Substantiation notes

IBM Power™ Systems

The new blades provide better performance per core than competitive systems, helping reduce software licensing and other costs for clients. For example, a BladeCenter JS23 with four cores delivers over 85% percent better performance than an HP 860c Itanium blade according to industry benchmarks.¹

*SPEC CPU results*
System Name	Enabled Cores	Enabled Chips	Cores/ Chips	Threads/ Cores	SPECint_rate2006 Peak Result	SPECfp_rate2006 Peak Result
IBM Bladecenter JS23	4	2	2	2	110	92.4
HP Integrity BL860c	4	2	2	1	53.9	48.8

For example, companies can save up to 91 percent in energy usage and reduce floor space by 92 percent by consolidating 10 Sun Fire V490 servers into one Power 550 Express.² While using 90 percent fewer cores, clients can also take advantage of significant reductions in software costs.

SPECintRate_2006 Peak/core results are:

POWER6: IBM Power 550 Express with 4 chips, and 8 cores @ 5.0Ghz and 2 threads per core with a peak result of 263.

SPARC: Sun Fire V490 with 4 chips, 8 cores @ 2.1GHz and 1 thread per core with a peak result of 78.

*The virtualized system count and energy savings were derived from several factors:

A performance factor of 3.37X was applied to the virtualization scenario based on SPECint_rate2006. IBM Power 550 Express (8-core, 4 chips, 2 cores per chip, 5.0 GHz) 263, will be submitted on April 28, 2009; Sun Fire V490 (8-core, 4 chips, 2 cores per chip) 2.1 GHz, SPECint_rate2006 of 78. The performance factor is the SPECint_rate2006 result of the Power 550 Express divided by the result of the competitive Sun V490 server.

A virtualization factor of 3X was applied to the virtualization scenario using utilization assumptions derived from an Alinean white paper on server consolidation. The Alinean tool assumes 19% utilization of existing servers and 60% utilization of new servers. Source - www.ibm.com/services/us/cio/optimize/opt_wp_ibm_systemp.pdf (PDF, 74.4KB).

Calculation Summary: the Power 550 to the Sun V490 performance ratio is 3.4 Multiply by 3 for the virtualization factor. Hence, 3.37 * 3 = 10.12 servers which was rounded down to ten V490 server can be consolidated into one 550 server.

The Sun V490 is 5U in height. The Power 550 is 4U in height and 10 systems can fit in a 42U rack.

One Power 550 system has 8 cores per system. A Sun V490 also has 8 cores per system. 10 systems multiplied by 8 cores is 80 cores. 90% more cores.

Power consumption figures of 1500W for the IBM Power 550 and 1750W for the Sun Fire v490 were based on the maximum rates published by IBM and Sun Microsystems, respectively. This information for the Power 550 is in available at http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/index.wss - search for Power 550. Sun Fire V490 Maximum AC power consumption of 1,750 WATTs was sourced from Sun Fire™ V490/V890 Servers with UltraSPARC IV+, 2100MHz CPU/Memory Modules Supplement available at http://dlc.sun.com/pdf//820-0714-10/820-0714-10.pdf (PDF, 51.8KB), as of April, 21, 2009.

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Air conditioning power requirement estimated at 50% of system power requirement.

	Power 550	V490
SPECint_rate2006	263	78
Virtualization ratio	3	1
Systems Ration (Performance ratio times Virtualization ratio)	10.12
Cores per system	8	8
Space (Rack units) per system	4	5
Maximum Power Requirements (WATTs)	1500	1750
With a systems ratio rounded to 10, installation characteristics			Power 550 as a % of V490
Systems	1	10	10.0%
Cores	8	80	10.0%
Maximum Power Requirement (WATTs)	1500	17500	8.6%
Rack Units	4	50	8.0%

The POWER6+ microprocessor, the next milestone in IBM's technology roadmap, can provide up to a 36-percent server performance boost as compared to similar systems announced last year.

¹Based on the best results for four-core POWER and Integrity blade servers on SPECint_rate2006 and SPECfp_rate2006. HP Integrity BL860c result can be found at www.spec.org. Result is current as of April 21, 2009. The IBM BladeCenter JS23 result will be submitted to SPEC on April 28, 2009.

²Competitive benchmark results reflect results published as of April 21, 2009. The SPECint_rate2006 results can be found at www.spec.org. The Power 550 Express will be submitted for publication on April 28, 2009. All systems were compared based on maximum processor configuration because that is the data point for which power requirements are defined. Other configurations of these systems could have better performance per WATT metrics.

SPEC® and the benchmark names SPECrate®, SPECint®, and SPECjbb® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of April 21, 2009. For the latest SPEC benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org.

IBM Power Systems

Announcing IBM Power Systems, a major new platform providing compelling new choices for companies of all sizes.

Substantiation notes

The new blades provide better performance per core than competitive systems, helping reduce software licensing and other costs for clients. For example, a BladeCenter JS23 with four cores delivers over 85% percent better performance than an HP 860c Itanium blade according to industry benchmarks.¹

For example, companies can save up to 91 percent in energy usage and reduce floor space by 92 percent by consolidating 10 Sun Fire V490 servers into one Power 550 Express.² While using 90 percent fewer cores, clients can also take advantage of significant reductions in software costs.

The POWER6+ microprocessor, the next milestone in IBM's technology roadmap, can provide up to a 36-percent server performance boost as compared to similar systems announced last year.

IBM Power Systems

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Related links

Substantiation notes

The new blades provide better performance per core than competitive systems, helping reduce software licensing and other costs for clients. For example, a BladeCenter JS23 with four cores delivers over 85% percent better performance than an HP 860c Itanium blade according to industry benchmarks.1

For example, companies can save up to 91 percent in energy usage and reduce floor space by 92 percent by consolidating 10 Sun Fire V490 servers into one Power 550 Express.2 While using 90 percent fewer cores, clients can also take advantage of significant reductions in software costs.

The POWER6+ microprocessor, the next milestone in IBM's technology roadmap, can provide up to a 36-percent server performance boost as compared to similar systems announced last year.

IBM Power Systems

Content navigation

Related links

The new blades provide better performance per core than competitive systems, helping reduce software licensing and other costs for clients. For example, a BladeCenter JS23 with four cores delivers over 85% percent better performance than an HP 860c Itanium blade according to industry benchmarks.¹

For example, companies can save up to 91 percent in energy usage and reduce floor space by 92 percent by consolidating 10 Sun Fire V490 servers into one Power 550 Express.² While using 90 percent fewer cores, clients can also take advantage of significant reductions in software costs.