POWER history
One day, this page will hopefully become a concise listing of every IBM POWER, RS/6000 or PowerPC model that has ever existed.
The accuracy of the information is not guaranteed, please refer to the linked announcement letters and IBM.com in general. Comments are at the bottom of the page.
POWER8 systems
[1] 2-node in 2014, 4-node due in 2015 Q1
[2] 8-core option only in rackmount version
S - scale-out models, 3rd character = number of sockets, 4th character = rack units, L = Linux-only
POWER7/POWER7+ systems
POWER7/POWER7+ PowerLinux, Flex System, BladeCenter
POWER6/POWER6+ systems
[1] Original 5.0GHz processor book did not support 64GB DIMMs. Max: 8 books x 32 DIMMs @ 16GB = 4TB
[2] Only 8x 64GB DIMMs can be used in a single processor book. Max: 8 books x 8 DIMMs @ 64GB = 4TB (max to be clarified!)
POWER6 BladeCenter
POWER5/POWER5+ systems
All these models have the "System" prefix, such as "System p5 505" etc. i5 models are also called "System i5 Model 550" and the like.
[1] i5 525 Editions: Express, Capacity BackUp (second system for HA or DR), Solutions Edition
[2] i5 550 Editions: Standard ("bare"), Enterprise, Domino, Solution, High Availability
[3] i5 595 Editions: Standard, Enterprise, CBU Standard, CBU, HA
I'm here now:
Page 5
POWER5/POWER5+ BladeCenter, OpenPower
[1] 42x models: Last letter specifies language support: A: English-ASEAN, B: Chinese-HK, K: Korean, M: English/AU-NZ, R: English/Korea, V:Chinese-Taiwan, U: English/US etc
[2] 4Tx models: Low profile handles for telecommunication racks + language support as described at 42_ models
[3] Form factor in model names: 1R1: rackmount, 1T1: tower etc.
[4] Higher clock speeds are effective in the BladeCenter H chassis only
POWER4, POWER3, RS64...
[1] Value, Standard, Advanced Edition
[2] Standard, Enterprise Edition, HA, CBU - IXS included in Enterprise Edition
POWER2, POWER1, PowerPC
RS/6000 POWERstation
RS/6000 POWERserver
RT 6150, 6151, 6152 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_6150_RT
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Introduction of new technologies throughout generations of POWER
PowerPC 620 (Motorola)
- 1997
- CPU: 120 -> 200MHz, 500nm
- First 64-bit PowerPC CPU
- Bull Escala only
POWER2
-
- CPU
RS64 generations
- 1995-2000
- CPU: 500 -> 180nm, 50 -> 750MHz, in-order, CMOS -> SOI process from RS64-III Gen2 "iStar"
- PowerPC/POWER2 origins with AS extensions
- Multithreading from RS64-II onwards
POWER3, POWER3-II
- 1998
- CPU: 64-bit 200 MHz -> 450 MHz, out-of-order, 220nm CMOS process
- PowerPC 630 renamed top POWER
POWER4
- CPU: 64-bit 180nm/130nm (POWER4+) SOI
- RAM:
- New: GX bus
- Linux OS support on iSeries
- iSeries CBU and HA offerings
POWER5
- 2004/2005
- CPU: 130nm/90nm (POWER5+) SOI, 2-way SMT, up to 2.3 GHz, shared L2
- New: SAS drives in EXP12S I/O drawer
- New: RIO-2/HSL-2
- New: HSL/IXA hotplug
- RAM: DDR1 -> 400MHz DDR2 from POWER5+
- Still has Twinax controllers (i5)
- AIX and Linux OS (LPAR) support on i5
- AIX 5.1 unsupported
POWER6
- 2007
- CPU: 65nm SOI, 2-way SMT, AltiVec, in-order execution, up to 5.0 GHz, per-core L2
- RAM: DDR2 400-667MHz
- New: HEA
- New: SAS 3.5" internal drives
- New: 12x
- HMC 7.3.1.0 and above
POWER7
- 2012
- CPU: 45nm -> 32nm (POWER7+), 4-way SMT, GX bus bridged with PCIe, VSM/VSX, eDRAM, out-of-order execution
- RAM: DDR3 1066MHz, 64/128GB DIMM
- Active Memory Expansion
- Active Memory Mirroring (MMC, MHC, FHB)
- EnergyScale
- New: SAS 2.5" HDD and SSD
- New: PCIe2 (2011), PCIe NIC SR-IOV support (2014)
- Still has GX++ (IBM proprietary InfiniBand) bus, 12x and PCI-X, SCSI
- No RIO/HSL, no QIC tape, no IBM i IOP = no Twinax, no IXA/IXS
- AIX 5.2 unsupported
POWER8
- Available: Summer 2014
- CPU: 22nm SOI, 12-core chip (max), 8-way SMT, PCIe3 integration, Turbo, out-of-order execution
- POWER8 mode supported by AIX 7100-03-03, RHEL 7.0, SLES 12, Ubuntu 14.04 - POWER8 mode LPAR cannot LPM to POWER6/7
- RAM: DDR3 1600MHz, 64GB DIMM, 1TB/socket, memory buffer chip, no CoD on scale-out models
- New: PCIe3 with CAPI, hotplug adapters in entry models, NIC SR-IOV
- New: USB3.0 (?)
- New: 40GbE card (QSFP+)
- PowerVM (on Power HV) or PowerKVM (on OPAL HV)
- SCU, System Control Unit (external FSP etc) on enterprise models
- No PCI-X = No SCSI, no IBM i IOP, no GX++
- Fast cold boot
POWER9
- Debuts in USA DoE 2018 "Summit" supercomputer (150 PFlops)
- CPU: 14nm SOI (?)
rPerf
Acronyms
Used here
SCM: Single-core module
DCM: Dual-core module
QCM: Quad-core module
MCM: Multi-chip module
SMT: Simultaneous multi-threading (from POWER5)
HMT: Hardware multithreading (IBM i POWER4)
*TC: TurboCore mode
HW: Half-wide node
FW: Full-width node
SW: Single-wide blade
DW: Double-wide blade
OW: One-wide blade (BladeCenter S/H/HT)
TW: Two-wide blade
SR-IOV: Single root I/O Virtualization (PCI adapters)
SCU: System Control Unit (FSP, node control etc)
ESE: Enterprise Solutions Edition (Power ESE)
Marketing
RPQ: Request Price Quotation, a non-standard order
MES (order): Miscellaneous Equipment Specification, a hardware change that doesn't change the serial number
CSU: Customer setup (for systems)
CPW: commercial processing workload (equivalent for number of IBM i 5250 workstation jobs)
ECA: Engineering Change Announcement
CBU: iSeries (IBM i) Capacity BackUp (disaster recovery) offering, introduced in 2003
Hardware
MTM: Machine Type/Model
RIO: Remote I/O
HSL: High Speed Link
RIO in p models = HSL in i models
RIO2/HSL2 - 2nd generation RIO/HSL, also called RIO-G
12x - RIO successor, related to InfiniBand but not fully compliant
IOA: iSeries: I/O adapter
IOP: iSeries: I/O processor (iSeries like SNA, for example)
GX, GX+, GX++: IBM system bus in POWER4-5-6
DASD: Direct Access Storage Device
IXA: System i5 External xSeries Adapter
IXS: Internal xSeries Server
CSP: Common Service Processor (in iSeries entry models)
Bull Escala systems
Comments
- CPU formula: chips in square brackets with clock speeds. Multipliers may refer to CPU cards/sockets and drawers. As these are not always obvious, please refer to the announcement letters or technical references.
- different core@clocks divided by pipe sign "|"
- clock speed in GHz, 3 digits like 3.00GHz
- ranges: "1...4" represents 1, 2, 3, 4 and "1-2-4" represents 1, 2, 4
- Maximum memory depends on the number of processors installed: a 4-core S814 can only have 64GB max, whereas the RAM capacity of a full 8-core setup extends to 512GB.
- 2x RAM typically means that new DIMMs became available that were double the size of the existing ones.