Re: Power7 sockets and cores
Tom,
> IBM 770 and 780 servers have four sockets in each 4u 'block'.
They have 2 sockets in each 4U (CEC). This makes 16 cores max per CEC, 64 cores per 4 CECs (max system config).
> On top of all that, sockets on 780s can be configured to turn off half their cores and raise the clock rate on the remaining ones (not all sockets have to do it at once, either).
All CPUs work in either MaxCore (all cores enabled) or TurboCore (half cores disabled) at once.
> Probably, the writer's language meant that the 780 had two-blocks. Each block with four sockets.
It was still only one CEC, 2 sockets (16 cores), but working in TurboMode, so only 8 cores were available. It's 1/4th of maximum configuration for 780.
For a max system in TurboCore mode (32 cores 4.1 GHz) the result could be about 4 800 000 (assuming theoretical linear scalability) or when in MaxCore (64 cores 3.8 GHz) over 6 million tpmC, maybe even 7 million tpmC, which would be more than current TPC-C record for single system.