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I hate phrasing a question like this, but I would genuinely like to know who the customer for this architecture is. My understanding is that cloud (and for that
by JLO64 1y ago
I hate phrasing a question like this, but I would genuinely like to know who the customer for this architecture is. My understanding is that cloud (and for that matter consumer) is all x86/ARM.
So is it science/defense that makes up their user base? I have an acquaintance who works at NASA mention that IBM stuff was really good for processing large amounts of data fast. Is that their primary advantage over other architectures?
- dmitrygr 1y agomainframes edit: thought some ibm mainframes used power in helper roles.
- wmf 1y agoIBM pulled out of the HPC market several years ago.
- doctorshady 1y agoRaptor Systems makes a bunch of ATX compatible POWER motherboards. As to who buys them, it's not entirely clear. If they were a little cheaper, I'd pick one up in a heartbeat. $3,000 for a CPU and motherboard is a bit hard to rationalize for what's effectively just nerding out though: https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html . For the embedded market, NXP makes a bunch of QorIQ chips based around the POWER ISA - mostly for telecom products. These are actually reasonably common in certain devices, but not really what you'd want in a desktop.
- Palomides 1y agoraptor is still on power9 chips from 2017, I have one, but it's not a reasonable purchase unless you're a very very serious open source believer
- doctorshady 1y agoMy understanding is there's issues around POWER10 that stopped it from being adopted: https://www.talospace.com/2021/09/its-not-just-omi-thats-trouble-with.html https://www.talospace.com/2021/09/its-not-just-omi-thats-tro... . For me personally, having worked enough with embedded POWER chips to get weirdly comfortable with ISA, given the choice, I'd love to have a system like this to write pure ASM stuff on. Not for any practical reason in the slightest; pretty much in the same spirit of souping up a go kart. On that note, out of curiosity, how do these compare with x86 and ARM chips from that era?
- abeyer 1y agoI was hoping TFA might have news to indicate if any of that was addressed in POWER11... but doesn't seem to.
- doctorshady 1y agoFrom the sound of it, it might be: https://www.talospace.com/2025/07/power11-hits-market-this-month.html https://www.talospace.com/2025/07/power11-hits-market-this-m... .
- dlcarrier 1y agoIt's customers that never migrated to x86/ARM.
- themafia 1y agoThe last I checked most of the supporting mainframe systems use POWER. For example the DASD storage devices are all using POWER CPUs.
- esseph 1y agoFed Gov, State Gov, mil, industrial, transportation, banking, etc.