Comments on: IBM's Power6 gets help with math, multimedia

Big Blue's server processor can natively handle base-10 arithmetic and supports AltiVec multimedia extensions.

[airwalkery2k]

Yummy.

I wouldn't mind having a PC with that kind of a chip.

[dfmrrd]

4 to 5GHz speed...thats awesome

I wonder how can IBM increase clock speed when Intel/AMD have adopted power efficient lower clock multi-core path.

business of selling these high end is not easy
http://www.innerdep.com/navigate.jsp?searchstr=Unix%20Servers

Maybe, Power6 is using more cycles to do same amount of work with high clock rate.

For examples:
if it take 10 cycles to execute an instruction when a chip is running at 10 Ghz is equal to 1 cycle at 1Ghz.

ajay

[martin1192]

RISC vs CISC

The Power chips are RISC based and generally it will need to execute more instructions than an x86 based processor. However these instructions will be performed faster and each instruction will take the same amount of clock cycles to complete (usually 1).

So for your example the reverse is actually true. Where 1 RISC instruction will take 1 cycle a CISC(x86) instruction may perform a more complex task and take 10 (if everything being equal the RISC chip would need 10 cycles to complete the same task).

[bcsaxman]

Looks Like Apple F**ked Up ...

I'd rather have this type of CPU on a decent FSB than the Core2 systems Intel is offering. Their FSB stinks, their 64bit instructions seem half-baked, and I'll bet IBM's systems won't put you in the poorhouse trying to pay for an expensive, niche memory technology (i.e. FBDIMMs).

I never bought Jobs excuses for dumpping IBM - the month after he said they couldn't make a low power G5, they introduced one and Apple used it in the last G5-based iMac. He went to Intel for their DRM technology, without which the studios at the time said they wouldn't deal with him unless he had it across the board. Events have outstripped them on that, but those TPM chips are now a big part of Apple's future, where before they were not.

Anyway, with this announcement from IBM, and the expected broadside coming from AMD when their new CPU comes out next year, PLUS all of Intel's layoffs to keep bankruptcy at bay ... I think Jobs picked the wrong horse in this race.

[snertagert]

yeah...sure

If Apple still used IBM, none of the computers they have out now would even exist. Apple made the right move and should have done it sooner.

Do you know you would still be at 1.8ghz on a Freescale single processor if Apple didn't make the switch? And don't believe IBM would have had a lappy chip to replace it either.

[Stufiano]

Apple used PowerPC ... not POWER

POWER is a server chip, powerPC is the scaled[very scaled] desktop version. Let's not forget the LATEST powerPC chip, the G5 [PowerPC 970] was based on the POWER4. So making the jump from the newest server processor and powerPC is useless and uninformed.

Though AMD would probably have been better, maybe if only for the bad rep of intel.

[grendelg]

It's the manufacturing

It's not about the speed, although the Power5's are getting a bit long-in-the-tooth compared to the Core Duos. Apple has had a spotty track record in being able to get the processors they need when they need them. By switching to Intel, they know the inventory will be there when they need so they won't be left short-stocked.

[pokiri]

What is the power consumption of this 5 GHz chip ?

I just don't want to run out of a data center becase of excessive heat . If this chip can operate within 80 W of power and still have 5 GHz, IBM will be the king.

[haugland]

More or less the same as the Power5

More details here:

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193105767

[TheNightFly]

Probably around 1KW

Sure, even busted chips may serve a secondary applications as heating elements in blow dryers, toasters, convection ovens and space heaters. I hear the battery powered portable versions make great pocket warmers!
(LOL)