Dell is among the biggest vendors of computer systems, and proof of this can be found in that it currently holds the number two spot in the notebook market, being topped only by HP. From the countless reasons that make Dell hold such a high position on the charts, the fact that people trust its products probably weighs very heavy in the balance. This would also translate into the following: whenever Dell takes the stage to state that its products are energy efficient, people will generally trust the vendor and, thus, purchase them. This also goes for the company's Energy systems servers, which Dell claimed to be more energy efficient than its standard PowerEdge systems.

The Energy Smart servers were billed extra (as compared to the PowerEdge systems), because Dell said that they were optimized to save money on the long run by reducing power consumption. Back in 2006, Dell bragged about a series of more efficient power supplies, memory, disks and fans, as part of the Energy Smart hardware. Nevertheless, according to a recent study by "The Register," Dell's so-called Energy Smart gear was the same as the one on its standard PowerEdge systems.

Trying to explain the situation, Alber Esser, Dell's VP of power and infrastructure solutions, came up with a couple of answers.

As regards the processors, these systems use different SKUs, despite the fact that users are buying exactly the same low voltage versions of Intel's Xeon chips. Apparently, the Energy Smart SKU has a differently built BIOS that is meant to tweak some settings and functions in order to boost performance per watt. "We fine-tune the BIOS settings and other functions to get the best performance per watt out of the available resources," said Esser. So, the extra buck is for the tweaks in the system's BIOS.

The same goes for memory: different SKUs, but the same capacity and overall performance. According to Esser, Dell uses the best members of any memory batch and inserts them in its Energy Smart systems.

Dell admits that there's no difference between the PSUs, fans and hard drives, and explains this in what could be described as a very unique way. It seems that Energy Smart components were made available across the entire PowerEdge product line because of intense customer interest.

The interview ends with the recognition that Dell's Energy Smart program has something to show for, but users will find it difficult to discover the major differences between the specialized systems and the regular gear.