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Google Demands Higher Chip Temps From Intel
JagsLive writes "When purchasing server processors directly from Intel, Google has insisted on a guarantee that the chips can operate at temperatures five degrees centigrade higher than their standard qualification, according to a former Google employee. This allowed the search giant to maintain higher temperatures within its data centers, the ex-employee says, and save millions of dollars each year in cooling costs."
WI'm surprised Google isn't considering moving some of its data centres to Arctic locations where you get cool temperatures year-round.
There is no reason to be surprised. It is cheaper to not move the data center to where it is colder and just make all upgraded hardware use the new chips. Google's budget calls for hardware upgrades already. Upgrading to CPUs with higher temp tolerances would mean they pay the same $X-thousand for the box they would anyway and simply turn the thermostat up.
A net savings.
Two words: "Free Cooling"
The greater the difference between your data centre's output air temperature and whatever passive external cooling system you are pumping it though, the more heat you can dump at zero cost. That's monetary cost as well as the cost to the environment through the energy "wasted" in HVAC systems and the like. Google has a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness; the ratio of power input to power acutally used for powering production systems) approaching 1.2 vs typical values of around 2.5-3.0 - Microsoft is around 2.75 as I recall - so they are clearly doing something right.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Most of the power supply systems for my servers, which are HP G3-5 systems of various U sizes, tend to waste more power as temperature goes up.
This has nothing to do with CPU's though. It is the power supplies on the machines. As temperature goes up, efficiency goes down. At around 80 degrees I noticed a significant larger draw on the power supply with my amp meter.
I had a gaming system with two ATI 4870's and the 800 Watt power supply would crash my machine if I did not run the air conditioner and keep the room at 70 degrees after some fairly long Supreme Commander runs.
I noticed that the amperage would go up, and the power output would go down as temperature would go up.
I have not conducted any experiments in a lab setting with this stuff, but from experience, jacking the temperature up usually makes power supplies work harder and makes them less efficient.
-gc
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Legend has it that the Celeron processor began its life as a way for Intel to make money off of the Pentiums that didn't pass quality control. If they sell the low performing processors at a discount, why shouldn't they sell the over performing ones at a premium?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".