Intel’s says its latest Xeon processor will almost match the IBM Power7 architecture in performance and will out gun Oracle’s Sparc processor models 5440 and M4000 by 160% and 7x performance respectively at just 50% of the cost in each case. 

IBM’s Power7 architecture can almost be matched for performance at one fifth of the cost, the man who leads the Intel’s server CPU designs said in a video interview with Datacenterdynamics. 

Speaking as Intel refreshed its Xeon line with 2800, 4800 and 8800 models of its processor, Rory McInerney, VP of CPU architecture told Datacenterdynamics that the company’s latest products, which added 25% more cores to the Xeon E7 family bringing it to 10 cores, was ‘taking a lot legacy infrastructure out of the data center and delivering a much more efficient solution.’ 

He said: ‘We see a lot of value in hardware and software provisioning in common infrastructure space. We have some data showing E7 versus Sparc and E7 versus Power.’

‘If you wanted to replace your Oracle Sun Sparc systems, if it was a 5440 system, you would get 160% performance improvement at half the cost. if it was a Sparc M4000 system you would get 7x performance, again at half the cost. If you go to a [IBM] Power server, versus a Power7 you have almost 100% of the performance at one fifth of the cost.’ 

McInerney said: ‘Big competitors will be Oracle and IBM. They are customers [for the latest processors] as [both] have hardware and software announcements accompanying the Xeon E7 launch.’

He said it was in the Risc Unix pace where the companies would compete on architecture with X86 going up against Sparc and IBM’s Power processor architectures. ‘Rather than saying how they will react, we have been very successful in winning against legacy systems and the numbers show that. The amount of system revenue that was in [non x86] legacy systems was much larger a few years ago and now it is flat or down,’ said McInerney.

Oracle and IBM were invited to comment on McInerney’s claims. IBM declined to comment and Oracle did not respond. 

McInerney’s comment comes less than one month after Oracle issued a statement on March 23rd saying it would discontinue software development for Intel’s Itanium saying it was coming to the end of its life.

This was promptly denied by Intel the next day. In a statement Paul Otellini, Intel CEO said: Intel’s work on Itanium continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule.’

HP also waded into the argument accusing Oracle of making misleading statements.  

See McInerney’s interview Parts 1 & 2