16 Years of SPEC Power: An Analysis of x86 Energy Efficiency Trends

TL;DR

Through analysis of trends in x86 server systems, a clearer understanding of how server energy efficiency has evolved and the factors influencing these changes is provided.

Abstract

The SPEC Power benchmark offers valuable insights into the energy efficiency of server systems, allowing comparisons across various hardware and software configurations. Benchmark results are publicly available for hundreds of systems from different vendors, published since 2007. We leverage this data to perform an analysis of trends in x86 server systems, focusing on power consumption, energy efficiency, energy proportionality and idle power consumption. Through this analysis, we aim to provide a clearer understanding of how server energy efficiency has evolved and the factors influencing these changes.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Share of features on all 960.0 successfully parsed (unfiltered) SPECpower_ssj 2008 results (as of June 2024)
• Figure 2: Power consumption (per socket) at full load trend
• Figure 3: Overall efficiency trend
• Figure 4: Distribution of relative efficiency at 6090, binned by year and CPU vendor.
• Figure 5: Idle power consumption trend