Jack (Jumpingjack6@verizon.net) on 4/10/09 wrote:
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>Peak power will dictate various thermal cooling designs and such, but total energy
>consumed determines energy efficiency. A server can have 20% higher peak power
>but if it completes the task in 50% less time will be more energy efficient.

Only guaranteed to be true if you're strictly looking at the time span to complete the task on each server. Otherwise, you need to add the idle energy consumption when the faster server is sitting idle. This is what shot the Harpertown platform in the foot for workloads which you can imagine.

David: consider writing a short article explaining energy vs. power, and where each metric is relevant.