New 5.2Ghz Chip by IBM

[Cogman]

LOL dude. I have fun screwing with people becuase its the Interwebs.

sadly there alot of poorly misrepresented physics info here. LOL.

So, you are just an admitted troll? Welcome to my ignore list.

 

[ModestGamer]

So, you are just an admitted troll? Welcome to my ignore list.

On heaven forbid some dude on the internet is gonna put me on ignore.

oh whats shall I do.

come to think of it. who here can even afford one of the monster let alone have a serious discussion about one.

this is like a forum of people who talk about wanting to have the money to buy a ferrari. Its not like anyone here could afford one of these things.

LOL.

Take it to PMs
-ViRGE

 

[Edrick]

On heaven forbid some dude on the
come to think of it. who here can even afford one of the monster let alone have a serious discussion about one.

this is like a forum of people who talk about wanting to have the money to buy a ferrari. Its not like anyone here could afford one of these things.

How many people actually said they wanted one? I find it interesting to talk about such technology since....well....thats what these forums are about. Even if I had a spare million, I still would not even talk about wanting one. But they are very facinating chips/computers.

 

[degibson]

I wonder what primary OS IBM uses with these machines.

Probably AIX... or something in-house per-customer. The z-Series is almost 100% sold to legacy users who absolutely refuse to change anything about their software stack. Financials, for instance.

 

[ModestGamer]

How many people actually said they wanted one? I find it interesting to talk about such technology since....well....thats what these forums are about. Even if I had a spare million, I still would not even talk about wanting one. But they are very facinating chips/computers.

there nothing really new about it. Just really heavily clocked risc core. Thats it. Nothing to see.

 

[Plimogz]

Could this thing be using Z-Ram? I know AMD licensed it a while back and I'm pretty sure the IBM SOI process is pretty closely related the AMD one (shared IP? licensing deal?). So maybe IBM is giving us a glimpse of cache-related awesomeness to come from AMD?

It is called the Z-Series, afterall. Not that I can be bothered to go look up their 2 last generations to check if they were called X-Series and Y-Series.

Just a thought

 

[Cogman]

Could this thing be using Z-Ram? I know AMD licensed it a while back and I'm pretty sure the IBM SOI process is pretty closely related the AMD one (shared IP? licensing deal?). So maybe IBM is giving us a glimpse of cache-related awesomeness to come from AMD?

It is called the Z-Series, afterall. Not that I can be bothered to go look up their 2 last generations to check if they were called X-Series and Y-Series.

Just a thought

The Z series has been around for a while now. I'm pretty sure it isn't using ZRAM (though it would be sweet if it was). If it was ZRAM, we would be seeing much higher cache densities.

 

[Tsavo]

Actually, electrical heaters are 100% effficient. So therefore, if it draws 1800W, it radiates 1800W of heat. Period.

Ohms-Borg Law states that resistance is futile.

 

[cbn]

This thing is a monster, the MCM'ed product that is, consumes 1800W! and uses special water-cooling.

 

[Tsavo]

pic

That looks a lot like the GF100 die! ^_^

 

[Edrick]

That looks a lot like the GF100 die! ^_^

Nah, GF100 is slightly larger.

 

[jvroig]

I wonder what primary OS IBM uses with these machines.

"z/OS" for mainframes ("System z", or the z-Series)

"IBM i" for midrange (what used to be solely the AS/400, which became eServer iSeries/400, which then became "System i", but then was merged with the lower end "System p" line, consolidating both brands into "IBM Power Systems", sharing the same OS).

AIX and Linux are supported as well.

The z-Series is almost 100% sold to legacy users who absolutely refuse to change anything about their software stack. Financials, for instance.

True, and there are a lot of these people around. Banking, Retail (the very large ones, like nationwide department / supermarket chains), etc.

Aside from their branding changes for machines, even the operating systems often change their branding instead of just getting a version++. Large enterprise clients still love them, however, because they are 100% backwards compatible since the day they were born - if you bought an AS/400 from when the line first came to be, and bought the newest incarnation today (IBM Power i), everything you have will still work, even though every brand involved has changed (machine and its OS). Before Frank Soltis retired from IBM, I attended a symposium he held about the then-newly christened Power Systems, and backwards compatibility was something he was very proud of, and what he mentioned as the main advantage of IBM's systems. And now I suddenly remember he also mentioned "security", and said that you always hear about hacking incidents about servers from "other guys" (PC - Intel , AMD, etc. x86 world), then asked us how many hacking incidents have we heard about AS/400 or zSeries or mainframes in general. When none of us managed a comment in, he said that's pretty much the picture, aside from Hollywood movies where "leet" people hack mainframes all the time using only a foldable USB keyboard (by the way, I just checked our AS/400, and it doesn't have a USB port, so I guess we'd be immune). He also mentioned the tech IBM was playing with - he said there were projects going on that dealt with <1nm for processors.

IBM says a "full" z-Series machine (specifically, a four-book CEC cage E64, with 70+ PUs such that 64 are characterized as central processors, and each one a z10 quad-core processing engine), is equivalent to about 1,500 x86 machines. Where they based the figures from is anybody's guess, as I could not determine what x86 machines they used to compare their then-latest mainframe. It's easy to compare when they are talking of performance versus their own machines (or their new ones versus your existing old IBM machine) because of their reference IBM LSPR, but the claims against x86 is hard (at least for me) to quantify.

As for the cooling concerns, they play with a far more lenient TDP for their mainframe processors because they refrigerate the mainframes anyway. The bottom part of all cages are actually refrigeration units. For their non-refrigerated units (Power Systems), if your server-room air-conditioning goes on the fritz, you'll know it immediately because the fans will whine and your server starts radiating heat you can feel from a few feet away (true story, happened to us - but as a testament to IBM's server reliability, it withstood that punishment for a few hours without complaining until our maintenance crew fixed both air-conditioners)

The Z series has been around for a while now. I'm pretty sure it isn't using ZRAM (though it would be sweet if it was). If it was ZRAM, we would be seeing much higher cache densities.

Yes, Z series / System z is just a brand name. Before that, it was "eServer zSeries". And before that it was "System/390". Despite branding changes, it is pretty much the same line of mainframes as before, upgraded as technology moves on, so software stack also gets upgraded, but all previous stacks work 100% as well, which is why they are all the same line in spirit - even software running as far back as 1960 and 1970 (System/360 and system/370) are supported hassle-free. It has nothing to do with ZRAM. They used "z" as part of the branding to indicate its relative awesomeness - "z = zero downtime".

 

[Denithor]

And believe me, the people that are purchasing CPUs like this aren't going to let it just sit idle. This thing is built for things like scientific calculations.

Wonder how many PPD you could get with one of these running F@H?

 

[Cogman]

Wonder how many PPD you could get with one of these running F@H?

dunno. You would have to write F@H for it first. I also don't know how fast it is (though, coming from IBM, it is probably greased lightning fast).

 

[PlasmaBomb]

dunno. You would have to write F@H for it first. I also don't know how fast it is (though, coming from IBM, it is probably greased lightning fast).

24 cores at 5.2 GHz is going to be quick... and you might be able to run the "old" apple PPC F@H, the problem is that's only version 5.02, so no SMP or other fun (big point) stuff

 

[Cogman]

24 cores at 5.2 GHz is going to be quick... and you might be able to run the "old" apple PPC F@H, the problem is that's only version 5.02, so no SMP or other fun (big point) stuff

Well, it isn't guaranteed. All architectures are different, so comparing say current gen intel at 5.2Ghz vs this might not be a fair comparison. For all we know, it uses simpler cores with lower IPCs. Think, Netburst.

 

[jvroig]

Well, it isn't guaranteed.

It is guaranteed. Have you worked with IBM systems? It is understandable if you haven't, they are not exactly common place. Each one is far faster than CPUs in PCs, there is no comparison - not in speed, not in power consumption, not even in size. Intel/AMD CPUs are slower, less power hungry, and much smaller. This is quite evident if you took a look at the architecture.

Somewhere in Post #62, I already mentioned the IBM comparison of "Top-end mainframe can replace a cluster of 1500 x86 servers". A quick google confirms that announcement from them.

Even if the comparison is only 50% true, that is 64 quadcores of IBM vs 750 x86 servers. And even if we further water down the claim and say x86 servers are single core servers, that's still 64 quadcores (256 cores) versus 750 x86 cores.

 

[Cogman]

It is guaranteed. Have you worked with IBM systems? It is understandable if you haven't, they are not exactly common place. Each one is far faster than CPUs in PCs, there is no comparison - not in speed, not in power consumption, not even in size. Intel/AMD CPUs are slower, less power hungry, and much smaller. This is quite evident if you took a look at the architecture.

Somewhere in Post #62, I already mentioned the IBM comparison of "Top-end mainframe can replace a cluster of 1500 x86 servers". A quick google confirms that announcement from them.

Even if the comparison is only 50% true, that is 64 quadcores of IBM vs 750 x86 servers. And even if we further water down the claim and say x86 servers are single core servers, that's still 64 quadcores (256 cores) versus 750 x86 cores.

It is as you say, I've never worked with an IBM.

 

[evolucion8]

Earth... While no heater is 100% efficient, they are all somewhere in the neighborhood of 99.999% efficient. Heck, A 5W Incandescent light bulb is 95% efficient at producing heat, and that isn't even what it was made for!

I heard somewhere that only 8% of the total power used in a incandescent light bulb is for light, the rest is only pure heat.

Even if the comparison is only 50% true, that is 64 quadcores of IBM vs 750 x86 servers. And even if we further water down the claim and say x86 servers are single core servers, that's still 64 quadcores (256 cores) versus 750 x86 cores.

Wow, then now I understand why they call IBM the big blue....

 

[mutz]

Guys, thus has (almost) nothing to do with the 5.2 ghz chip, you guys are off-topic. Lets get back on before I have to lock this please. 20 posts talking about heat of light bulbs and such.

that discussion was quite interesting, if anyone mind opening a thread about it in HT it should be nice .

 

[degibson]

It is as you say, I've never worked with an IBM.

Its important to realize that 'an IBM machine' can mean two different things. I.e.:

- It could mean one of the POWER chips. These guys are basically high-end servers. They use the PPC ISA, and are generally bigger, hotter, more expensive, and faster than commodity x86 parts. They have a lot more RAS features than any x86-based box. Consequently, they are more available and reliable, on the whole.

- It could mean a zSeries part like the new 5GHz chip (as jvroig noted, the names have changed many times but the compatibility hasn't). These things run a nasty, complicated, bass-ackwards ISA that was popular decades ago. This class of designs takes reliability and availability to an unreal level. It is not that these parts are soooo blazing fast -- it's that they are the most reliable machines on the planet.

For instance, previous incarnations of that product line used multiple cores operating in lock-step to provide full redundancy of every calculation (modern ones probably still do -- but I haven't read the technical literature on zSeries lately).

The high-level point of this is that a modern 'IBM machine' doesn't compare to any x86-based part out there. It's like comparing automobiles and aircraft -- the speed is just one of the many differences, and arguably not the most important one. An automobile will kill you on the freeway with a thousand-to-one probability. An aircraft will fly you through the air and only kill you once in ten million flights.