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back to article So where is IBM's Power7+ CPU?

As El Reg told you earlier this week, IBM was, indeed, getting ready to enhance its Power Systems line of servers. But Big Blue did not, despite evidence to the contrary, have the Power7+ processors coming "just around the corner", as it was telling customers only a few weeks ago. IBM did, however, launch new versions of its …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Power7 enhanced I/O and Power7+

    If you look back at the "+" models they come out anywhere between 18 months to 24 months after the main chip delivery and they never come out past September of the year. IBM does not like product transitions in their 4th quarter. I was surprised to see the big improvements to systems in 4Q and will be looking especially at the 96 core doubled up 780.

    oh yes "we are a financial institution that recently dumped Sun will never buy another sparc box and have fallen in love with PowerVM and can't believe what is going on with HP"

    actually just a local government IT shop that is looking to save on our software bills.

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  2. VV
    Facepalm

    "and IBM's competitors will have some fun with that."

    Depends... there aren't that many "Watsons" around. Perhaps IBM decided to get more brains into other projects rather than concentrate on processors.

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    1. Kebabbert
      Reply Icon

      "Have fun"?

      Everybody is late sometimes. I doubt any vendor has constantly been on time. I rather have a good product that is slightly late, than a bad product on time.

      Blizzard is doing like this, and reaping the benefits. Their games are always late, but sell in vast quantities. Quality before quantity!

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  3. King1Con
    Mushroom

    Maybe there is no POWER7+

    IBM=RIM?

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  4. Manu T

    Is there a problem with current machines then?

    Are they "too slow" perhaps?

    What's wrong with delaying new products until the turmoil on the financial markets ceased a bit?

    Product lifecycles are alread way to short for ppl to embrace them. Ease up, guys!

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  5. Jesper Frimann
    Mushroom

    Well they did do something... TPM

    Cause if you take a 1 System Unit POWER 770-MMB with 3.1 GHz Power7 cores and ships it with 512 GB of the same RAM as you ship in a POWER 770-MMC with 3.3GHz POWER7 cores.

    Then the MMB uses 1,118 Watt and the MMC uses.. 1033 Watt.

    Try it our yourself:

    http://www-912.ibm.com/see/EnergyEstimator

    So cranking up the Processor speed with 200 MHz makes each chip use 44 watt less.

    Hmm.. Well guess we'll get wiser with time.

    // Jesper

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    1. tpm (Written by Reg staff)
      Reply Icon

      Re: Well they did do something... TPM

      Well ain't that interesting....

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  6. Beachrider

    A refreshing change...

    I cannot say enough how pleased I am that The Reg has started to get IBM info and write on it. There were YEARS when The Reg complained that IBM never spoon fed them anything.

    Thanks for the improved stories on this company!

    The story has some of the same facts that many of us had. There was going to be some kind of Power 7+ kicker in August-September. It didn't happen. Oracle has cranked up its press machine with a new processor/server (we DO need to see the machines in someone's hands, though).

    I don't think that IBM is toast. They clearly needed more time to position their product. There was to be die-shrink, GHz improvement and core/processor increase. Perhaps they were surprised by the Oracle press release and didn't want to appear to have an anemic response. Perhaps the technology didn't come together fast enough. Time will tell.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Process woes?

    Well, I guess that would be the uninformed guess after this week's processor news...

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  8. VirtualGreg
    Pint

    Hey TPM - reread your own article

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/05/ibm_power7_plus_power8/ dated May 5, 2011:

    All of these roadmaps don't have enough detail to be useful, and this is intentionally so. Steve Sibley, director of product management for the Power Systems line at Big Blue, answered a direct question when I asked if there was going to be a Power7+ chip in the future. (Yes, I was a bit surprised.)

    "Yes, there will be such a thing," Sibley tells El Reg. "We certainly have a Power7+ in the next year to 18 months. We're still working on this."

    IBM seems to like April and October announce dates for big stuff...April sounds nice. :-)

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