IBM announces five new servers, all using AMD's new Opteron processor

IBM announces five new servers, all using AMD's new Opteron processor

IBM Corp. announced Tuesday it is introducing five new server computers with increased power using processors from Advanced Micro Devices.

NEW YORK: IBM Corp. announced Tuesday it is introducing five new server computers with increased power using processors from Advanced Micro Devices.

The new systems are the BladeCenter LS21 and LS41 blade servers and the System x3455, System x3655 and System x3755.

The systems promise more computing power and are more energy efficient and generate less heat than existing servers, the company said. The costs are lesser than comparable high-performance systems, the company added.

IBM has been using chips from AMD since 2003. The latest announcement is a major boost for the chipmaker, which has been competing against market leader Intel. Intel has recently come out with a slew of new high-performance processors.

IBM said the new servers will use AMD's "Rev F", the next generation Opteron processor, giving them an advantage over products like Sun's new SunFire line, which uses the older Rev E design. The Rev F processors facilitate improved virtualization, an upgrade from DDR1 to DDR2 memory and quad-core capability for future expansion.

AMD plans to formally unveil the Rev F chip on 15 August, but the company has already started shipments.

Besides IBM, HP, Sun and even Dell use AMD's processors nowadays. Dell, once an Intel only chips user, had announced in May it is putting AMD's Opteron chips in some of its servers.

The new IBM servers use a combination of hardware and software technologies called Cool Blue, which ensures 40 per cent better performance per watt than competing blade chassis. The system reduces server heat by cooling discharged air with a water-cooled door at the back of the racks. That helps the new servers take full advantage of the properties of the new chips.

IBM is facing tough competition in the server market from Hewlett-Packard Co. Both companies had about 28 per cent of the worldwide server market in the first quarter, but IBM's revenue share fell 3.6 per cent while HP's was slightly changed. The other competitor, Sun Microsystems Inc., has been growing fastest, with a 5.8 per cent revenue gain and 10.8 per cent of the global server market.

IBM said it will announce product pricing and availability of the new servers during the third quarter.