HP ProLiant 300-series AMD-based G6 server technology

Figure 4. Power/Efficiency curve for the 750 W HP power supply
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0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Output Power (Watts)
Efficiency (%)
Represents 92% power efficiencyRepresents 92% power efficiency
Increasing power efficiency in redundant power operation
With ProL
iant G6 servers, customers can select a power supply operation mode for redundant power
systems. Through the RBSU, administrators can select ‘High Efficiency’ mode or ‘Balanced’ mode. In
Balanced mode, both power supplies provide power equally. This mode ensures full redundancy but
can result in higher power consumption when power supplies are operating with reduced loads and
lower power efficiency. The High Efficiency mode means the system will only use one power supply
until system load exceeds a certain threshold. The second power supply stays online maintaining
redundancy but does not supply power until needed. Either selection still provides full power
redundancy.
Voltage regulation
Voltage regulators c
onvert the 12V DC supplied from the server power supply into a variety of lower
voltages used by the different system components. HP has developed voltage regulators that maintain
greater than 90% efficiency over a broad range of power requirements. The net result is near an 8%
gain in DC power efficiency, which results in almost 10% efficiency gain in AC input power. These
efficiency gains come with no loss in performance and require no configuration by the user.
Thermal sensors and fan control
Thermal sensors and fan control in the ProLiant AMD-based 300-series G6 servers remain unchanged
from the previous generation G5p servers
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. Sensor data from the processor, hard drive enclosure,
and mother board provide thermal information to firmware that controls fan speed. Fan speed is
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The 'G5p' indicates performance and capacity enhancements over the G5 platforms. Those additions include higher
performance Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, increased memory DIMM slot count by 2x and high efficiency options such
as processors, memory and power supplies.
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