A new test suite has been released which allows IT managers to check and compare the energy efficiency of their servers.

Launched by Standard Performance Evaluation (Spec), the benchmarking system was developed by five server vendors, as well as computer chip giants Intel and AMD.

It is hoped that by highlighting the energy usage of servers, companies can make alterations to their IT systems to reduce their carbon footprint.

Although just one kind of server workload is covered by Spec's benchmark as yet, Joanathan Koomey, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and advisor to the US Environmental Protection Agency, said that "having real, measured data is a vast step forward".

The Spec benchmark may now be adapted by the Environmental Protection Agency to act as a basis for its upcoming Energy Star rating system for servers.

"SPEC has taken a critical first step to give server vendors and their customers a standardised benchmark tool that elevates power efficiency in the performance evaluation process," said Andrew Fanara, who oversees development of product specifications for the EPA's Energy Star program, in a press release.