IBM claims 'fastest MPU ever built'
By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- EDN, May 21, 2007
In a one-two product release punch, technology giant IBM Corp. today simultaneously launched what it claimed is the fastest microprocessor ever built and a new computer server that leverages the chip's features and is the first ever to hold all four major benchmark speed records for business and technical performance.
At 4.7GHz, the dual-core POWER6 processor purportedly doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it, IBM said. The POWER6 chip, which is made on 65-nm process technology, has a total cache size of 8MBytes per chip, to keep pace with the processor bandwidth of 300GBytes per second. The company also said that the chip is the first UNIX microprocessor able to calculate decimal floating point arithmetic in hardware.
IBM further said that its System p 570 server, running the POWER6 processor, claims the top spots in the four most widely used performance benchmarks for Unix servers: SPECint2006, measuring integer-calculating throughput common in business applications; SPECfp2006, measuring floating point-calculating throughput required for scientific applications; SPECjbb2005, measuring Java performance in business operations per second; and TPC-C, measuring transaction processing capability. According to IBM, this is the first time that a single system has owned all four categories.
The company added that all that power will not come at a big environmental expense. The POWER6 processor includes a host of power-conserving features and is the first product delivered under Big Blue's large-scale energy efficiency initiative announced earlier this month. As part of the campaign, IBM has planned to redirect $1 billion per year across its businesses in an effort to mobilize the company's resources to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in IT.
IBM plans to start shipments of the POWER6 chip next month throughout the System p and System i server lines.
