IBM Launches Powerful UNIX Server and Water-Cooled Hydro-Cluster

IBM is going to put to shame competitors for the full program. The new Power 595 monster server with 5 GHz Power6 processors is not only more powerful than competitors from the same price category, but it is twice as good. The company cites benchmarks SPECint_rate2006 similar in configuration to 64-core IBM and HP servers. The Power 595 model with 256 GB of RAM and 4.2 GHz Power6 processors showed a result of 1650, while the HP Integrity Superdome model with 1.6 GHz processors shows only 824, that is, exactly half as much. Given the frequency at which the new Power6 processors work, the performance difference is not surprising.

Power 595 comes in a configuration of 8 to 64 Power6 processors with a frequency of 4.2 to 5 GHz, the total RAM can reach 4 TB. The whole structure is mounted in a two-meter cabinet weighing 1,550 kg.

In addition to Power 595, the company introduced a new version of the server module for Power 575 supercomputers , which was called the Hydro-Cluster. The name is quite logical, because in this version of the server water cooling is implemented: it has come into fashion again in recent years .