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IBM Gives Details on Octo-Core Power7 Processor

Posted 08/26/09 at 03:01:32 PM  by Paul Lilly

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The CPU wars in the desktop market have grown pretty stale with Intel's Core i7 architecture kicking AMD's tail, but when it comes to the server sector, the battle is starting to heat up.

Enter IBM, who at this week's Hot Chips conference officially unveiled its muscular 8-core Power7 processor. The mighty chip is expected to pack 1.2 billion transistors onto a 45nm die. Each core will boast 12 execution units, as well as 32 threads per chip and advanced pre-fetching data and instruction sets.

"I am sure Power7 will be the fastest processor around, probably faster than Intel's Nehalem in some benchmarks," said Nathan Brookwood, principal of market watcher Insight64.

Other specs include scalability up to 32 sockets, 256KB L2 cache per core, 32MB of on chip eDRAM shared L3 cache, dual DDR3 memory controllers, 100GB/s memory bandwidth per chip, and 360GB/s SMP bandwidth per chip.

Image Credit: IBM via TGDaily

COMMENTS:7
TAGS: server, cpu, processor, ibm, multi-core, hardware, power7, octo-core
COMMENTS
avatarthe number 7 seems to be way

Submitted by comptech08 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 2:25pm

the number 7 seems to be way to go in marketing.  Windows 7, Intel corei7, IBM power 7.  Whats up with 7, is it just because its lucky? lol

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avatarit is the 7th generation

Submitted by t0r012 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 3:03pm

 

this is the 7th generation of this ibm processor. this wil replace the power6 . the only one that i don't think is the 7th is the i7 from intel, but i could be wrong.

 

I'd love to have this in a desktop , considering it is rummored to run a 4ghz 

 http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/report_ibms_eightcore_power7_chip_come_clocked_4ghz

 

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avatarAlso, I don't think Windows

Submitted by DBsantos77 on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 4:00pm

Also, I don't think Windows 7 is the 7th version, can't say for sure but I read something about it a while back.

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avatarWhat's the change of this

Submitted by DBsantos77 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 1:54pm

What's the change of this going mainstream to home PC's?

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avatarconsidering AMD is getting

Submitted by t0r012 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 3:09pm

considering AMD is getting thier butt kicked on the highend desktop , and they have a relationship with IBM I am holding out hope to see an amd version for the highend desktop.

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avatarNot even Steve Jobs accepts power anymore.

Submitted by QUINTIX256 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 3:27pm

People keep forgetting: there is a reason why you don't see PowerPC on the desktop anymore; there is a reason why it is isolated to the Server and game console market, and there is a reason why Apple abandoned the PowerPC architecture that they helped develop.

PowerPC is far more comparable to the "Itanic" than the x86. Sure, it offers quite a bit of raw throughput, but only provides so much flexibility in terms of what can be done with that throughput. This is somewhat due to the fact that it is a RISC based architecture. Sure, you could argue that the x86 now has risc-like bits in it, but fundamentally x86 is not risc.

 

You can have your recession. I'm not participating.

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avatarAhhh I see, cool thanks for

Submitted by DBsantos77 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 6:26pm

Ahhh I see, cool thanks for the info!

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