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IBM To Demo OpenPower 710 At SCALE 3x
An anonymous reader writes "IBM will demo their PPC based servers including their new OpenServer 710 at SCALE 3x this week. In addition they have their i5/520 running Power Linux, Intel Linux, AIX, i5/OS (OS/400), and Windows all simultaneously. SCALE will be held this weekend in Los Angeles at the LA Convention Center. Speakers include Kevin Foreman (Real Networks), Jon Hall (Linux International), Larry McVoy (CEO BitMover), Marc Hamilton (Sun) & 30 other sessions. In addtion to the talks there will be over 40 exhibitors including IBM & Novell. If you're in LA drop by on 2/12-2/13. There will also be a dinner and GPG Key Signing party. (For a free exhibit hall pass register with the promo code "FREE" or a discounted full access pass with "NEWSP".")
The sims was ported to Linux using winelib, so you don't need winex or the windowsversion of seems to play.
$30K seems a bit pricey, which model # did the IBM guy quote for u?
h ar dware/710_browse.html
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/openpower/
9123-710A POWER5 / 1.65GHz 1-way 36MB 2048MB 2 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $4,713.00 IBM Web price*
9123-710B POWER5 / 1.65GHz 2-way 36MB 4096MB 4 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $8,428.00 IBM Web price*
9123-710C POWER5 / 1.65GHz 2-way 36MB 8192MB 2 x 73.4GB Ultra320 10K rpm $12,766.00 IBM Web price*
Maybe you got quoted a different model? The 720 model is made to fit 64GB of RAM, and fits four CPUs.
From The Register:
Big Blue bills its OpenPower line as a serious threat to Unix gear from the likes of HP and Sun Microsystems. But at a starting price of $3,449 the OpenPower 710 will also rival systems running on Intel and AMD processors.
The system running the Intel Linux and Windows is an i5 520, that's not the same system as an OpenPower 710. iSeries servers have optional integrated Intel servers http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/integ ratedxseries/
There's a xeon server on a plugin card in the machine.
Double or tripple that for $30K?
More like 72x that for $23K. IBM doesn't mess arround when it comes to cache.
Jon "maddog" Hall was one of the first supporters of linux way back in the early 90's. If I remember correctly he was the one who donated a DEC Alpha(I think he worked for DEC) for Linux's first port. I may be wrong...
These IBM OpenPower machines are MUCH more powerfull then a Opteron, or a Apple g5.
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They are NOT Power970 proccessors used in Apple machines, these are POWER 5 proccessors used in Unix big Iron. Opterons aren't even in the same catagory.
They get spanked by quite a large margin in Opteron vs POWER. Comparing a Opteron vs a POWER 5 is like comparing a Intel Xscale proccessor vs a Pentium 4 "Extreme".
The transistor counts are astronomical in the POWER vs Opteron for one thing.
See here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=65
Notice how the low-end Power 5 proccessor dominates the top of the line Opteron in all catagories.
In Specfp2000 you have a single proccessor vs single proccessor. A 1.65ghz Power5 gets 2138 PEAK score while the 2.2ghz Opteron gets 1691
In the 4 proccessor setup a 1.9ghz Power5 proccessor scores double in floating point performance then what is possible with 4 2.4ghz Opterons.
Plus the Power 5 proccessor scales up to 32 in standard configuration, while the Opteron is limited to 4 cpus.
There is no comparision between the proccessors. The Power5 dominates every single catagory.
Including heat, power requirements, and expense.
However if you notice that the prices for Opteron Sun Solaris hardware falls with in the range of pricing for IBM's OpenPower servers.
Seems like IBM is going to use dirt cheap prices for Power to run Sun's opteron setup out of town.
Also, unfortunately for Sun.. higher end POWER setups dominate their nicest Sparc machines, also.