IBM unveils Power8 and OpenPower pincer attack on Intel’s x86 server monopoly

[digitalnav]

 

 

IBM has taken the wraps off the first servers that are powered by its monstrously powerful Power8 CPUs. With more than 4 billion transistors, packed into a stupidly large 650-square-millimeter die built on IBM’s new 22nm SOI process, the 12-core (96-thread) Power8 CPU is one of the largest and probably the most powerful CPU ever built. In a separate move, IBM is opening up the entire Power8 architecture and technical documentation through the OpenPower Foundation, allowing third parties to make Power-based chips (much like ARM’s licensing model), and to allow for the creation of specialized coprocessors (GPUs, FPGAs, etc.) that link directly into the CPU’s memory space using IBM’s new CAPI interface.

First, we should talk about the new Power8 chip. There are 12 CPU cores, each with 512KB of L2 SRAM and 8MB of L3 EDRAM, for a total of 6MB L2 and 96MB L3 cache respectively. There is then a further 230GB/sec of bandwidth to 1TB of DRAM. Whereas each Intel Xeon core is capable of two-way simultaneous threading, and Power7+ cores can do four threads, Power8 ups the ante to eight simlutaneous threads (SMT).

 

 

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm-power8-openpower-x86-server-monopoly

 

 

 

Personally, it would be nice to see PowerPC get back into the game.

[DoubleY]

Why does this seem oddly familiar? 

 

Oh yea, you already told me hueuheuhuehe

[Unhelpful]

Neat. I want 5.

[Jerakl]

Dayum! Do want!

This HAS to be mentioned on the WAN show.

@LinusTech

@Slick

[qwertywarrior]

they are opening it up !!!

cool !

[Musikman]

I smell potential folding performance!

[carolkarine]

so..... these would theoretically be usable by a consumer? if said consumer was willing to spend a fortune?

[HexaGuy]

Wow. 650mm square. That is a very large chip. Wonder how much one costs and what the TDP is.

[TheProfosist]

Thats like for super scale stuff like mainframes guys.

[Glenwing]

so..... these would theoretically be usable by a consumer? if said consumer was willing to spend a fortune?

 

Not really.  You'd need a motherboard for it among other things, and those aren't sold by themselves.  These processors will go into server racks which will be sold to enterprises as a package for mainframe servers.

[Sidiox]

I always wonder, what kind of OS's run on these CPU's? And could these theoraticly be used as accelerators on PCI cards? 

[dalekphalm]

I always wonder, what kind of OS's run on these CPU's? And could these theoraticly be used as accelerators on PCI cards? 

Most likely some form of Unix. Possibly Linux as well. I don't know if IBM still has their own server OS these days or not.

 

As for PCI Accelerators... probably not. But hey you never know, IBM is pretty damn innovative.

[totjup5]

But can it run crysis?

[Kurros]

Most likely some form of Unix. Possibly Linux as well. I don't know if IBM still has their own server OS these days or not.

 

As for PCI Accelerators... probably not. But hey you never know, IBM is pretty damn innovative.

 

It's developed for AS/400 (iSeries).

 

Edit: Just wanted to add that AS/400 is very much an alive OS and is quite common. I've worked on them personally for over a decade.   

[JAKEBAB]

I really hope they don't come to the consumer market again and apple doesn't switch no more hackintoshs

[Fetzie]

so..... these would theoretically be usable by a consumer? if said consumer was willing to spend a fortune?

 

Not really. You'd need software compiled for this platform as I don't think it supports x86.

[DaRk0]

I really hope they don't come to the consumer market again and apple doesn't switch no more hackintoshs

That would be actually cool. Like good old days.

[JAKEBAB]

That would be actually cool. Like good old days.

no then we wouldnt be able to make our own macs!

[Misanthrope]

I smell potential folding performance!

 

The price would get rid off most amateurs (finally) So that'd be rather interesting.

[Musikman]

The price would get rid off most amateurs (finally) So that'd be rather interesting.

And that's why we have an @Whaler_99

[Whaler_99]

I only wish I could do something with these. 

 

These will come on boards and purchased from IBM - they power iseries, pseries and such. Also some of their very high end storage systems run powerpc.

 

Most people don't realize it since they sold all the desktop, laptop and xseries servers, but they make a BOAT load of money on the I and P systems (AS/400 and AX) as well as their storage systems... 

[Glenwing]

But can it run crysis?

 

Actually, it can't Not compatible.