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HP's Mr Blade opens Intel's power envelope to all

More Watts than you can shake an Opteron at

Many of you probably don't know HP's Mr Blade. You should. He's one cool character and full of information on Intel's upcoming Xeon processors.

Mr Blade - aka Ken Baker, an Infrastructure Technologist at HP - gives a vague outline of the TDP (thermal design power) figures on the Xeons, in a presentation that has leaked to the web. Most notably, the HP staffer outs Intel's multicore Xeon chip code-named Whitefield as having a TDP between 100 and 130W. Then Woodcrest - a lower-end, multicore future Xeon - will come in at 70W. Both of these chips are pegged for 2006 delivery by Mr Blade, which is well ahead of Intel's public schedule. Perhaps Mr Blade got too excited or he might just be using a dated presentation. Either way, the thermals help paint a picture of where Intel is going.

Chips a little closer to release include the dual-core Tulsa, coming in with a TDP of 175W and the lower-end Dempsey chip hitting 150W. Those figures have to be reassuring to the more power consumption conscious AMD. Current dual-core Opterons are chewing up 95W.

Mr Blade seems well aware of AMD's power saving skills. On a number of slides, he touts the advantages of Opteron and notes that HP's DL and BL servers have 10 to 33 per cent lower power consumption than . . . .

Than what? We're sure you can fill in the blank.

In general, Mr Blade is out to tout HP's proficiency at cooling data centers. It has plans for - uh oh - water-cooled cabinets coming any day now. HP is also proud that its ProLiant systems can tap into all the latest and greatest power management tools in Windows Server and the high-end versions of Red Hat and SuSE.

HP plans to update its Power Calculator software, modestly described by Mr Blade as "the most accurate power calculation tool on the market today." Highlights of the tool are that it's "free" and "conservative" - something we can all aspire to. Users should feel free to send in their input for how Power Calculator can be improved.

You're welcome to peek at the PDF for yourself by traveling over here to Real World Technologies. Although, we suspect the docs will go missing very shortly. Thanks, Mr Blade. Keep cool.®

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