IBM's New Processors To Exceed 5Ghz

Jordin Normisky writes to mention the news, via ZDNet Asia, that IBM's new Power6 processor will be unveiled next month at a conference in San Francisco. They're also planning to announce a second-generation Cell, both of which are expected to run faster than 5GHz. From the article: "In addition, the [Power6] chip 'consumes under 100 watts in power-sensitive applications,' a power range comparable to mainstream 95-watt AMD Opteron chips and 80-watt Intel Xeon chips. Power6 has 700 million transistors and measures 341 square millimeters, according to the program. The smaller that a chip's surface area is, the more that can be carved out of a single silicon wafer, reducing per-chip manufacturing costs and therefore making a computer more competitive. Power6, like the second-generation Cell, is built with a manufacturing process with 65-nanometer circuitry elements, letting more electronics be squeezed onto a given surface area. "

Products

[FadedTimes]

If I owned an as/400, i/z series server, maybe this would be exciting news as a future upgrade.

Re:And here I thought...

[SNR monkey]

I was surprised by the flaunting of 5GHz too because I was under the impression we were firmly in the "more cores = more better" era.

So much for...

[markov_chain]

...undisturbed 802.11a networking!

Yeah!

[radu.stanca]

In your face, Steve Jobs!

Re:And here I thought...

[Lord_Slepnir]

ssshhh...I'm currently working on a way to glue a 10ghz crystal on a 8086 chip and (truthfully) sell them as "an x86 processor with a 10ghz clock".

Next generation Cell into PS3?

[Sarusa]

It would be ludicrous, but Kutaragi's talked before about never reducing the price of the PS3 but instead upgrading it with more memory, bigger hard drives, etc. It would be pretty damned amusing if, a year and a half after PS3 launch, instead of cutting prices with a new easier to produce Cell and Blu-ray they upgraded the PS3 with the Cell2(and hosed everyone who'd already bought one). This would be so stupid and arrogant that it's only plausible because it's Sony.

Re:Macintoshes

[vought]

"NOW you tell us?"

-Steve Jobs

Re:Perpetuating myths

[_Swank]

we've moved past the megahertz myth. we're stuck on the gigahertz myth now.

Re:And here I thought...

[HAKdragon]

You could always use duct tape. No where in your quote block do you use the words functional or integrated. ;)

Re:And here I thought...

[Mixel]

And even those that do sometimes shoot themselves in the foot

Re:And here I thought...

[kurzweilfreak]

It's ok because most people here are pretty adept at "computing" with only one hand anyway.

Obligatory

[Cosmo-san]

5 Ghz is enough speed for everyone.