IBM introduces 'superfast' POWER6 microprocessor

International Business Machines (IBM) on Monday introduced POWER6 microprocessor, which company says is the fastest chip ever built, as well as a new computer server, dubbed the IBM System p 570, that takes advantage of this chip's technical and energy conservation prowess.

IBM, the world's top provider of computer products and services, said that the fastest-ever dual-core Power6 chip boasts a top speed of 4.7 gigahertz, offering twice the performance of its predecessor while consuming hardly any more power.

The new Power6 chip that doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it can help customers to either increase their performance by 100 percent or cut their power consumption virtually in half.

“Like the victory of IBM’s Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer 10 years ago this month, the debut of POWER6 processor-based systems proves that relentless innovation brings ‘impossible’ goals within reach,” said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “The POWER6 processor forges blazing performance and energy conservation technologies into a single piece of silicon, driving unprecedented business value for our customers.”

IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., said yesterday that its Power6 microprocessor will compliment its family of processors that the company has been developing for the last 20 years, and will go on sale next month.

The Big Blue yesterday also launched its first POWER6-based systems that set new benchmarks for speed, energy efficiency and virtualization capabilities. The chip maker said it will start selling IBM p570 Unix servers with as many as eight of the new dual-core chips.

The average server CPU runs at a speed of between 2.0 and 3.0 GHz, while everyday personal computers run at speeds of around 2.0 GHz. The chip company’s new server computers will have anywhere from one dual core CPU all the way up to eight dual core CPUs, meaning that the new servers could have up to 8 dual core processors running at 4.7 GHz each. In contrast, Intel's Itanium 2 server processor tops out at 1.66 GHz.

IBM claims the System p 570, embedded with the new POWER6 processor, runs faster and more efficiently than three HP Superdome machines or more than a dozen SunFire v890 servers.

The systems are expected to go on sale from June 8 with a price tag of US$60,000.

The new IBM chip also has massive bandwidth, 300 gigabytes per second, which the company says would be fast enough to process the download of the entire iTunes music catalog, which currently has more than 5 million songs, in about a minute.

As per IBM estimates, customers using the new server can save more than $100,000 per year on electricity bills.

With the launch of new energy efficient CPU IBM intends to target customers with "less efficient" servers from Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Dell.

In addition to its launch in the System p 570, IBM also plans to introduce the Power6 chip throughout its System p and System i server lines.

The investors apparently seemed unimpressed with the launch, and sent shares in IBM down by $0.95 cents, or 0.9%, at $107.04, in Monday afternoon trading in New York.