IBM Dominates High-Speed Multi-Core Computing with 5.5 GHz System z

IBM is the company whose processors are found in many of the world's supercomputers, including the greatest ever, thanks largely to the System z and Power7 platforms.

If what we are reading here is true, we have something massive to look forward to this month.

Long story short, IBM will demonstrate the System “zNext” processor capable of operating at 5.5 GHz, above even the 5.2GHz z196 that has been IBM's best since its launch in 2010.

Moreover, there will be Power7+ processors up to 20 percent faster than the long-running and famous Power7 (whose limit is of 4.14 GHz peak clock rate).

We'll learn more about the architecture, the different models and their number of cores once the conference begins on August 27 (it ends on August 29), 2012.

That said, Intel and AMD might want to overhaul their Xeon and Opteron series if they mean to stay in the game.