IBM Launches 1.9 GHz Power4+, Tops TPC-C Rankings

IBM this week divulged that it would indeed be launching a much-rumored 1.9 GHz version of the Power4+ processor in its pSeries Unix server line. IBM has not formally announced the processor as it does most products, but decided instead to tell the world about the faster chip by releasing a TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark that put it at the top of the ranking in terms of performance and price/performance for high-end systems.

The advent of the 1.9 GHz Power4+ processor means a few things for iSeries customers. First and foremost, it means that high-end Model 870 and 890 customers who may need more power will be able to get it on a special bid basis. Right now, the 32-way “Regatta-H” Model 890 at the top end of the iSeries line is still only using the 1.3 GHz Power4 processor. A jump to the 1.9 GHz Power4+ would provide approximately 45 percent more processing power to customers, and would do so within the same system chassis. IBM has been selling 1.5 GHz and 1.7 GHz versions of the eight-core Power4+ multichip module at the heart of the Regatta-H machine in the pSeries line since last summer, and thus far does not seem to be inclined to announce these chips or the new 1.9 GHz Power4+ in machines with the iSeries moniker slapped on them. This suggests that IBM is probably not able to make as many of these faster Power processors as it would like. It may also mean that IBM is cynical or practical (depending on the lay of the land) about the demand for very big iron among iSeries customers. A Model 890 with 32 1.3 GHz cores is a very big box for an iSeries shop, given the midrange bent of the OS/400 customer base.

In any event, the pSeries 690 Regatta-H server used in the test was configured with 16 of the dual-core Power4+ processors running at 1.9 GHz, up from the 1.7 GHz clock speed that IBM was able to deliver last year. The pSeries 690 was configured with 1 TB of main memory and 74 TB of disk capacity; it ran the AIX 5L 5.2 operating system and the DB2 8.1 database, both from IBM. The availability of the system is scheduled for August 16, 2004, which means customers who need such a machine today can only get it on a special bid basis from Big Blue. At list prices, this Regatta-H server cost $4.3 million, and the FAStT storage arrays it used cost another $4.5 million. Adding in the cost of software and services for three years drove the total cost of the system under test to $10.6 million, and after a hefty 47 percent discount, the cost dropped to $5 million. This machine was able to do 1,025,486 transactions per minute (TPM), which yielded a price/performance after discounts of $5.43 per TPM.

IBM appears to have cut the cost of processors and main memory in half compared to last year’s Power4+ systems and then applied a big discount to get this very low price/performance. This may be a good indicator of where pricing for the Power5-based “Squadron” servers will be when they start rolling out later this year. It may also suggest that IBM could be getting ready for an appreciable price cut in both the iSeries and pSeries lines in lieu of a complete refresh of these lines with the Power5. What I have heard is that IBM is not yet ready to ship the big 16-way, 32-way, and 64-way Squadron machines and that the initial “Squadron-M” boxes, expected in April or May, will be eight-way and smaller boxes that hit the sweet spots in both the OS/400 and Unix midrange. That means IBM has to stretch the useful life of the Power4+ in the Regatta-H boxes until it can get Squadron-H machines confidently out the factory door. (In IBM lingo, server families have an “LE” designation for “low-end,” and “M” designation for “midrange,” and an “H” designation for “high end.”). If IBM is having problems getting yields on the high-end Power5 chips, it has to sort through the bins and find Power4+ chips that can run at 2 GHz or higher. To make any practical different, IBM really needs Power processors running at 2.5 GHz to provide an appreciable performance boost. But the good news for IBM is that Hewlett-Packard is topped out with 1.5 GHz/6 MB L3 cache “Madison” Itanium 2s (which have about half the performance of a Power4+ core running at 1.9 GHz), and its new dual-core “Mako” PA-8800 chips running at 1 GHz have about a quarter of the processing power per core as the Power4+ chip. (It takes 128 PA-8800 cores to match IBM’s 32 Power4+ cores, and software is priced per core in the IT industry.) Up to 72 of the new “Jaguar” 1.2 GHz dual-core UltraSparc-IV chips from Sun Microsystems can be plugged into the new Enterprise 25000 servers to deliver around 900,000 TPM of aggregate performance. But it takes 144 cores to do that compared to IBM’s 32 cores. That’s a performance factor of 5 to 1 in favor of IBM on a per core basis. That makes software very, very pricey on Sun boxes.

Back in November, HP was the first vendor to crack the 1 million TPM ceiling when it delivered a TPC-C benchmark result for its 64-way Itanium 2-based Integrity Superdome server running its HP-UX operating system and the future Oracle 10g database. That Superdome machine used the 1.5 GHz Madison variant of the 64-bit Itanium processors from Intel. That machine was also configured with 1 TB of main memory and 38.3 TB of disk capacity, which allowed it to deliver a performance of 1,008,145 TPM at a cost of $8.33 per TPM after a staggering 48 percent discount. The Superdome server cost $7.1 million, with the 1 TB of main memory accounting for $5m of the cost. HP-UX and Oracle 10g cost $1.4 million, and the disk storage cost $5 million. Application server hardware and software made up the remaining $17.9 million of the cost of the Superdome set up tested. That tested configuration will not be available until April 2004, probably when HP will support the larger memory.

IBM has not yet said when it will formally announce the 1.9 GHz Power4+ chips and whether or not they will be available in the eight-way pSeries 650 or 16-way pSeries 670 servers. Heaven only knows if IBM will deliver these chips in the iSeries. But if you are an iSeries customer and your workload needs such a chip, you now know IBM can deliver it.