IBM Debuts Power4+ Workstation

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As we reported it would two weeks ago, IBM today is rolling out a new Power-based workstation, called the Power 275, the company's first workstation to use Big Blue's own Power4 or Power4+ RISC processor. Prior generations of IBM's RS/6000 and IntelliStation workstations were based on variants of the single core Power3 processors, which have relatively low clock speeds compared to the more recent Power4+ chips.

IBM is offering two different models of the Power 275 workstation. The machine is only available at this time with IBM's AIX 5L Unix operating system variant. Linux can technically run on this Power 275 workstation, but is not officially supported on it at this time. Sources at IBM prior to the announcement were unsure of exactly what IBM's Linux plans for the box were.

The entry uniprocessor Power 275 workstation has a 1 GHz Power4+ processor, 1GB of main memory (expandable to 16 GB), four drive bays with one 36 GB disk included, and six PCI-X slots. The PCI-X slots are not hot pluggable because this slows down graphics performance, according to IBM. The machine has multiple Ethernet NICs and UltraSCSI controllers on its motherboard, and comes with IBM's GTX4500P graphics card. The base machine costs $8,810, including charges of $680 for 24x7 warranty and $600 for one year's worth of IBM's Software Maintenance support for AIX 5L. That's about half the cost of the pSeries 630 deskside workstation that IBM sells with a 1.2 GHz Power4+ processor for $17,120.

The other model is a two-way capable box that uses the faster 1.45GHz version of the single-chip module Power4+ chip. (The faster 1.5 GHz and 1.7 GHz Power4+ chips are only available in mutlichip modules that pack four dual-core Power4+ chips into a single block.) All the same basic specs are the same in the two-way version of the Power 275 workstation, except two cores in the Power4+ chip can be turned on to boost CPU performance. The uniprocessor version of this machine with 1 GB of main memory and 36 GB of disk costs $12,810, including warranty and Software Maintenance. A pSeries 630 workstation configuration sells for $19,832 using the same processor. A two-way configuration of the Power275 sells for $17,935, which is 38 percent cheaper than a pSeries 630 with exactly the same processors and memory.

It is interesting to note that IBM is charging roughly the same price for the Power 275 workstations using the 1.45 GHz Power4+ chips as it has been charging for the Power 265 workstations using the 450 MHz Power3-II processors, which have about a third of the raw number-crunching performance.

Customers buying a Power 275 workstation have to be careful, though. There are no upgrades between the uniprocessor entry model and the two-way model. The Power 275 workstations will be available July 25.