Friday, October 15, 2004

IBM now selling 2.2 GHz G5 blades

IBM has started selling its BladeCenter JS20 blade servers at up to 2.2 GHz, utilizing the G5 970 series CPUs. These 2.2 GHz blades are what are used in Spain's new 4564 processor JS20 supercomputer in Barcelona. Up until now, IBM only sold 1.6 GHz JS20 blade servers.

It is good to see that IBM now feels that constraints on G5 970FX supplies have eased enough that the release of 2.2 GHz CPUs to the general public in volume is feasible. Xserves with 2.3 GHz 970FX CPUs, which are currently found only in the VT supercomputer, will no doubt also be widely available in the next few months. Apple has said, however, that 2.5 GHz supplies (for Power Macs) will continue to be constrained for the remainder of this calendar year.

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