Method and system for building a low power computer system

Abstract

Various embodiments disclosed herein relate to an efficient computer server system comprising an efficient power supply unit utilizing a plurality of power-rails to supply electric power to the system components, a special-purpose processor configured to operate as an efficient general purpose server processor while maintaining high performance, and a platform manager configured to control the power supplied to the system components to minimize the system's overall power consumption. Some disclosed embodiments relate to a method of reducing power consumption in information handling server systems comprising configuring a special-purpose processor to be function as a general purpose server processor, selecting a set of power efficient system components based on performance and power efficiency, utilizing an efficient power supply unit and a platform manager to control the power supplied by the power supply unit, and adjusting the processor's frequency to achieve an optimal performance/power-consumption ratio.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A general purpose compute server computer system comprising:
 a repurposed communications processor system on a chip, wherein the repurposed communications processor comprises a plurality of processor cores, ports, and offload engines;   a power supply unit having at least 90% power efficiency, the power supply unit comprising a plurality of independently controllable power rails; and   a platform manager configured to control the power supplied to the independently controllable power rails; and   wherein the computer system is configured to consume less than approximately 130 Watts while operating under a maximum load.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a non-volatile memory component operably connected between the repurposed communications processor and the platform manager, wherein the non-volatile memory component is utilized to store a boot software and an operating system software. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the operating system software comprises a first diagnostics software and a first system management software, and wherein the boot level software comprises a BIOS menu, a second diagnostics software, and a second system management software. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the platform manager is based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA), the platform manager comprising:
 a platform manager processor;   a plurality of platform manager cores; and   a platform manager bus connected between the platform manager processor and the plurality of platform manager cores.   
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , the having a form factor of approximately 8.5 inches in width, 14 inches in length, and 1.75 inches in height. 
     
     
         5 . A method of building a low power computer system comprising:
 repurposing a special purpose processor to be utilized as a general purpose server processor, the special purpose processor having a plurality of processor cores, ports, and offload engines;   selecting a set of system components based on performance and power efficiency;   removing the special processor's unused ports;   utilizing a power supply unit having a minimum power efficiency of approximately 90%;   utilizing a platform manager to control the power supplied by the power supply unit to the set of system components through a plurality of power rails, and   adjusting the special processor's frequency to achieve a minimum CoreMark-score per Watts-consumed ratio of approximately 530.