Amdahl Corp has wrung an additional 7% performance out of its new Millennium 700 mainframe, claiming the uniprocessor S/390 CMOS ‘Trigger’ system which is available today to early customers performs 80 MIPS, versus the 75 MIPS it had promised when announcing the systems last year (CI No 3,172). It says parent Fujitsu Ltd has reduced the processor’s cycle time to under 4.5 nanoseconds. A 12 processor system performs 686 MIPS versus IBM Corp’s G4 CMOS S/390s which offer 63 MIPS as uniprocessors – 450 as ten-ways. The 700 supports up to 192 parallel channels – 512 in total – 16Gb RAM and 15 domains. It costs from around $6,000 per CPU. Amdahl says additional processors can be added without bringing a system down. All models are generally available from April – at least a couple of months, Amdahl says – from when most commentators had expected it to get them away. The company claims that the 700 is the first system to outpace, in absolute terms, the ECL Skyline S/390s that Hitachi Ltd has been selling like hot cakes. Previously Amdahl had offered around 532 MIPS – and IBM 486 MIPS – compared with Hitachi’s 63 MIPS uniprocessor Skyline and 500-odd MIPS ECL multiprocessor. Amdahl is also offering a 700 series frame with the system board from its mid-range Millennium 500 S/390 which can be upgraded to the 700 series board as required. The same Millennium 700 cabinet and components will house the 800 series CMOS processor Fujitsu will offer next year performing up to 100 MIPS. A 150 MIPs chip is due in 2000. Amdahl reckons IBM won’t be able to ship a higher-performing version of its CMOS processors doing 80-85 MIPS until September.
