Intel Core 2 power savings more pressure on AMD

Stan Beer
Monday, 31 July 2006 18:06

Your IT - Home IT

While everybody from analysts to technologists are talking up the phenomenal performance of the latest Intel Core2 Duo range of dual-core processors, taking a back-seat has been the less glamorous but probably more important edge the range has in power consumption.

According to benchmark tests, the Core 2 Duo consumes 40% less power than Intel's previous generation of chips and has a significant edge on anything AMD has.

Power reduction is at least as important as performance in data centers because one of the major costs for organisations with multi-rack servers is the consumption of electricity.

What's more, the cost of electricity is a volatile resource which tends to be on an upward trend, so organizations are always looking for a way to cut their power bills as a means of reducing costs.

For AMD, the arrival of the Core 2 Duo is bad news from a sales point of view because it's hard to fight against a dollars and cents cost of ownership argument even if you drop your prices. For Intel, the opposite is true because it can justify charging higher prices for Core 2 Duo chips because the cost of ownership is lower.

Until AMD can match Intel in the power consumptions stakes, it looks very much like its 20% market share is going to be under constant downward stress.