Intel Claims Core Microprocessors Saved World Economy $2 Billion In Energy Costs

Intel’s engineers compared the power consumption of current generation Core processors with that of previous generations of processors. They came up with some impressive savings, so has Greenpeace found a friend in the semiconductor industry?

Calculating the amount of energy that has been saved over the last two years by taking into consideration power consumption, number of processors sold and the length of time they were expected to be running, engineers estimated a saving of 20 Terawatt hours compared to what earlier generations would have used over the same amount of time.

General Manager of Intel’s Eco-Technology Program Lorie Wigle published an article on an Intel blog explaining how the energy efficiency of the Core microarchitecture has saved the world economy $2 Billion in energy costs since its launch in 2006, assuming a $0.10 per kWh price tag.

The electricity bill for businesses that run computers 24 hours a day can be quite expensive. Using components with lower power consumption can cut costs significantly over the long term. While maximum performance is generally desired by end users more than reducing their carbon footprint, reductions in energy costs is always a welcome bonus.

Ironically, Intel recently began shipping their new dual-core Atom 330 processor, which has a power consumption double that of the Atom 230. While the Atom 330 itself does not significantly contribute to the world’s power consumption compared to Intel’s far more powerful desktop parts, this move goes completely against the semiconductor giant’s claim to be able to "have [their] cake and eat it too" - increase performance while reducing power consumption.

  • megamanx00
    Yeah, compared to their Pentium 4s :lol:
    Reply
  • Youmight almost say,because intel has been slow-step increasing processor's powerdraw over the past 20 years,it may have gone unnoticed how much electricity because of then is being used today.
    Instead of creating processors on a smaller die,and try to keep powerdraw as low as possible, they often increased powerdraw in favor for cpu speed.

    Atom dualcore is a processor that will probably replace many of the Core2Duo and older singlecore machines out there!
    The TDP might be double of the Atom single core, but it can do nearly everything a normal user needs(appart from gaming or CPU intensive tasks),including running Vista,which was just too slow for the single core Atom.

    Remember that the average Core2Duo has a TDP of arround 40W, someless, some more. and some have a TDP of over 100Watts.
    That'd be the same as running 12 atom cores on one system!
    Reply
  • aldo_gg
    I would say, AMD saved the world 3 billion in Energy Cost by creating the Athlon 64 as it was the initial seed that started all.
    Reply
  • chaohsiangchen
    aldo_ggI would say, AMD saved the world 3 billion in Energy Cost by creating the Athlon 64 as it was the initial seed that started all.
    Then negated all their previous efforts with Phenom.
    Reply
  • chaohsiangchen
    Megamanx00Yeah, compared to their Pentium 4s
    P4 is OK, not really as bad as two P4 stick side to side. Oh, wait.....
    Reply
  • frozenlead
    Most business's I've seen with IT run pentium 4/ pentium d machines...because they're cheap.


    and not green.
    Reply
  • ravenware
    P4's are obsolete and should their way into the nearest trash bin. :)

    I would like to see an energy test round up with P4's, C2D's, Athlon XP's, early gen AMD64 and Current gen AMD64(AM2 & AM2+).
    Reply
  • So this statistic pretty much means that if nobody had upgraded their servers since 2003, this is how much more electricity would've been wasted? Intel quads and northbridges tend to waste quite a bit of electricity TBH.
    Reply
  • yeah right!!!...they save from their own once power hungry processor....its not a save but a somewhat recover ....lol
    Reply
  • ravenware
    Awww, there is P4 fanboy in here. Him sad cuz his CPU has been out classed for 5 years...:(
    Reply