IBM readies Power5+
New chip, old Mhz
Posted in Servers, 30th September 2005 19:22 GMT
Free whitepaper – Reliability analysis of the APC Symmetra MW Power System
Come October 4th, IBM will show off a new line of Unix servers centered around the Power5+ upgrade to the Power5 chip, according to various industry reports. Surprisingly, it seems the chip will arrive at speeds somewhere between 1.9GHz and 2.1GHz. That's going to disappoint many customers who had heard the chip would run somewhere between 2GHz and 3GHz - likely around 2.4GHz.
A 1.9GHz clock would equal the top speed of Power5 chips that IBM currently includes with some pSeries Unix servers.
IBM's chip refresh follows Sun Microsystems' recent unveiling of the UltraSPARC IV+ at 1.5GHz. Intel will soon follow with its first dual-core version of Itanium code-named Montecito. Some industry pundits have noted that it's lucky Itanic servers have been such slow sellers, otherwise the Earth could face its biggest global warming threat to date with the Montecito release.
Stephen Shankland at CNET reckons IBM will call its new line of Unix boxes the System p5 servers, putting an end to the "pSeries" brand. ®
Free whitepaper – Fundamental Principles of Generators for Information Technology

Enabling the Agile Data Center
Straight Talk with Dell: Sending out an SaaS
New storage architectures make SSDs more cost-effective
Dell PowerEdge R710 solution vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit

Vint Cerf mods Android for interplanetary interwebs
Adaptec CEO on the ropes after dreadful results
Boffins working on biodegradable flexi LED implants
Nvidia taps Transmeta team for x86 chip, claims analyst