Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mscman 4503 days ago
It's not that the components themselves draw half the power, it's that you don't need to provide as much power to cool them. There's a typical rule of thumb in datacenter planning that for every 1W of compute power, you need 1W to cool it. If you can cut the cooling power, you can cut almost 50% of your datacenter cost.

Obviously you won't eliminate cooling cost entirely, and it's quite possible the overhead of replacing oil and extended maintenance times could offset these power savings.
2 comments
welterde 4503 days ago
Why not go for warm water cooling then (like SuperMUC[1] for example)?

Should get you the same benefits as submerging it in oil without most of the drawbacks.

[1] http://www.lrz.de/services/compute/supermuc/systemdescriptio...

link
VLM 4503 days ago
Wouldn't you save a lot more money improving the COP of the refrigeration system from 1 or so, to something a little better? Even the cheapest poorly installed window air conditioner can do 3 or 4, and central residential air can do much better.
link