IBM will today launch its new Power7 processor along with systems based on the chip.
Scheduled to be unveiled today at an event in New York, IBM says the highly anticipated, next generation CPU will boost capacity, throughput, and energy-efficiency.
The Wall Street Journal reports that IBM's Power7 boasts 1.2 billion transistors, eight processing cores and can handle 32 threads. Power7 also packs a myriad of new features such as TurboCore, which IBM says delivers twice the performance per core of the predecessor Power6 Systems. Also present are other "Intelligent Energy" features that help reduce power consumption by as much as 90 percent.
"We feel good comparing it to current products and products we expect to come," Rod Adkins, senior vice president of IBM Systems and Technology, says according to the Wall Street Journal.
Read the full story here.
Can crysis even use 32 threads? DX
Just as our desktop apps and games dont stand a chance on IBM's chips - Calculator vs Human Brain example
Correct, it uses IBM's Power arch. However, you could run it on top of a VM and see
But anyways, with speeds of up to 4.14Ghz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER7
Depends on the type of ops/code running.
Yes, but you can't really emulate a few pci-ex gpus through a VM soft, even if you could, there would be lag.
All it takes right now is for IBM to decide to enter the consumer CPU market and both Intel and AMD are DEAD!
And don't they can't because they spend as much on R&D in a year as Intel has Operating Income in a year, combine that with the fact they even made this thing at all and it's a very real possibility.
I can't even begin to imagine how fast and powerful a system based on this thing would be.
Naahh... not if you have a 8P Power7 set up
Wrong.
For starters, this won't run 90-99% of the code out there except through VM. Second, you have no idea what a Power arch based set up costs do you? Third, IBM and AMD are in co op mode for 32nm tech anyways, IBM won't gain much if it enters the consumer market. It won't be worth it (the consumer market just won't accept it, just like RDRAM, BTX,etc). IBM makes a HUGE amounts of profit on the Power based servers/HPCs and super computers, IBMs perfectly fine in this niche market(s). Fourth, there are only a few Linux/BSD distros that have PPC support meaning a lot of code would need to be recompiled from source. Fifth, and most importantly, there is no Windows on PPC with out VM and even then there will be a lot of hardware/software conflicts.
QFT
I mean it wouldn't good for too much these days but can't Windows NT 4.0 for PPC run on the newer PPC Computers?
Intel is too good a marketing company and has the X86 instruction set in which most applications and games use. IBm would have a major disadvantage with 3rd party software and hardware drivers as they would spend alot more in order to "sell" their architecture and chip. This is why they focus on business or enterprise type companies that are large and not the average consumer.
Of course, if the Core i7 loses, that will just mean that all these years we've had a not-so-innovative Windows monopoly, and a slightly more innovative x86 monopoly both propping eachother up.