IBM Power 720 Overview page 162

Table 3-6 lists the support of specific programming features for various versions of Linux.
Table 3-6 Linux support for POWER7+ features
Features Linux releases
SLES 10 SP4
POWER6 Yes
compatibility
mode
POWER7 mode No
Strong Access No
Ordering
Scale to 256 cores No
and 1024 threads
Four-way SMT No
VSX support No
Distro toolchain No
mcpu/mtune=p7
Advance Yes, execution
Toolchain support restricted to
POWER6
instructions
64 KB base page No
size
Tickless idle No
See the following sources for information:
Advance Toolchain:
http://ibm.co/106nMYI
Release notes:
– ftp://linuxpatch.ncsa.uiuc.edu/toolchain/at/at05/suse/SLES_11/release_notes.a
t05-2.1-0.html
– ftp://linuxpatch.ncsa.uiuc.edu/toolchain/at/at05/redhat/RHEL5/release_notes.a
t05-2.1-0.html
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IBM Power 720 and 740 Technical Overview and Introduction
SLES 11 SP2 RHEL 5.8
Yes Yes
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Yes Yes, execution
restricted to
POWER6
instructions
Yes Yes
Yes No
Comments
RHEL 6.3
Yes -
Yes Take advantage of the
POWER7+ and POWER7
features.
Yes Can improve Lx86
performance.
Yes Base OS support is
available.
Yes Better hardware usage.
Yes Full exploitation requires
Advance Toolchain.
Yes SLES11/GA toolchain has
minimal POWER7 and
POWER7+ enablement
necessary to support
kernel build.
Yes Alternative GNU Toolchain
that explores the
technologies available on
POWER architecture.
Yes Better memory utilization,
and smaller footprint.
Yes Improved energy utilization
and virtualization of
partially to fully idle
partitions.