Intel, HP Strengthen Green Computing Campaigns

Reaffirming their commitment to green computing, Intel and HP announced planet-saving initiatives at the "Greenergy" forum, a slight twist from the Synergy event that the two have been jointly organizing since 1997.

"There's been a lot of talk about efforts (that) everybody's doing, steps they are undertaking in terms of greening," said Ricky Banaag, Intel Technology Philippines Inc. country manager, who explained that Intel's approach to "eco-technology" is driven through four pillars: sustainable manufacturing, energy-efficient performance, design for the environment, and policy and industry.

According to Banaag, Intel has long been working on reducing the environmental impact of the company's operations through various initiatives like: solid waste and consumer recycling to reduce e-waste, packaging reductions of 16-40 percent which decreased number of shipments and fuel consumption, and the pursuit of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for fabrication plants and buildings, among many others.

In the next five years, Banaag said Intel has the following environmental goals: to reduce absolute global warming gas footprint by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce energy consumption per chip 5 percent per year from 2007 through 2012; ensure that Intel products maintain energy efficiency for the next two product generations; reduce water use per chip by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce generation of chemical waste per chip by 10 percent by 2012 from 2007 levels; and recycle 80 percent of chemical and solid waste generated per year.

Banaag also shared that Intel, along with Google and the World Wildlife Fund, has been actively promoting the Climate Savers Computing Initiative which aims to improve computing energy efficiency by 50 percent (by collectively saving $5.5 billion in energy costs) as well as to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 54 million tons per year.

Meanwhile, HP has been just as busy with similar greening initiatives both internally and in the products that they come up with as they see more customers, especially enterprise consumers, are actually also beginning to look at what companies like HP are currently doing to promote greening.

Aside from its reduced energy consumption and recycling initiatives, HP has been coming up with flat panel displays instead of cathode ray tube (CRT) screens since the former are said to use less material and energy. The company has also been renewing its inkjet packaging and pouring in investments on energy-efficient product lines like the HP server processors, desk jet printers, laser jet printers, blade PCs, xw6400 workstation, and its servers and storage.

HP Philippines managing director David Tan shared that HP has collaborated with Dreamworks Animation in coming up with the Halo studio--a network of rooms that lets HP employees meet with colleagues from across the globe by providing life-size, real-time, eye-to-eye conferencing with no delay. According to Tan, use of the Halo studio in global HP offices has led to productivity gains and huge travel cost savings. Asked whether the HP office in the Philippines shall have a Halo studio set up as well, Tan said the Philippines is one of the countries recommended to install Halo, most likely by next year.

HP has also embarked on the "Planet Partners Program" which offers to take back end-of-life HP and non-HP computing equipment like PCs, handhelds, notebooks, servers, printers, etcetera, for recycling. According to Tan, HP has, in fact, recycled more than 250 million HP print cartridges worldwide since the inception of the Planet Partners program in 1991.

In the future, Tan says HP will continue to "green" its operations by reducing their combined product and operations energy use and associated greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 25 percent in 2010 and recover 2 billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010.

Source: cio.in/news/viewArticle/ARTICLEID=5800014
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HP Unveils Solid-state 'Green' Desktops

HP and Intel have teamed up to unveil a line of energy-conscious workstations.The companies showed off two new PCs, the DC 5800 and the DC 7800, at a special event in San Francisco recently.

The machines are designed for maximum power efficiency, and offer more efficient power supplies and software to better manage auto-shutdowns.

A notable feature on the DC 7800 is an optional 16Gb SanDisk solid-state hard disk. The drive will add $300 (€204)to the cost, but offers faster boot and load times and improved power efficiency.

Kirk Godkin, senior product manager at HP, told reporters that he expects solid-state drives to become a mainstay of the company's PC offerings by 2010, when chip prices fall sufficiently to make the drives practical.

The new PCs also feature Intel processors with vPro remote management tools. The processors will work with Surveyor, a tool which allows network administrators to gauge power consumption on large networks.

HP plans to have a version of Surveyor for small to medium sized businesses within a month. The new PCs form part of a larger environmental effort by the two companies. Other elements include more efficient data centres, better recycling initiatives and new building materials.

The recycling programme has been hampered, however, particularly with government regulations.

Carl Eckersley, of HP's Personal Systems Group, told reporters that electronic waste and recycling efforts have been slowed by different laws throughout the US.

Eckersley pointed to the recent WEEE laws in Europe as an example of how electronic waste could be regulated. "The Europeans are as advanced as anybody, "he said.

Source:techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=11710
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The Energy Saving Computer

The modern computer is not as efficient as it could be. With the demands for performance, manufacturers like Intel and AMD are thinking, 'how can I build the fastest processor without overheating the system?' What they should be thinking is how can we make an efficient processor that runs fast while using less energy. The technology has already been created for laptops. Since laptops have to be able to run an a battery, they are designed to be as efficient as possible. For this reason laptops are 90% more efficient than a desktop computer. Sure the performance is weaker on the laptop but that will soon change. Todays laptops are way faster than the average desktop five years ago.

If you are in the market for a new computer consider Intel's new Core2 Duo or Quarto processors they are currently the most energy efficient ones out there, AMD's are usually less efficient and they can get really hot. Not good, unless you need your computer to contribute to the heating of your home. To illustrate my point just think about the difference between the Mustang and Porch sport cars. AMD computers are like the Ford Mustangs, big heavy fast engine. The Intel is fast too but like Porch they are light and have a smaller but highly powerful engine.

I shouldn't bad mouth AMD processors too much, they are getting better. To compete with Intel they are trying to find better ways of being more efficient.

The processor is an important part of having an energy saving computer, however, there are other things to consider as well.

The first is the screen saver. Studies has shown that the screen saver uses the same amount of energy than if the screen was left on. The screen saver was designed to 'save' the screen from damage, Not to save energy. For the older computers if an image was left on the screen for long periods of time the image would be 'burnt' into the monitors. Screen savers kept the image moving so that there would be no permanent damage. Todays monitors don't have this problem. You could leave an image on your screen for a long time and nothing would damage it. I'm not saying screen savers are bad, just that they don't do anything to save energy.

Another common myth about computer energy is the old Hard Drive. Some people believe that a computer will use less energy if left on as opposed to being turned on and off all the time. It was advised back in the 80's to leave your computer on because the hard drives couldn't tolerate the on/off cycles, not because they used less energy. Today, computer manufacturers design hard drives to withstand a minimum of 20,000 on/off cycles. So don't be afraid to turn off your computer, it won't hurt it, in fact it will prolong the life of your computer by using it less.

The best thing to do is to have your computer configured to 'sleep' or 'stand-by'. I love my laptop because all I have to do is close it up and it automatically goes into standby. Before you finish for the day your computer will save the most energy by being shut down. It uses the least amount of energy and it ensures that no one has been using it. Plus, computers will benefit from being refreshed once in a while.

Src: http://www.hugg.ca/the-energy-saving-computer-013124.php
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Intel Unveils New Chips Built Using Green Transistor Formula

Improving the energy-efficiency of computer processors is the key to improving computer performance, Intel indicated in its Sunday announcement about a new family of chips. The chipmaker developed a new transistor formula to cut down on energy leaks, which it sees as a threat to future computer innovation.

This new method was unveiled in 16 high-end PC and server processors from Intel. An added benefit of the formula is that it eliminates the need to use lead (an environmental hazard). Also, by 2008 Intel expects the process will also do away with halogen materials.

So, not only is the formula breaking new ground in terms of computer processing power, but it’s “green” as well.

For its new transistor formula, Intel combined two advances: the company’s Hafnium-based high-k metal gate formula (enables hundreds of millions of transistors to be built into each processor) and its 45-nanometer manufacturing process (boosts performance, lowers power consumption).

Intel expects that the breakthroughs it made with this new formula open the door for designing and building chips 25 percent smaller than previously possible. During 2008, the company will be focusing on just that, developing “system on chip” products for ultra mobile and consumer electronics devices.

The flagship product in Sunday’s unveiling was the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 core processor, designed for use by gamers and media enthusiasts. This chip is already wowing game-maker Crytek, developer of first-person shooter game Crysis.

“One of our goals was to optimize Crysis in order to deliver the ultimate quality, bringing mind-blowing game play to the latest hardware,” said Douglas Binks, R&D manager at Crytek, in a statement. “With the new 45nm Hi-k Intel Core 2 Extreme processors, we use multi-core technology to enable physics, particle effects and audio on separate cores, helping Crysis to create an astounding gaming experience.”

Intel’s Sunday launch also 15 dual-core and quad-core server chips. Twelve of these processors feature clock speeds ranging from 2GHz to 3.20GHz, front sidebus speeds as high as 1600MHz and 12MB caches. The remaining three chips clock up to 3.40GHz with FSB up to 1600MHz and 6M caches.

The company designed these new Xeon processors to be compatible with server platforms built on the Intel 5000 chipset family. Three new platform solutions, supporting the 45nm processors, were also launched:

- Intel 5400 chipset-based platform, aka “Stoakley,” optimized for high-bandwidth applications.
- Intel 5100 Memory Controller Hub chipset, aka “Cranberry Lake,” cost-optimized for one or two processors.
- Intel 3200 chipset-based platform, aka “Garlow,” designed for single-processor entry servers.

“The intellects, physics and designs that went into solving one of the industry's most daunting challenges are awe-inspiring and I congratulate the Intel teams for this breakthrough achievement,” Intel’s president and CEO, Paul Otellini, said in a statement.

Otellini continued: “Best yet, this feat, coupled with our industry-leading architectures, means faster and sleeker computers, longer battery life and better energy efficiency. Our objective is to bring consumers a new class of computers delivering a full Internet experience in ever-smaller, more portable form factors.”

src: http://www.tmcnet.com/green/articles/14332-intel-unveils-new-chips-built-using-green-transistor.htm
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