IBM unveils 6ghz chip!

[Crash]

New IBM chip breaks barriers to double speed
By Chris Nuttall in San Francisco
Published: February 7 2006 01:03 | Last updated: February 7 2006 01:03

IBM will unveil a new processor on Tuesday that will be twice as fast as those of competitors such as Sun, Intel and AMD when it appears in 2007, according to the group.

IBM’s Power6 chip is a radical departure from the trend among microprocessor makers to produce more energy-efficient chips after their race to increase speeds created overheating problems.

IBM said it had broken through energy and heat barriers with the Power6 to achieve speeds of between 4 and 5 gigahertz – more than double the performance of the next generation of Intel’s Itanium chip, planned at less than 2GHz.

The processor will give IBM an edge in the high-end server market, operating faster in the same “power envelope” as its rivals.

Bernie Myerson, chief technology officer of IBM’s Systems and Technology group, said existing chip technology reached its physical limits four years ago in terms of doubling the number of transistors on a chip while reducing the amount of power needed to run them.

But techniques such as stretching and squeezing the silicon used, improving synchronisation at high speeds and taking a holistic approach to improving the chip architecture had enabled a breakthrough.

“There’s nobody looking at anything like this. We have a more highly integrated chip that is multi-core and we are increasing the frequency – we are turning up both knobs at once when the industry is going the other way and turning [the frequency] knob down,” Mr Myerson said.

Richard Doherty, analyst with Envisioneering, a consultancy, said IBM achieved frequencies of 6GHz in their labs.

“It’s our belief that this is going to be the fastest computing chip and family in the world for some time.

“A lot of people will be surprised by this. It will cause a lot of companies to go back to the drawing board,” he said.

IBM will make its disclosures about the Power6 at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

It unveiled its revolutionary Cell processor at the same conference a year ago, which will feature in Sony’s PlayStation3 games console.

I want one.. I'm cruising at 2.1ghz

and IBM charged sony an arm and a leg to give them the Cell processor the the PS3, (which apparently now, is old technology)

All the while, keeping the revolutionary chip for themselves!

[bobcat]

Hey Crash u got a link for that?

Not that I don't believe you but............well yeh I don't believe you :P

[Canyarion]

Link and Crash is no good combination. Apperantly.

[Dyne]

I'm cruising at 689 MHz and I don't play games - it still works after all these years.

[Null]

Originally Posted by Crash

I want one.. I'm cruising at 2.1ghz

and IBM charged sony an arm and a leg to give them the Cell processor the the PS3, (which apparently now, is old technology)

All the while, keeping the revolutionary chip for themselves!

cruising at a 2.1 what? 2.1ghz doesnt show how powerful or fast it is unless you know what its of. (they touched on this in that quote you listed)


as far as the consoles vs pc issue... well thats to be expected. consoles only stay 'top of the line' for a very short time, PC's usually have them beat out by the end of the first year of thier release.

[Crash]

I dont understand where our trust relation ship is

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c41f2d94-97...0779e2340.html


I have an AMD 3000+

[Happydude]

AMD 2600+ for me...for now...upgrading to AMD 64 soon...preferable 3600+ but i'll see what i can find and what i can afford maybe i'll settle for a 3400+

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by Crash

I dont understand where our trust relation ship is

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c41f2d94-97...0779e2340.html


I have an AMD 3000+

I trust nobody!

Except Sales people, Real Estate Agents.......and Politicians. They're all great people to trust.

[Jonbo298]

Meh...its a year off at the least. Even then, they have to convince motherboard makes to do this and then hope they dont half ass any of those motherboards.

I'm still on my Athlon XP 2500+ (at 3200 speeds) but in the next few weeks or so plan to upgrade to either hte 4400 or 4600 Athlon64 Dual Core to future proof myself for the next couple of years or so..depending.

[Null]

Originally Posted by Happydude

AMD 2600+ for me...for now...upgrading to AMD 64 soon...preferable 3600+ but i'll see what i can find and what i can afford maybe i'll settle for a 3400+

what price ya lookin for? i just ordered my AMD64 3700+ last weekend it was only like $30 more then the 3500+ i was lookin at and it looked better for what i wanted.. figured what the hell. hehe

[Happydude]

where did you order from and how much did it cost?


also, i'm in australia so shipping costs might be quite high for me.

and all electronic equipment here is overpriced some by a lot some by a little, so i don't really want to purchase any PC parts here, Happydudette is buying it all in malaysia/singapore.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by Happydude

where did you order from and how much did it cost?


also, i'm in australia so shipping costs might be quite high for me.

and all electronic equipment here is overpriced some by a lot some by a little, so i don't really want to purchase any PC parts here, Happydudette is buying it all in malaysia/singapore.

Pc parts are expensive here. Very true this is.

So are a lot of other things

[thatmariolover]

Meh, we'll see what difference it makes in their sales now that they've lost one of their biggest chip contracts (Apple).

[Null]

Originally Posted by Happydude

where did you order from and how much did it cost?


also, i'm in australia so shipping costs might be quite high for me.

and all electronic equipment here is overpriced some by a lot some by a little, so i don't really want to purchase any PC parts here, Happydudette is buying it all in malaysia/singapore.

i got it from newegg for $230

i upgraded from my p4 2.66, my real reason for upgrading tho was my ram was totally screwed up, so i was gunna buy new ram, but figured might as well upgrade and buy the better ram for a upgraded pc. :P

[MuGen]

I probably should've sprung for an AMD but I'm running a P4 3.2 w/ HT... and 4 juicy GB of ram

I've heard a lot about how AMD is better, but my games run fine... especially the graphic heavy ones.