IBM launches world's fastest processor

IBM has built the Power 6 into a new p570 server

IBM has unveiled what it claims is the fastest processor in the world. The Power 6 runs at 4.7GHz, and has an 8MB L2 cache and 790 million transistors built on a 65nm scale.

Big Blue is calling the Power 6 its greenest chip as it uses the same amount of energy as the Power 5, but has twice the performance.

The Power 6 is twice as powerful as the entire Deep Blue supercomputing system that beat chess champion Gary Kasparov 10 years ago, and IBM claims that it is 2.3 times faster than its nearest competitor.

"We should not just consider the performance of chips, but the environment," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president at IBM's systems and technology group.

"The crisis in data centre management is not about performance; it is about energy and cooling. The amount spent on hardware itself is tiny compared to power and cooling costs. It is not possible for the industry to continue in this way."

IBM launched Project Big Green two weeks ago, a portfolio of products to address green issues in the market.

The new chip is an important part of the portfolio, which includes virtualisation, low-power processors and smarter runtime use. IBM has committed to spending over $1bn researching green issues.

The Power 6 uses a number of technical tricks to cut power consumption and heat build up.

These include shifting low-power processor functions into separate sections of the chip, rejigging others so that they can be performed at lower power levels and building parallel processing functions onto the silicon.

"Every boardroom I go into now the issue is global warming," said Larry Hirst, general manager of IBM UK.

"It is all about how can I reduce my carbon footprint, what can I do to reach zero emissions."