Move up to IBM System x

It can be hard to tell facts from “spin” when new and old competitors alike make grand claims against IBM System x because we’re recognized as a technological leader in the market. This “Get the facts” Q&A series provides our fact-based response to these competitors' claims. We aim to keep you informed of key platform considerations such as reliability, efficiency, and total cost of ownership.

For more detail, read the following Q&A article.

• Q: Our customers have heard that the x3755 does not support 800MHz memory, and will run memory slower than the HP DL585 G5 and the Dell R905. Is this true?
• Q: Our competitors are claiming that IBM’s licensing deal with Lenovo for x86 servers means IBM is getting out of the server business. Is this true?
• Q: Dell claims that their R900 box is "good enough" when compared to the x3850 M2/x3950 M2. Is this true?

Q: Our customers have heard that the x3755 does not support 800MHz memory, and will run memory slower than the HP DL585 G5 and the Dell R905. Is this true?

A: This is only true in very limited situations. In most cases, the design of the AMD Opteron processor causes the memory in the HP and Dell systems to clock down under their top speed. The IBM x3755 avoids this with IBM’s Xcelerated Memory Technology.

In a system populated with 8 DIMMs/CPU, as a read or write signal is sent to DIMM 4 the signal will be reflected by each DIMM along the memory bus. This causes additional signals, noise, incorrect reads and writes, and system hang ups. The HP DL585 G5 and the Dell R905 must lower the bus speed to reduce noise to avoid these hangups. IBM’s Xcelerated Memory Technology counteracts the noise, maintaining the timing and electrical integrity of the signal. This allows the x3755 to keep the bus speed at 667MHz for all 8 DIMMs on each CPU card.

The HP DL585 G5 is able to achieve 800MHz memory speed using four or fewer 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB DIMMs per CPU, with total possible memory of 64GB. When more than four of these DIMMs are installed per CPU, the memory speed will clock back to 667MHz. When these DIMMs are fully populated (8 DIMMs per CPU) the memory speed of the DL585 G5 will clock back to 533MHz. The DL585 G5 cannot run 8GB DIMMs, or 256GB of memory, at 800MHz.

The Dell R905 does not support 800MHz memory. With four or fewer DIMMs per CPU the R905 memory will clock back to 667MHz. With more than four DIMMs per CPU the R905 will clock back to 533MHz.

Xcelerated Memory Technology allows the x3755 to run at a constant memory speed of 667MHz, regardless of the number of DIMMs populated in the system. With x3755, customers can populate more DIMMs without sacrificing frequency or performance, populate servers with less capacity, and use less costly DIMMs to get the same performance. With the x3755, customers know that they will have the fastest access to information, providing a fast response to your fast-paced business needs.

Source:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13016_div/13016_div.html (link resides outside of ibm.com) Supporting bullets
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/per905/multlang/TS/HX598MR.pdf (1.72MB) (link resides outside of ibm.com) Or content

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Q: Our competitors are claiming that IBM’s licensing deal with Lenovo for x86 servers means IBM is getting out of the server business. Is this true?

A: HP would have the world believe that due to our licensing deal on x86 technology with Lenovo—exactly the same kind we have with other industry partners such as Rackable—that their dream has come true: IBM is leaving the x86 server business. We’re sorry to disappoint HP, but that’s just wrong. IBM is in the x86 business to win.

With HP on the attack, it is our job to educate our customers about Lenovo’s entry as a competitor. It is our intention to target different markets. Lenovo’s entire set of x86 offerings compete with a very limited subset of our entry-level rack and tower servers. They offer nothing to compete with our blade servers, our high-performance computing offerings like iDataPlex, or our enterprise eX4-based servers. We offer quality system management tools with every system we sell, and we offer unmatched worldwide support.

We continue to lead the industry in investment in x86 innovation. We’ve put one hundred million dollars of investment into IBM iDataPlex to solve the needs of large-scale datacenters. Our small and medium business blade solution, IBM BladeCenter S, is a much stronger product than HP’s comparable offering, and is now providing great value to customers by providing a low-cost, all-in-one SAN solution with the introduction of our new ServRAID Vault Controller. And on the high end, we just announced updates to our fourth-generation enterprise architecture systems with refreshes to the System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2. These updates have rocketed us beyond the 1M transactions per minute milestone where no other competitor can touch us.

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Q: Dell claims that their R900 box is "good enough" when compared to the x3850 M2/x3950 M2. Is this true?

A: No this is not true. IBM has the best scale up and consolidation story in the industry. We have surpassed the 1 Million benchmark from a TPC-C perspective ¹ on the x3950 M2, while Dell has no TPC-C benchmarks on the R900. With regards to the other high end benchmarks, Dell falls short as well. The Dell R900 has a 4 socket TPC-E ² benchmark score that was surpassed by our 4 socket x3850 M2 (+9%), as well as our 8 socket x3950 M2 (+20%), and 16 socket x3950 M2 (+86%). The TPC-E benchmark simulates the workings of a brokerage firm accessing customer accounts in a central database. Given the challenges of the global financial services industry, will "good enough" enable these firms to re-establish a leadership position in their financial markets? We don't think so.

Dell is also not "good enough" for scale up needs, as they have no scalable x86 offerings. Dell R900 servers are not designed for mission critical computing as they have limited predictive failure analysis and light path diagnostics capabilities. Also, unlike the eX4 technology in our x3850 M2 / x3950 M2, Dell has no additional technology to improve performance. To scale up and compete with the x3950 M2, Dell would have to configure multiple 4 socket machines which means a larger footprint, greater infrastructure, more management, and higher power usage. Add in the additional software licensing fees and that equates up to a highly increased total cost of ownership over the life of the box!! In summary, it's easier and less expensive to consolidate on one box (x3850 M2 or x3950 M2).

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