IBM has announced availability for the first two models of its new eX5 systems.  The eX5 portfolio is the result of a three-year IBM engineering effort to improve the economics of operating enterprise-sized, memory-intensive x86 workloads.

The two new eX5 systems are the System x3850 X5 (four- and eight-processor configurations); and the BladeCenter HX5 (two- and four-processor configurations).  The new products start at approximately $4,600 USD. 

Both are part of the eX5 portfolio, the next generation of x86-based systems from IBM that take advantage of unique IBM innovation to support large databases and virtualized environments.  The combination gives customers a flexible, scalable infrastructure while helping to reduce the number of servers needed by half and potentially cutting storage costs by 97 percent and licensing fees by 50 percent. 

The eX5 portfolio—an all-new class of x86-based systems—offers six times the memory scalability available from the current generation IBM systems, helping to flatten the rising cost of operating today’s data centers. The eX5 portfolio marks IBM’s fifth generation of Enterprise X-Architecture. 

The new BladeCenter HX5 and the x3850 X5 feature the new Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series, also announced today by Intel.  Continuing a tradition of high performance, the x3850 X5 scored the highest number of transactions-per-second ever achieved by a 4-processor system on the TPC-E benchmark—more than twice that of the highest-scoring, previous-generation 4-processor system. The x3850 X5 also demonstrated high performance for applications running in VMware virtualized environments—the highest 4-socket and 32-core result to date for systems configured with the Intel Xeon Processor 7500 series.

For more information on IBM’s groundbreaking eX5 systems go to: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/29570.wss