Chips could deliver significant power savings for firms

Intel has began shipping its new Xeon LV server chip, amid claims the processor – codenamed Sossaman – could deliver significant power savings for energy-conscious firms.

The company said that the 32bit chip, which represents Intel’s first dual-core processor targeting blade servers, features total dissipated power of just over 30 watts while delivering two to four times better performance per watt than previous single-core Xeon chips.

IBM and Rackable Systems have already announced they will produce servers based on the processor, with IBM confirming the Xeon LV will feature in its BladeCenter Ultra Low Power HS20 blade server from next month.

Intel also revealed it plans to use the processor in a new single-board computer for its networking and manufacturing partners, and a new blade server, the Intel Server Compute Blade SBXD62, on which PC makers can build.

However, Greg Quick of analyst firm The 451 Group predicted that as Intel’s Woodcrest server processor with 64bit support is expected in the third quarter, interest in Sossaman will be limited.

“The importance for Intel is that it shows that it can get the Xeon’s power consumption down, to 31W, in an effort to show that it can counter AMD’s advantage in that area,” Quick said. “[But] Woodcrest’s release date appears to have been moved forward, and so only manufacturers that have already designed Sossaman products will release them… Why release older technology when in a few months [they] can release a product that also has 64bit support?”

The Xeon LV release is the latest in a series of moves by Intel to improve energy efficiency, including the launch this month of Core microarchitecture, which the chip giant claimed would deliver power savings of up to 40 percent in chips released later in the year.