consume less juice than its rival Intel’s Xeon server chips, either available now or coming in the near future.

AMD executives camped out at atop the Westin St. Francis hotel only a few blocks from Moscone Center West, where the developer forum took place, argued that because Opterons use less power, servers based on them will cost businesses less money to run.

Because they use less electricity, Opteron servers also run cooler and thus require less active cooling and can also be fit more tightly together in server racks, reducing the amount of infrastructure required to run them, an AMD executive said.

“We’ve got the best performance-per-watt story today,” said Brent Kirby, product marketing manager for Opteron, in an interview with Ziff Davis Internet. [Read the rest]