Server efficiency increases again — but so do the caveats

Early in 2022, Uptime Intelligence observed that the return of Moore’s law in the data center (or, more accurately, the performance and energy efficiency gains associated with it) would come with major caveats (see Moore’s law resumes — but not for all). Next-generation server technologies’ potential to improve energy efficiency, Uptime Intelligence surmised at the time, would be unlocked by more advanced enterprise IT teams and at-scale operators that can concentrate workloads for high utilization and make use of new hardware features.

Conversely, when servers built around the latest Intel and AMD chips do not have enough work, energy performance can deteriorate due to higher levels of idle server power. Following the recent launch of new server processors, performance data confirms this, which suggests that a rethink on the traditional assumptions relating to server refresh cycles is needed.