November 13, 2008 08:00 ET

IBM Unveils New Servers With Enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ Processors

New Blade Server Uses 16% Less Power Than Competitive Offerings, Scales From Two to Four Processors at No Upfront Cost

ARMONK, NY--(Marketwire - November 13, 2008) - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced four IBM servers that will feature the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor. The new servers provide the IT efficiency needed in a new enterprise data center, with the BladeCenter LS42 using 16 percent less power than competitive blade offerings.

IBM will deliver new 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based systems that offer exceptional power-efficiency, performance and virtualization capabilities for today's most demanding datacenters. These include:

• The IBM BladeCenter LS22 is a two-socket blade server ideal for companies like financial services firms, universities and research labs, and oil and gas companies that run high-performance applications. Clients can purchase the LS22 with a memory booster that gives it 96 percent faster memory for improved application performance.

• The IBM BladeCenter LS42 consumes up to 16 percent less power than comparable blade offerings. It also provides 20 percent faster memory, so it is well suited to run memory-intensive applications like those for virtualization and database. In fact, it can handle over five percent more virtual machines than competitive blades.

• The IBM System x3455 delivers robust performance for scientific, technical, and financial applications with IBM's innovative Xcelerated Memory Technology, which eliminates traditional high-performance computing application bottlenecks by delivering faster access to data.

• The System x3755 has a flexible design that allows customers to increase the size of their system as their databases, virtualization environments and collaboration applications grow. The x3755 provides a three socket configuration that outperforms many competitive four socket configurations.

With the new 2+2 program, clients can start with two sockets on the BladeCenter LS42 and System x3755 servers and expand to a four socket server as their business needs demand. This allows companies to pay only for the capacity they need now, giving them the flexibility to scale their server while protecting their investments. The LS42 and x3755 are the only servers in the industry that start out at the price of a two socket system and can be upgraded to four sockets as the client requires.

"IBM continues to deliver the broadest portfolio of blade servers on the market with today's introduction of BladeCenter servers based on the newest Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors," said Alex Yost, vice president of IBM BladeCenter. "The new LS42 allows clients to grow the system along with their business, affordably scaling from a two-socket system to a four-socket configuration while delivering industry-leading power use and performance."

IBM BladeCenter LS22 and LS42 blade servers are available with solid-state drives, which are up to four times more reliable than traditional drives and use up to 87 percent less power -- saving up to 20 watts per blade.

The new servers are an important element in helping clients develop a new enterprise data center, which offers dramatic improvements in IT efficiency and provides for rapid deployment of new IT services to support future business growth. IBM is helping clients move to new enterprise data centers by focusing on best practices around virtualization, green IT, service management and cloud computing.

"AMD is focused on delivering superior investment protection in the data center, and we are proud to deliver superior scalability in support of IBM's new LS22, LS42 and x3755 servers," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Workstation division, AMD. "The enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors are designed with AMD's Same Socket Technology and Common Core Strategy to help our industry partners and customers minimize the cost and complexity of hardware transitions, while benefiting from the increased performance and power-efficiency of AMD's newest server processor."

Pricing and Availability

The scalable IBM BladeCenter LS42 will be available with enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors later this month starting at $5,165. The IBM System x3455 and x3755 will be available with enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors in early 2009. The 2+2 program is available to LS42 and x3755 customers now.

About IBM

For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Opteron and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.