Nah, it's no
BlueGene L supercomputer, but
IBM's latest dual-core microprocessor runs at a cool 4.7GHz while sporting 8MB of total cache per chip. The device reportedly runs "twice as fast" and packs four times the cache as the POWER5, and boasts a processor bandwidth of 300Gbps. Interestingly, the massive power increase doesn't seem to come with a boost in energy requirements, as IBM claims that the 65-nanometer POWER6 somehow ups its game while "using nearly the same amount of
electricity" as its predecessor. The company plans on shoving the new darling into the System p570 server, and preliminary testing showed that all four of the "most widely used performance benchmarks for Unix servers" were shattered by its CPU. Unfortunately, there's no word on pricing nor availability just yet, but we're anticipating a bit of sticker shock when it does finally land.
[Via
LinuxDevices]
posted May 22nd 2007 7:26AM
How do IBM chip's clock speeds compare to Intel's or AMD's?
Suppose its useless knowing as IBM chips arent for consumer use i.e. Windows or latest MacOS...
It will be used on IBM servers, so therefore no sticker prices on the processors unfortunately, at least not yet.
Apple must be kicking themselves for going 100% Intel.
They wont be kicking themselves, the POWER chips have always been extremely fast - these are not Consumer level chips. These are very expensive Server chips, and are not meant for "normal" PC's and laptops.
The PPC Chips Apple sued to use (e.g. the G5) were cut-down chips based on the POWER series. e.g. the G5 was a very cut down version of the POWER4.
POWER≠PowerPC.
Apple didn't burn any bridges. They're simply straddling both worlds by also running on Intel and making it possible for developers to build endian-agnostic Universal binaries. If IBM comes out with a PowerPC chip that competes well with Intel's offerings, there's nothing stopping Apple from using it in new hardware.
Fair enough. :)
But isn't technology crafted from creating POWER will be trickled back down to IBM's PowerPC line? Similar to Intel's server technology being used later on in their consumer line.
What I am saying is that the any technological improvements on higher end products tends to make their way to its consumer line eventually.
as far as I can remember, the POWER5 had a TDP of over 100 Watts and the POWER6 is not worse. But also not better. Forget about this for notebook use. The Power processors from IBM were always really fast server processors which used a lot of energy and which were crazy expensive. None of that translated in any way to the PowerPC architecture. Freescale still makes PowerPCs, go look at the specs.
Mmm, POWER goodness.
No wonder they shattered benchmarks, they're called POWER for a reason you know!
I do a lot of work on P series IBM kit, and We've a POWER6 system coming in for testing ^^, I can't wait.
IBM sure makes and supports some nice servers.
And the tech support is superb.
Hmmm.... Sold their laptops business, plan to trim 100,000 from its workforce, up the stakes in server market and gaining momentum, I bet IBM shares is going to be hot.
Endian-agnostic???
You do realize there is a little bit more of a difference then endian ordering between the cpu's, like I dunno, a completely difference instruction set. If it was just endian encodian it'd be easy to translate machine code between one and the other on the fly.
Most likely power support will be dropped in osx2 or whatever the next major revision of the apple software is. Power isn't the first platform mac has been on, trust me they have no qualms destroying backwards compatibility.
so can I replace my g5's now? hehehe
.... :O
However they did opt to go for universal applications that worked on both platforms (which any Mac application worth it's weight in dirt supports). I believe OSX still has a lot of life in it (although I am not a Mac user and don't follow Mac news, so anyone that knows more about this than should feel free to correct me). Even then the universal app support doesn't have to die. What I'm saying is that PowerPC Macs will likely be supported for the rest of this decade and possibly a bit beyond that.
I wonder what happened to IBM's plans to bring dual-cell processors into their server line. If anyone has more info on this please reply to my comment so I'll get an e-mail alert. I've gotten to touch a blade server but that's as close as I've gotten to anything above 15,000$ in computing hardware.
- Tony R.
Also since the X in OSX represents the roman numeral 10, I think OS11 is more likely... although they have iWorded and xWorded so many of their product lines you may be on to something. Although when I think X2 I of come can't help think of AMD (which I've never cared for after they burned me years ago; I work on embedded systems, normally personalized, one of a kind designs and installations at science museams and such). If anyone ever visits the Baltimore Science musume you can see (or rather not see as most of the systems are installed out of view), you can see some of my work done there (I ended up using a mix of Intel for the heavy duty work and Microchip microprocessors in the end). BTW, two of the eight systems have only had to be restarted (they self restarted themselves at that =p) in the over 4 years of use.
- Tony R.
Very sorry for the spelling and grammar, I hit enter too quickly x.x.
- Tony 'Need Sleep Badly' R.