IBM launches Power7 chip, systems

IBM on Monday is launching its long-anticipated Power7 processor and systems based on the chip.

IBM Power7 chip

(Credit: IBM)

The processor is a big step for IBM, integrating eight processing cores--four times the number of cores in the prior-generation Power6--in one chip package, with each core capable of executing four tasks--called "threads"--turning an individual chip into a virtual 32-core processor. As a yardstick, Intel's high-end Xeon processors--systems that Power7 will compete with--typically have two threads per processing core and contain four cores.

Blg Blue has already tipped its hand on the Power7 chip in discussions about its upcoming Blue Water supercomputer.

Power7 fuses the flagship Power chip design with key technology from a separate "Cell" processor--the latter was part of IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer system at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "We took some of that genetic material from the Cell program--ways to do floating point (calculations)--and embedded that right into the Power7 core," Bradley McCredie, an IBM Fellow in the Systems and Technology Group, told CNET last year.

Rivals include Hewlett-Packard servers based on Intel's Xeon and "Tukwila" Itanium processors and servers from Sun Microsystems.

New Power7 systems

The new Power7 systems include:

• IBM Power 780: a new category of scalable, high-end servers, featuring an advanced modular design with up to 64 Power7 cores.
  
• IBM Power 770: a midrange system with up to 64 Power7 cores, featuring higher performance per core than Power6 processors and using up to 70 percent less energy for the same number of cores as Power6 processors.
  
• IBM Power 755: a high-performance computing cluster node with 32 Power7 cores.
  

IBM is touting the Power7's ability to manage millions of transactions in real time--necessary for applications such as smart electrical grids. IBM said electric utilities can move from processing less than one million meter reads per day, in a traditional grid for example, to more than 85 million reads per day in a smart grid.

eMeter, a leading maker of software that runs e-grids, ran a successful benchmark on IBM Power6 systems for more than 20 million smart meters. "Combining eMeter and IBM's Power7 we are confident we can hit much higher numbers to meet their needs," Scott Smith, eMeter client business manager, said in a statement.

[Sonyfanboy92]

cool cool

[nicceg]

Probably runs hot!

[Eric Draven]

If you read it, it says Power7 consumes 70% less energy, so I doubt it runs hot.

[richard993]

64 cores doesn't sound that much for a high end server. I've started working on 128 core servers some 8 years ago... and Intel has pushed the envelope with 256 core Itanium servers co-developed with HP. IBM has 192 core Intel Xeon processor servers in the pipeline. Granted these Power7 processors are very powerful, but a 64 core server will hardly compare with a 256 core Intel based server unless the 64 cores is at least 3 times as fast as a high end Intel Xeon/Itanium processor. Although the 256 core servers do not scale linearly, the preliminary performance benchmarks for Intel processors has been quite outstanding especially when combined with Numa or Quickpath technology. The Power7 has been designed to scale to 256 cores (32 sockets), so I'm not sure what this 64 core limit is all about especially on the high end systems... I'm disappointed in IBM.

[martin1212]

The Power 795 will have 256 cores. It's coming out a little later on.

[Eric Draven]

You need to see the industry benchmarks first for you to realize that IBM can come up with better performance using less cores and even less GHz with POWER7.

[Philips]

High-end is slowly dying. Very few want to invest into a 64/128/etc CPU/core monster. People switching when possible to N cheaper 8/16 CPU/core systems.

Large servers are too expensive - it's cheaper and safer to go with bunch of smaller servers.

I see this software requirement of clusterization popping up more and more often.

[xantari79]

It is exactly like Philips said, large servers are expensive and it's cheaper and safer to go with a bunch of smaller servers. IBM prices their software way out of the ball park, they make OK hardware, but their software capabilities and licensing are expensive, require lots of consulting to get running properly, and are generally not very maintainable by their own customers due to complexity and lack of GUI admin tools

[gdparks]

Dude, You have got to be kidding me? Have you every worked with the Power Platform and AIX ? You really have to wait until the performance benchmarks start to shake out. A lot depends on your system architecture. Also don't discount what is going to happen now that Oracle and purchased SUN.

This is still very much a three legged horse race and it is a bit early to declare dissapointment!

[EvanSei]

who needs a quad core when you can have 64 :]

[Philips]

"Threads on CPU" implementations I have witnessed before were really lame. Sales try to pitch "oh! 8/16 threads per core!!" while in real world tests that means single-threaded application runs at 1/8th of the top performance.

It was kind of stupid when most applications run faster on old-gen plain multi-core CPUs. Only with major software redesign to use multi-threading were able to reach performance similar to that before. No, it wasn't better: many tasks are not so easy to parallelize, number of tasks become overall slower when parallelized due to synchronization overhead.

... But surely threads are cheap and the buzzword du jour of the semi industry.

[hafenbrack]

but is good for doing simple calc tests that don't need the clock speed, but do need the high number of itereations. Each method has it's own appropriate application and use.

[EarthToApple]

IBM certainly know's what it takes to build top performance chips

[cptnjarhead]

will it run crysis?
sorry.. i couldn't help myself :)

[guilmon14]

sorry The power7 is RISC based and crysis runs on a x86 based computer so the answer is no

[cptnjarhead]

what about emulation? With all those cores... you could emulate GPU and CPU.

[xantari79]

More properietary hardware from IBM that has very little foothold in the market place when you compare it to the vast array of Linux and Windows servers out there.

Also they tout it as an IBM i, AIX, and Linux monster. Thats great, just what I need, a super fast 5250 green screen.

LAME.

[Eric Draven]

Relax. It's only the IBM i that utilizes 5250.

[yl_mra]

If you think the only way to access IBM i is via green screen, then come out of the stone age. Access is available via telnet, ssh, and both secure and unsecured URL which can be developed using standard tool kits.

Of course if you really want to do green screen via iPhone, that's available too
http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/january09/trends/23598p1.aspx?