SiCortex recently announced their conurrence with the new Energy Star rating system for low-end computer servers.  These new ratings bring energy issues into the limelight for purchasing server systems for IT and HPC workloads.  SiCortex feels this is a big “win” for consumers, manufacturers, economies and the environment.

Setting standards for energy consumption is clearly an important step in the right direction – tackling head-on a product category that consumes vast amounts of electricity,” stated Christopher Stone, president and CEO of SiCortex.

As you may have previously noted, SiCortex proposed a new method by which to gauge HPC efficiency, the Green Performance Computing Index [or GCPI].  GCPI rates the relative energy efficiency of a platform against a standard HPC benchmark.  Energy Star, however, will use the SPECPower ssj_2008 benchmark for its Tier 1 server systems [up to four processors].  Systems with more than four processors, network equipment, storage equipment, server appliances and blade systems will be listed under the Tier 2 rating [which is TBD as of this writing].

For more info, read the full release here.