After running the original Barcelona Opteron for a time, the new Shanghai processor was powered up. The graphs at the bottom of the screen show there has been a small increase in the power used by the 45nm Shanghai quad-core processor over its 65nm Barcelona predecessor. The graph on the right-hand side of the middle row shows the performance of the Shanghai processor (in terms of HTTP requests) has increased noticeably.

The power-use graph [top right-hand side] shows the watts per request made, which has dropped substantially in comparison with the equivalent Barcelona graph. This is a raw illustration of the energy efficiency of the processor, and how much work it can do for the energy used.

Energy efficiency is the feature AMD is promoting as a step forward in design. The demonstration appeared genuine, however it was carried out and entirely controlled by AMD. In terms of independent checking, AMD points to the fact the demonstration was performed on a user site belonging to one of the company's largest customers, the ISP, Strato.

Credit: Colin Barker/ZDNet.co.uk

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