Xeon's G stepping can halve idle power consumption

The firm's latest Thermal Design Power (TDP) sheet details how much power the new Xeon Revision G processor eats in comparison with the older ones, and the difference is somewhat shocking.

Revision G touches both dual-core Woodcrest and quad-core Clovertown cores, and demonstrates further improvements Chipzilla is making to its 65nm process. Withe a few tweaks, the firm has managed to radically improve the TDP ratings of its dual-core and quad-core models, albeit in idle mode.

According to the latest data, the firm halved the power consumption of its quad-core Xeon X5365, from 50W to 25W, in case of top-end Clovertown. And the very same idle thermals apply to the X5355 (quad-core 2.66GHz) and the E5340 (quad-core 2.33GHz). Other models from the line-up will not be available with RevG core.

In the world of dual-cores, RevG will be available as already mentioned 5160, 5150 (2.66GHz), 5140 (2.33GHz) and the slowest 5110 (1.6GHz) got cut down from 15W in idle to only 6W.

Models not included in the RevG world are 5130, 5120 and E5310, E5320, E5330.

All in all, the power savings are quite impressive, but bear in mind that when comparing with Opteron processors, you should include the power-hungry Intel Northbridge chips as well, to make a valid comparison.

Then again, the Stoakley chipset and the 45nm Penryn processors for servers (the dual-core server processor is called Wolfdale, the quad-core processor is Harpertown) are approaching and so AMD's Barcelona better deliver, both in terms of performance and power consumption, lest the nascent duopoly reverts to a monopoly.

TechReport posted the full power table here. µ