IBM is bulking up its eight-way eServer p655 system with a faster 1.7GHz Power4+ chip and double the memory.
The Armonk, N.Y., computer giant on Tuesday will also offer the enhanced p655 for the same price as the current eight-processors system—at about $75,000, said Karl Freund, vice president of pSeries products and strategy. At the same time, the new system will offer about 20 percent more performance, IBM officials said.
The p655, now in its third generation and targeted at the high-performance computing and business intelligence spaces, has four-way systems that run the 64-bit 1.7GHz Power4+, but until now the eight-way unit could only run the 1.5GHz chip.
In addition, the current eight-way server only offered up to 32GB of memory. Now it will offer 64GB, Freund said. According to IBM officials, the current system could have offered 64GB, but performance would have been constrained.
IBM engineers created a new DC power converter that will improve power supply to the memory and enable it to grow to 64GB without impinging upon performance.
The enhanced p655 will be available next month.
IBM targets the p655 at users who need a lot of computing power in a small footprint, Freund said. The p655 systems offer up to 128 processors in a 24-inch frame, and 64 of the p655s can be pulled together to create an IBM Cluster 1600 system. The systems support both IBMs Unix operating system, AIX5L, and Linux.