IBM Cuts pSeries Tags as It Rolls Out 1.9 GHz Power4+

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

IBM this week formally announced its latest clocked up Power4+ processors while also taking the knife to prices on many existing pSeries machines with slower Power CPUs and memory cards used throughout the line. As we reported last week, IBM had jacked up the clock speeds on the Power4+ processors used in the pSeries Unix server line to 1.9 GHz and had used that processor in a TPC-C online transaction benchmark to try to get some airplay during Intel Developer Forum.

The faster Power4+ processor is only available in the high-end "Regatta-H" pSeries 690, which has sixteen dual-core Power4 processors comprised of four eight-core multichip modules. The circuitry, packaging, and cooling associated with this MCM allows IBM to run these Power4+ cores a little faster than it can with other Power4-based machines, which employ smaller MCMs or single-chip implementations with one or two cores activated. In lieu of faster Power4 or Power4+ processors in the remaining pSeries midrange and enterprise servers, IBM is cutting prices modestly on base systems and cutting prices on main memory a bit more steeply. Pricing is very aggressive on new high-end 128 GB memory cards, which have enabled IBM to double the main memory in the pSeries 690 to 1 TB and post TPC-C benchmark results above the 1 million transaction per minute mark.

IBM is offering the pSeries 690 with the 1.9 GHz Power4+ processors in four different configurations, with eight, 16, 24, or 32 of the cores activated; customers who want a different number of processors than these setting can buy a base machine and then use IBM's capacity on demand to activate an additional number of processors. All base pSeries 690 machines come with a license to AIX, a rack, an I/O drawer, and two 36 GB disk drives. The smallest configuration with eight 1.9 GHz cores and 16 GB of main memory will cost $641,738, according to Jim McGaughan, director of pSeries marketing at IBM. Prior to the price cuts announced on slower Power4+ chips, an eight core box using 1.7 GHz cores and 16GB of main memory cost $601,488. So IBM is, in effect, charging 7 percent more money for about 12 percent more oomph. However, IBM has cut prices on the 1.7 GHz Power4+ processors used in the pSeries 690, and that same base eight-core box now costs only $528,488, down 12 percent. What that means is that IBM is really charging 21 percent more for that extra 12 percent of performance. This is not uncommon in the IT business, as we all know. If you need top-end performance, you always pay top dollar.

A pSeries 690 with 32 cores running at 1.9 GHz with 64 GB of main memory sells for just under $2.1 million, while after a 15 percent price cut a machine with 32 of the 1.7 GHz cores now costs $1.65 million. The faster Power4+ cores will start shipping on March 5, and on May 28 IBM will offer upgrades to Regatta-H customers with slower processors. IBM may be able to ship 1.9 GHz Power4+ cores, but it probably does not have a lot of them, hence the slow ramp up in production.

Both AIX 5L 5.1 and 5.2 are supported on the pSeries machines with the new 1.9 GHz processors with the appropriate patches. IBM is also allowing the pSeries 690 machines with the faster Power4+ cores to participate in HPC clusters using Switch Network Interface (SNI) adapters that link the servers into its "Federation" High Performance Switch for parallel clusters. The ability to use the 1.9 GHz Power4+ chips in conjunction with either two-link or four-link SNI adapters will not be supported until April 30.

To help boost the performance of the high-end pSeries boxes, McGaughan said that IBM is now offering 128 MB Level 3 caches that run at 633 MHz and main memory cards that also run at 633 MHz and which come in 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB card sizes. The faster L3 cache and main memory cards are available now, excepting the 128 GB cards, which will not be available until June 25. IBM is also going to start shipping two-loop and four-loop Remote I/O-2 (RIO-2) adapters cards running at 633 MHz to attach I/O expansion drawers to the Regatta-H frames with enough bandwidth to balance the extra processor performance.

With Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard both two weeks ago revamping their Unix server lines with their respective dual core UltraSparc-IV and PA-8800 processors, IBM had to do something to respond to the competitive threat that these new machines present to itself and its AIX and Linux channel partners. To that end, McGaughan says that IBM has dropped main memory prices for all machines but the entry pSeries 615 by 20 percent. That includes the pSeries 630, pSeries 650, pSeries 670, and pSeries 690.

The pSeries 655 was not tweaked in this round of announcements, since Big Blue just rolled the 1.7 GHz Power4+ chips into this line in late January. With that prior announcement, an eight-way pSeries 655 with 1.7 GHz Power4+ processors, 4 GB of main memory, and two 36 GB disks cost $70,000, which is what IBM was charging for similarly configured machines using the 1.5 GHz Power4+. At the same time, IBM dropped the price of the 1.5 GHz eight-way machine by 13 percent to $61,910. A four-way pSeries 655 with 1.7 GHz processors with 4 GB and two disks that now sells for $47,625. In January, IBM also expanded the maximum main memory capacity of the pSeries 655 from 32 GB to 64 GB. In a sense, this configuration was pre-announced, since the price cut is consistent with those IBM announces today for other pSeries machines.

Specifically, prices on the pSeries 690 using 1.7 GHz cores are down between 12.1 and 15.3 percent, depending on the configuration, while pSeries 690s using 1.5 GHz cores are down 12 to 15.7 percent. pSeries 670 servers, which can scale to 16 cores, were dropped by 8.9 to 13.5 percent. Prices on the eight-way pSeries 650 were not cut by nearly as much, however, with a shaving of only 5 percent off the Express preconfigured AIX and Linux systems. In fact, the prices for base configurations for non-Express pSeries 650 machines using 1.2 GHz or 1.45 GHz Power4+ cores were actually raised by 2.2 and 2.8 percent, if you can believe it. This might just be margin that IBM is giving back to its channel, however. It is hard to believe that the street price for the pSeries 650 has actually gone up. pSeries 630 prices remain unchanged.