Re: POWER6 now or later?

[Larry Bolhuis <lbolhuis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

 While I expect that they may not have POWER6 yields up as high as they 
eventually will have, speculating that the production isn't up to demand 
is just that, speculation.

 What many folks don't understand is that the POWER6 i5 model 570s 
contain tremendously more than the simple insertion of a faster CPU. 
Some of these changes include:

   50% more memory slots per processor book over the POWER5 models.
   In addition this is different memory (and faster) even than that 
used in the POWER5+ Models.
   PCI-X DDR and PCI-E slots (No IOP Slots) rather than only PCI-X Slots.
   Support for 12X I/O in addition to HSL-2 loops.
   DASD Slots for SAS drives rather than SCSI drives.

 As I see it then there is almost nothing in this system that is the 
same as the previous 570 models and clearly is SO MUCH more than simply 
dropping in a faster CPU. Clearly this then requires some significant 
engineering and it will be some time before the 550 and 515/20/25 models 
get this full on makeover. Eventually I would expect the 595 to get the 
faster CPUs too but they were recently updated to the POWER5+ 2.3Ghz 
cpus so it's anyone's guess when they will need POWER6 in those systems.

But then you see one of the superb capabilities of the System i. Your 
software will run on this hardware just like it did on the previous 570s 
but it will run faster.  Optimization to the POWER6 chip may improve 
things even more as previous discussions have pointed out but despite 
the complete swap out in these systems your efforts primarily include 
accepting praise for the system's improved performance!

- Larry



Steve Richter wrote:
> IBM might be having trouble producing the P6.  The mid and low range
> system p models are still on the p5. you would expect customers to
> hold off purchasing those systems until the new models are available.
> so IBM, by announcing last month that the P6 was available, is
> effectively telling its customers to wait for the new models with
> twice the speed of the old.  My thinking is that IBM thought in July
> when it announced the high end, that the low end would be ready to
> sell sooner than later.
>
> -Steve
>