IBM’s started to sell their blade servers based on their Cell CPU architecture. IBM QS20 is the name of the server model that houses two 3.2GHz Cell Broadband Engine CPU’s. Cell isn’t a general purpose CPU and its calculating power will come in handy when used to help earth quake research, encryption and military surveillance. A big costumer when it comes to IBM’s blade servers is Los Almos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That’s because it’s here IBM’s going to build the supercomputer called “Roadrunner” that’s going use 16 000 Cell CPUs as well as 16 000 AMD Opteron CPUs. A real supercomputer with tremendous calculating power that will try to break the Petaflop barrier in calculating power. IBM’s a bit reluctant in revealing the cost of one server but according to sources it should be around 18 995 USD per piece.
