IBM has scheduled a major hype event about POWER/PowerPC CPUs today (04/03/31)

[Eug]

IBM to promote Power processors at event

IBM is billing the event as one that will have "widespread implications for the gaming, communications and computing industry," and is promising "significant announcements and important new business strategies," according to an invitation to the event, which is being held at New York's W Hotel. IBM declined to provide further details on Wednesday's event.

 

[WackyDan]

Go Big Blue.

 

[jhu]

now if they'd only release reference boards

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: jhu
now if they'd only release reference boards

Here ya go.

 

[Eug]

IBM cranks up the Power at event

CBS.MW: Does it seem like the Power processor gets less notoriety?

A. Benck: I don't know if you've seen it, maybe you haven't based on your comment, but we're getting Power everywhere. We basically have the trifecta of game devices, with recent wins at not only Game Cube and Xbox, but also moving into next-generation game systems all the way up to the Power architecture going into our high-end pSeries and iSeries platforms. We have this breadth of technology and it's become extremely pervasive. We're not the only ones leveraging it. If you look at Apple and some of the recent stuff they've been doing, they'll be doing some exciting supercomputer work with Virginia Tech leveraging the same technology. So, while you say less notoriety, if anything, we're seeing a pickup in interest in Power, particularly because of the interest in the consumer space of games. There's a lot of interest in that. It's the high volume capability that we create there that gives us the manufacturing efficiencies to continue to invest in high-end systems, too.

CBS.MW: I wanted to get a better feel for customer demand for chips that extend 32-bit processing power out to 64 bits.

A. Benck: It's an interesting time with Intel just recently announcing they're going to extend their current Xeon family to 64-bit extensions. We're really excited about it for a number of reasons. Since we've been a leader in the 64-bit space, we recognize the benefit that 64-bit computing can bring to our customers. Even more than that, we invested in Opteron technology from AMD and were the first tier-one server vendor to offer Opteron. It was really because of the investment protection that the architecture brought -- because a customer could run both 32- and 64-bit applications on the same platform or the fact that the customer wouldn't necessarily have to throw away existing applications. They'd run very well in the same environment. So we absolutely felt that the industry would respond to it and they have and they've come to us for that platform. At same time, we think now that Intel is making it available this will make it the industry-standard approach for x86 technology. It's just such a better approach from an evolutionary standpoint. We're pretty excited about it.

CBS.MW: Conversely, does this spell problems for Itanium, which isn't backward compatible and requires a whole different software set?

A. Benck: If you look at Itanium servers today, when you look at traction in the marketplace, certainly no one would call the Itanium growth a blockbuster success. I think that what you see happening is that since H-P has placed such a heavy bet on Itanium that they have some risk in front of them because I think both Intel and H-P don't want Itanium to be relegated to a PA/RISC follow-on and with a lack of traction in marketplace, I think that it's pretty self-evident that it won't be the industry standard 64-bit processor going forward. Certainly when you look at our own shipments of 64-bit extensions, they've far exceeded our traction with Itanium.

IBM Plans Industry's First Openly Customizable Microprocessor

In a presentation at Power Everywhere, Dr. Bernard Meyerson, chief technologist, IBM Systems & Technology Group disclosed that IBM is working on future Power chips that can physically reconfigure themselves -- adding memory or accelerators, for example -- to optimize performance or power utilization for a specific application.

 

[jhu]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: jhu
now if they'd only release reference boards

Here ya go.

uhm...i might as well get a mac or itanium2. how about something cheaper?

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: jhu

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: jhu
now if they'd only release reference boards

Here ya go.

uhm...i might as well get a mac or itanium2. how about something cheaper?

The MAC couldn't begin to keep up with it and for that matter, nor could Itanium II. The chip may be related to the G5, but is not a direct copy. If you want to run 64bit Linux or AIX, then IBM is the way to go.,

 

[jhu]

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: jhu

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: jhu
now if they'd only release reference boards

Here ya go.

uhm...i might as well get a mac or itanium2. how about something cheaper?

The MAC couldn't begin to keep up with it and for that matter, nor could Itanium II. The chip may be related to the G5, but is not a direct copy. If you want to run 64bit Linux or AIX, then IBM is the way to go.,

you see the price of that dual processor eval board? $6000!!! if you have that kind of money to burn consider buying the following:

1) dual g5 powermac
2) dual itanium2 system
3) ibm power4+ workstation

 

[Eug]

It's just an evaluation board, and hence the price.

BTW, I like this quote from IBM's latest PowerPC literature:

One of the reasons for that is IBM's new top-of-the-line fab in Fishkill, New York. The Fishkill fab is so up-to-date that it is capable of producing chips with all of the latest acronyms, from copper CMOS XS to Silicon-on-Insulator (SoI), Silicon Germanium (SiGe), and low-k dielectrics -- all on 300mm wafers. And the Fishkill facility is so advanced that the workers don't even have to wear "bunny suits," because the wafers spend all of their time in hermetically sealed FOUPs (front opening unified pods). Finally, the Fishkill operation is so hip that the server room runs exclusively on Linux.

Strangely amusing (and no it ain't an April Fool's Day joke). 😛