The Server Room Blog : Tags : turbo

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Intel Servers - keeping it green...

Posted by Todd Christ Sep 9, 2009

I'm always looking for good ways to describe to end-users what Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager can relate to everyday activities. Over the weekend, I was helping a buddy of mine move to a new home, and of course we rented a truck. While we were driving, we noticed a cool gauge on the dash and a pretty simple sticker describing what it does:

Keep it in the Green - what a simple concept! Most everyone can relate to the gas pedal in your vehicle directly with gas mileage. If you have a lead-foot, you burn more gas. But people who want to conserve, and keep it green - use cruise control.

Well, Intel servers can also be managed to optimize the energy consumed by the platform. Power Optimzed servers using X5500 Series Processors (Nehalem) and the X5500 chipset in conjunction with Node Manager is like cruise-control - you set your "speed" and the servers keep that maximum speed. It's all managed via P/T states using Intel Datacenter Manager.

Of course, at times the RED ZONE is needed - work needs to get DONE - so you throttle up, kick in the Turbo Boost and release that power cap! But there are also times when all that energy isn't needed - so you lift your foot off the gas pedal, and set your speed for the work that needs to be done. Intel Xeon based servers can transition to higher/lower power states using technologies like EIST, DBS, and Node Manager.

Keep your eyes on the lookout for more data on Intel and server power management at the Intel Developer Forum 2009

Cloud Power Management with Intel® Microarchitecture (Nehalem) Processor-based Platforms

Check Twitter for more details @IDF and @IntelNews and search #IDF09

* disclaimer: giving credit where credit is due U-Haul owns that sticker and tagline!

0 Comments Permalink Tags: idf_30in30, turbo_boost, turbo, xeon, datacenter_manager, 45nm, x5500, intel, node_manager, idf, nehalem, idf_2009, #idf2009

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Is Intel® pounding their chest…again?

Posted by Michael Haedrich Apr 3, 2009

Intel® has just launched their latest server processor, the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series. It really is a breakthrough processor for Intel and a clearly phenomenal solution for HPC. I was watching a keynote presentation this week and our Vice President was downright giddy about it. What makes this processor such a phenomenal solution for HPC? The answer is really easy; it expands capabilities and shortens users’ time to results. The real question is how does this processor perform so much better than other solutions out there? This answer is a bit more complicated but really fun to answer. Here we go…

Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) – This is the technology that has replaced the front side bus used in previous generation Xeon® processors. Our previous generation architecture had a bandwidth of 21 GB/s vs. the QPI bandwidth of 46.1 GB/s. This is a speedup of 2.2X, very impressive. For applications that require lots of I/O this is huge. It’s like going from a country back road to an expressway!

Integrated memory controller – Intel has moved the memory controller from the MCH (memory controller Hub) into the processor. In addition to integrating the memory controller, Intel is now using native DDR3 with speeds up to 1333MHz and three memory channelsper processor; this is a total of 6 memory channels and 64 GB/s of total memory bandwidth for a 2S HPC node. This is a 3x jump in memory bandwidth from theprevious generation memory controller which only supported speeds up to 1066MHz and 4 memory channels. By integrating the memory controller you are now in closer contact with the processor for lower latency reads and writes. Intel added two additional memory channel (one per socket) to increase memory capacity and increase the speed to faster reads and writes.

Energy efficient design – The new Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series has the dynamic capability of turning off cores when not required. There are more power states and has the ability to transition between power states faster than ever before. Net, net this means less power consumption. By consuming less power and providing world class performance Intel has created a solution that cries out HPC!

By taking advantage of the power saving, Intel has introduced another feature called Intel® Turbo Boost Technology. Intel® Turbo Boost Technology automatically increases processor frequency to boost application performance if thermal headroom is available. Depending on the environment Turbo Boost can increase the processor frequency by as much as 400 MHz!

Another technology supported in the Intel® Xeon processor 5500 series is Hyper-Threading. Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology enables users to run multiple threads on each processing core to increase total application performance while requiring only a fraction of the power that would be necessary to support additional cores. For highly threaded HPC applications this is showing performance gains over 25%.

The Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series is considered a general purpose processor. However, a closer look at the features and capabilities show that this is one heck of an HPC solution. You can’t help but think Intel knew HPC was an important market segment for servers and they had this in mind as they created the architecture and developed the features.

Well, is Intel pounding their chest…again! They should be. The introduction of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series is breakthrough architecture for HPC users. The industry hasn’t seen generation to generation performance gains like this since the Pentium® Pro was introduced back in the mid 90’s. Congratulations Intel and go ahead and pound that chest, you deserve it!

0 Comments Permalink Tags: nhelaem, hpc, intel_xeon_5500, qpi, turbo_boost, hyperthreading

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A Heart to Heart Talk on Turbo Boost

Posted by Ed Groden Mar 30, 2009

I enjoy running, and I typically train with a heart rate monitor to help me stay in a certain zone during my workouts. When I was out on a run the other day and started to settle into my zone, instead of my mind drifting off to a peaceful place (like it should), for some reason it started drawing parallels about the human heart and Turbo Boost Technology. I decided to play along as I was my own captive audience.

Let’s start with the heart, which as a pump has evolved over a long time to be pretty darn reliable and adapt quickly based on the needs of its owner. It’s nominally rated at about 70-100 beats per minute (BPM), which is all it needs to do to support most activities during a normal day. If you take care of it and operate it within spec, it should provide many years of reliable service in that range.

However, we know the heart is capable is much higher rates, and most every day I operate it well above the rated 70-100 BPM during my runs. As long as I take in enough air, don’t overheat, or don’t cramp up, my heart can maintain these higher rates without much problem. In fact, if I feel REALLY good on a particular day, I can probably go above my max heart rate, but it’s not recommended and a lot of bad things can happen (a typically accepted max BPM calculation is 220 BPM – your age).

How does this relate to Turbo Boost Technology?

Xeon® 5500 processors are spec’d at a rated frequency (for example, 2.93 GHz), and the processor and platform are designed to operate for an indefinite period of time at that frequency. With Turbo Boost, the processor is now able to run higher than rated frequency whenever you need a boost in performance, provided it meets the following conditions: (1) the operating system requests the extra performance (I want to go out running), and (2) the processor has power, current, or temperature headroom (I’m getting enough air, and not overheating or cramping up). As long as those conditions are met, the processor will run at those higher frequencies to maximize performance whenever it’s needed, either for short periods, long periods, or somewhere in-between. When your performance demands drop, the processor frequency drops down to normal.

How high can you Turbo?

Similar to your maximum heart rate, we need to set Turbo Boost frequency limits in the Xeon® 5500 processors. For example, the highest Turbo frequency the 2.93 GHz processor can support is 3.33 GHz, which is a 400 MHz jump. While there still could be platform headroom even at the highest Turbo Boost frequency (I’m still feeling good at my max heart rate), we need to set these limits to ensure the processors will function reliably for a good long time.

So let your servers get some exercise with Turbo Boost – they’ll thank you for it.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: xeon_5500, data_center, server, turbo_boost, servers, turbo, xeon, datacenter, nehalem, 45nm, nehalem-ep, server_room