Specifications

84 IBM Flex System p260 and p460 Planning and Implementation Guide
Flexible POWER7 processor packaging and offerings
POWER7 processors have the unique ability to optimize to various workload
types. For example, database workloads typically benefit from fast processors
that handle high transaction rates at high speeds. Web workloads typically
benefit more from processors with many threads that allow the breakdown of
web requests into many parts and handle them in parallel. POWER7 processors
have the unique ability to provide leadership performance in either case.
POWER7 processor cores
The base design for the POWER7 processor is an 8-core processor with 32 MB
of on-chip L3 cache (4 MB per core). However, the architecture allows for
differing numbers of processor cores to be active: four cores or six cores, in
addition to the full 8-core version.
The L3 cache associated with the implementation depends on the number of
active cores. For the 8-core version, this situation means that 8 x 4 = 32 MB of L3
cache is available.
Optimized for servers
The POWER7 processor forms the basis for a flexible compute platform and can
be offered in a number of configurations to address various
system requirements.
The POWER7 processor can be offered with a single active memory controller
with four channels for servers for which higher degrees of memory parallelism
are not required.
Similarly, the POWER7 processor can be offered with various SMP bus
capacities appropriate to the scaling-point of particular server models.