Slashdot Mirror
IBM Releases Power7 Processor
Dan Jones writes "As discussed here last year, IBM has made good on its promise to release the Power7 processor (and servers) in the first half of 2010. The Power7 processor adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up-time, according to Big Blue. Power7 chips will run between 3.0GHz and 4.14GHz and will come with four, six, or eight cores. The chips are being made using the 45-nm process technology. New Power7 servers (up to 64 cores for now) are said to deliver twice the performance of older Power6 systems, but are four times more energy efficient. Power7 servers will run AIX and Linux." And reader shmG notes Intel's release of a new Itanium server processor after two years of delays. The Power7 specs would seem to put the new Intel chip in the shade.
You're confusing POWER with PowerPC. They are not the same thing.
Since POWER3 in 1998 they are the same thing, actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Architecture#History But don't let me stop you from showing off.
Wow! I might have been abducted by aliens last night and taught how to break the laws of thermodynamics.
I'd tell you how, but they made me sign an NDA. Just take my word for it, though, I'm Some Guy on SlashDot, after all!
Busted my ass.
And you liked it, too, you fucking flaming homosexual.
I've been burned by under-performing IBM silicon too many times. I had an old '486 IBM clone that had far less power than Intels' equivalent chip. I bought a PS3 which has the super duper cellBE chip 'the broadband processor'. What crap. Just slightly slower than a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4. You need a pile of libraries from IBM --the metallurgical equivalent of unobtainium-- to get any 'additional' power out of the chip, provided of course, that you rewrite all of your applications. So now they have a new chip. Nice. I'll stick to Intel Core processors, thanks. Software runs RIGHT NOW! No rare and unavailable libraries required, and real power that you can actually see. 64 cores running like an 8080 vs what I have now.... let me see..... NOT! I normally don't bash sight unseen, but given the track record I've seen from these guys, PASS!