The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

IBM readies Power5+

New chip, old Mhz

Free whitepaper – Cooling strategies for ultra-high density racks and blade servers

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 – Data center projects: standardized process

Don’t Miss

MicronMicron move heralds Intel 320GB SSD

Waves around own 34nm process NAND

Steve Jobs finds part-time work

Succession question postponed

Seagate logoSeagate shines under Luczo's law

Comment New CEO broom sweeps clean

HP LogoHP whips out blades for future

Comment Post-modular array plots afoot