IBM's New POWER7 Systems First in Class to Meet ENERGY STAR Efficiency Requirements

Power 750 Express, Power 755 High-Performance Node Are First Four-Processor Systems to Qualify

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Apr 01, 2010, 09:15 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that its POWER7-based 750 Express and Power 755 models are the first four-processor systems in the industry to qualify for ENERGY STAR® status. ENERGY STAR is a U.S. government-backed program helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency.

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To qualify for ENERGY STAR status, a computer system must meet specific standards for power supply and energy efficiency and provide users with data on power use, thermal output, and processor utilization at periodic intervals. (1) In addition, the manufacturer must report power and performance information to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy, which co-manage the ENERGY STAR program.

Powered by IBM's innovative POWER7 processor (2), the Power 750 Express and Power 755 systems can deliver four times the performance for the same price -- and are three to four times more energy efficient than the POWER6 systems they replace. (3) With their power management capabilities, the Power 750 Express and Power 755 systems can help clients maximize the workload delivered for each kilowatt-hour of energy consumed, while helping to reduce energy consumption and data center space.

POWER7 microprocessors deliver intelligent energy features that can help dynamically optimize energy usage and performance to provide balance to support workload requirements:

Power Saver Mode or Dynamic Power Saver Mode: These modes can halve processor frequency to reduce energy use, or modulate voltage and frequency to optimize processor and system energy use.
Processor Core Nap: A low power mode in which the hardware stops processor core execution by locking most of the circuits inside the core in the absence of workload.
Processor Folding: This function matches and optimizes the number of processors applied to current workload and puts unneeded processors in Nap Mode.
EnergyScale for Input/Output Systems: IBM POWER7 systems automatically power off pluggable, PCI adaptor slots that are empty or not being used.

The ENERGY STAR program focuses on furthering environmental protection by identifying and promoting energy efficient products. IBM actively participated in the development of the ENERGY STAR specifications for server and storage devices, providing technical expertise and equipment operating data to assist in the development of the criteria.

"IBM has been a strong partner to the ENERGY STAR program," said Andrew Fanara, U.S. EPA Energy Star program manager. "U.S. EPA appreciates IBM's ongoing contributions to both the development of Energy Star IT equipment standards and their commitment to work with U.S. EPA to improve energy efficiency across the data center ecosystem to deliver environmental benefits both to the data center and through the innovative application of IT capabilities.

IBM and ENERGY STAR

For more information, visit www.ibm.com/systems/greendc/green_technology/energy_star/index.html

IBM is a trademark of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. ENERGY STAR is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

(1) ENERGY STAR product requirements are set so that 25 percent or less of the currently available products conform to the requirements. The requirements are periodically updated to reset the requirements to this standard.

(2) POWER7 processors feature four, six or eight processing cores which enable the execution of simultaneous operations. This announcement uses the term "processor" in the same way that "processor socket" is used in the Energy Star computer server definition.

(3) Power System comparisons of performance and energy between POWER7-processor based systems and POWER6-processor based systems can be found at www.ibm.com/systems/power.