Quadruple processor by IBM:

[dr_ml422]

is it true that IBM came out w/some really ka quadruple processor not too long ago? a friend told me after he built his pc that ibm came out w/it.
felt like banging his head in cause he didn't catch it.

i thought ibm was long gone from the computer world. haven't heard from then since the 70's.

[Chewy]

In the server market, the sky's the limit

amd had the first true quad core

but IBM has some big plans

Like prior and current generations of Power processors from IBM, the z6 chip includes the electronics to link up multiple processors into symmetric multiprocessors on the chip itself, which means IBM will be able to relatively easily link these chips into very large processor complexes. The z6 processor will be married with an SMP hub chip that has 48 GB/sec of bandwidth and which has 24 MB of SRAM L3 cache on it. IBM is not yet saying how far it can scale the z6 servers that will use the z6 processor and the SMP hub chip, but it seems likely that a minimum of 16 of these units will allow up to 64 z6 cores to be presented to applications in a single system image for z/OS. That SMP hub chip has a stunning 1.6 billion transistors and a total of 7,984 pins. The SMP hub chips can be paired up in a system, which suggests IBM might be offering pairs for scalability (perhaps pushing cores in the machine up to a maximum of 128) or for reliability (maybe even mirroring processors in the system, which would be an interesting development). IBM's goal is to have mainframes never go down, and mirroring processors would certainly help accomplish this. Each z6 chip has two 48 GB/sec SMP hub ports, four 13 GB/sec memory ports, and two 17 GB/sec I/O ports.

The z6 chip will have 991 million transistors and has 138 MB of SRAM on the die in total. The chip has 1,199 signal pins and a total of 8,765 pins and a die size of 21.7 millimeters by 20 millimeters. Like the Power6 chip, the z6 mainframe chip is implemented in IBM's 65 nanometer SOI chip processes, and like the Power6 chip, the pipeline has been reworked to do instructions mostly in order at a low latency, allowing clock speeds to rise to boost performance of applications. Other chip makers have decided to preserve their pipelines, keep the clock speeds low, and add multiple cores to get the throughput of a chip up where Moore's Law can take it. With the Power6 and z6 chips, IBM is trying to stay within the same thermal envelope and allow clock speeds to rise as high as it can push them.

http://www.itjungle.com/big/big103007-story01.html

[dr_ml422]

thnx 4 confirming this chewy. sometimes i just have to run something by someone else because of for lack of a better word right now, how exaggerated it sounds.

as far as amd is concerned, is it true that they may be faster than let's say intel, but that they burn out quicker? some geek i know said that yes they are faster, but they'll burn quicker, so it's safer to go w/intel. or is this all relative to the other hardware accompanying it?

[UncasMS]

for the time being i don't dare saying they are faster but they definitely don't burn out faster!

i have many old amd cpu still working perfectly fine like for example one of the very first athlons for slot A

this 700 mhz cpu (bought in '99) is still in excellent shape and does its daily job

[Chewy]

edit: that's backwards
intel is faster/runs hotter and burns out quicker(generally)
the athlon xp's that ran up to 2.2Ghz and ran close to 85C core temp can burn up just as quickly as a P4 tho

I have just barely glanced at the ibm quad core specs but they seem to have chosen the same general path as Intel which allows ramping up the cpu's as high as 4Ghz.

From what little I could find, it would seem they cobbled their first quad core together just like Intel by patching 2 duo core cpu's

Another thing, they seem to be more of a partner than a competitor with Intel as they are using Intel cpu's in their entry level servers, I am pretty sure those Ibm cpu's are only used with IBM or partners server OS's, not windows?

You need to focus on the Barcelona and the new Intel series that will be released soon.

Next after that will be a major leap forward when they start putting GPU's(graphics chips)
in with the cpu's in quad and 8 core processors.

Of course that's 2-4 years away for any practical/affordable application

[dr_ml422]

good info to know for now. thnx fellas. i'm not ready to build just yet, but just for the heck of it what's the way to go when building? amd or intel? right now i just use my pc 4 burning , and occasionally checking out some of my fav sites, some 4 purchasing. the os i get later would maybe be relative to some extra apps. i might want to add according to the preferable recommended suggestions here.

[UncasMS]

i ordered another amd these days:
athlon 64 x2 6000+ EE

taking a look at price/performance i didn't even had to think:

http://www.tomshardware.com/de/charts/desktop-cpu-charts/synthetic-3dmark06,341.html?p=670%2C714

compared to a (very good) intel c2d E6600 the amd is more than 30% cheaper and i get 6% more performance

[browneye]

Intel's transistor redesign ushers in 'new era' of technology
Analysts predict transistor used in new 45nm Penryn chips will extend Moore's Law.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=windows_and_linux_pcs&articleId=9046458&taxonomyId=64&intsrc=kc_top

Dell scoops up Intel's new 45nm Penryn chips for its workstations
Dell is quick out of the gate, beating rivals HP and Lenovo to the Penryn punch

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9049620

Beyond Dual Core: 2007 Desktop CPU Road Map
What do AMD and Intel have in store for desktop chips this year? We've got the goods.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006938&pageNumber=4