IBM z14 Announced, Support Added To LLVM Clang

[phoronix]

Phoronix: IBM z14 Announced, Support Added To LLVM Clang

This morning IBM announced the z14 mainframe that is much faster than its predecessors and offers full encryption capabilities...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=IBM-z14-LLVM-Clang

[waxhead]

I don't know but there is something exciting with news such as these. I will probably never use a z14 mainframe, never afford it, never play with it, but regardless I just love news like this. Everything technical is great! Keep up the good work Michael

[AndyChow]

With up to 17 10-core processors running at 5.2 Ghz, 32 TB of RAM, it's a beast. Each processor has 672 MB shared eDRAM L4 Cache. And if you have the full 32 TB of RAM, the DIMMs in the system are all 512 GB sticks. Think about that.

[M@GOid]

With up to 17 10-core processors running at 5.2 Ghz, 32 TB of RAM, it's a beast. Each processor has 672 MB shared eDRAM L4 Cache. And if you have the full 32 TB of RAM, the DIMMs in the system are all 512 GB sticks. Think about that.

Yeah, that is all fancy and all, but what we want to know is can it play Deux Ex in a VM using LLVMpipe?

[Zucca]

Those mainframes usually require quite powerful cooling.
The "chassis fans" (the main fans that blow cool air into the rack cabinet) have been 300VDC ~800W blower fans. Two side-by-side. My desktop PSU is a 600W... Now it just feels like madness. :P I can't recall how powerful the (compressor based) CPU cooler is...
The CPUs usually have their own ~1VDC PSU. Those PSUs can deliver hundreds of amps (at that ~1VDC). And it's only to run the CPUs. Those mainframes are crazy. Everything inside them is in some way at least order of magnitude grater or faster than normal consumer hardware.
Some setups have an extra CPU core for each other core, I heard. It's because redundancy in CPU computing. It's totally a different world in mainframe side...

[Dawn]

With up to 17 10-core processors running at 5.2 Ghz, 32 TB of RAM, it's a beast. Each processor has 672 MB shared eDRAM L4 Cache. And if you have the full 32 TB of RAM, the DIMMs in the system are all 512 GB sticks. Think about that.

It's actually 24 10-core processors, not 17; some cores are reserved for system tasks, redundancy, etc. Also, the 672MB L4 on the SC is shared between six sockets; it is not each processor.

[boxie]

Michael think you can get remote access to one of these z14 mainframes and run some benchmarks on it - you know - for shits and giggles?

[DeepDayze]

Yeah, that is all fancy and all, but what we want to know is can it play Deux Ex in a VM using LLVMpipe?

Would be cool to run a game in a VM running on an IBM z14 mainframe...bet it'll run like a doozy!

[Michael]

Michael think you can get remote access to one of these z14 mainframes and run some benchmarks on it - you know - for shits and giggles?

Unfortunately, probably not...

[boxie]

Unfortunately, probably not...

If we ask *really* nicely can you try?

You would have a marketing case, since lots of these things run some form of Linux and I am sure you would have some clients like universities that might use your phoronix-test-suite

so - pretty please? (it would be pretty awesome)