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IBM Plans Collaboration On Power Architecture

Posted by simoniker on from the go-go-ibm-rangers dept.

TheInternet writes "According to CNET News, IBM has made a series of announcements regarding the opening-up of the Power chip architecture. The story lacks technical details, but apparently, IBM is going to divulge more information about Power/PowerPC, and expects collaboration from the industry on the future of the chip. Nick Donofrio is quoted as saying: 'We will free electronics manufacturers from the limitations of proprietary microprocessor architectures', and Red Hat and Sony are two companies listed as taking part. Power5 was also shown, as was the Blue Gene/L supercomputer, using 32 500MHz processors to achieve 128 gigaflops."

2 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Re:ATX PowerPC by Phishcast · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Seriously, x86 is going to stop scaling properly.

    I remember hearing this long before x86 was as fast as it is today.

    There's also no way we'll ever be able to push more than 9600bps through our dialup modems...

  2. Re:ATX PowerPC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    GOING to? I'd argue that it already has. We're getting chips with higher and higher clock speeds, which is great for performance, but not so great for the electricity bill. I'd be far happier with the PC market if they'd stop ratcheting up the performance of the systems and focused instead on knocking a few dozen watts off the power needed to run the damn things.

    We've a P4-based system at home, and it doesn't take long for it to make the room nice and warm. Great in winter, but not so good in summer...