IBM is targetting Intel with its new Linux LC servers that are supposed to perform data analytics workloads faster and cheaper than a comparable x86-based server. The new Power Systems LC servers were designed based on technologies and development efforts contributed by OpenPOWER Foundation partners - including Canonical, Mellanox, NVIDIA, Tyan and Wistron. The OpenPOWER Foundation, an organization with more than 150 members worldwide, builds solutions on top of the open architecture of IBM's POWER processor.

The LC servers bring the higher performance of POWER CPUs to the broad Linux community, in particular to data analytics, cloud, and high performance computing (HPC) workloads. For example, based on IBM internal testing, a new Power Systems LC server can complete an average of select Apache Spark workloads – including analyzing Twitter feeds, streaming web page views and other data-intensive analytics – for less than half the cost of an Intel E5-2699 V3 processor-based server, providing clients with 2.3X better performance per dollar spent. Additionally, the efficient design of a Power Systems LC server allows for 94% more Spark social media workloads in the same rack space as a comparable Intel-based server.

Generally available later this year, the Power Systems LC line of servers will be offered in three different variations; the Power Systems S812LC, the Power Systems S822LC for commercial computing and the Power Systems S822LC for high performance computing.

The S812LC is a 1-socket 2U system, equipped with up to 10 cores, 1TB of memory, 115GB/sec memory bandwidth, and up to 14 disk drives. The S812LC is a Linux system optimized for workloads that are memory and storage rich, such as Spark and Hadoop.

The 2-socket 2U Power Systems S822LC for commercial computing and high performance computing come similarly configured with up to 20 cores, 1TB of memory and 230GB/sec memory bandwidth. The S822LC for high performance computing also comes with two integrated NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU accelerators, the flagship offering of the NVIDIA Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform. IBM claims that the two S822LC variants will offer over 2X performance per core, 40% better price performance and more than 2X memory bandwidth (with fully configured memory) compared to similarly configured x86-based E5-2699 V3 machines.

IBM is also providing clients with a new purchasing experience on their mobile devices or on the web. Later this year, the digital experience will include a "click to buy" option enabling consumers to purchase these systems on the web with a credit card.