IBM has announced its new z10 mainframe together with the all new z10 processor. IBM has designed it from scratch to increase data center efficiency, and reduce power, cooling and space requirements. While sporting performance which is on par with what a cluster of 1,500 x86 processors, it requires 85% less power and 85% less space to operate. If you want more, z10 can scale up to hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of users, IBM says.
The z10 supports a wide range of workloads including Linux, XML, Java, WebSphere and soon also Sun Solaris. The heart(s) is 64 purpose-built quad-core processors, and all in all IBM spent five years developing this new monster. It has cost more than $1.5 billion in R&D.
Three CPUs
The high-end version of the processor sports 5 quad-core dies operating at 4.4GHz and two service processors. Three megabytes of L2 cache per core, and an additional 48MB (2x24MB) of L3 cache through the two service processors.
z10 die
Prices start at $1 million, but that won’t get you the high-end chips.
