Saving power with dual-core

My friend Andrew Binstock has posted a brief, yet fascinating, discussion about the potential power savings by using dual-core processors. In “MIPS per Watt: The Progression,” he tests similar Dell workstations using a Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, and shows that dual-core system using single AMD Opteron and Intel Pentium D processors draw less juice than a system with two single-core Intel Xeon processors, with minimal performance tradeoff.

Thus, the performance/watt ratio for single-chip dual-core systems is considerably higher than for dual-chip systems.

There aren’t broad implications of this benefit for desktop PCs, since few have dual processors. Most desktops are single-chip machines.

The big payoff is in the data center. When it comes to low-profile servers, for many IT departments a dual-processor server is the baseline deployment platform. I fall into that trap too, since a dual-processor pizza box is what I generally recommend. However, in many cases, a single dual-core processor may offer all the performance required, and the power savings over a dual-processor server can be significant.

For another thought about dual-core processors, see Andrew’s previous post, “Multicores not as productive as you expected?“