CFOs Can Save Energy Consumption with Power6
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, May 22, 2007

As the company launches the new version of its Power brand of microprocessors, IBM is quick to claim that the new microprocessor offers double the speed of Power5 and almost halves the electricity consumption; the company also holds that it has enough bandwidth to download the entire Apple iTunes content in about 60 seconds

With a clock speed of 4.7 GHz, the dual-core Power6 processor doubles the speed of the previous generation Power5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it, halving the energy consumption in effect.

The Power6 chip has a total cache size of 8MB per chip - four times the Power5 chip - to keep pace with the processor bandwidth. The release from IBM states that the Power6 chip in the new IBM System p 570 server is the first UNIX microprocessor that can calculate decimal floating point arithmetic in hardware, which until now was done using software. The built-in decimal floating point capability can help enterprises run complex tax, financial and ERP programs more accurately.

The Power6 processor is built using IBM's 65 nanometer process technology.

The chip can operate at low voltages, allowing it to be used both in low power blade environments as well as large, high-performance symmetric multiprocessing machines. The bandwidth can be configured, which enables customers to choose maximum performance or minimal cost.

The Power6 chip includes additional techniques to conserve power and reduce heat generated by Power6 processor-based servers. Processor clocks can be dynamically turned off when there is no useful work to be done and turned back on when there are instructions to be executed.

It also helps save power when the memory is not fully utilized, as power to parts of the memory not being utilized is dynamically turned off and then turned back on when needed.

IBM plans to introduce the Power6 chip throughout the System p and System i server lines.