IBM coupled that announcement, part of its new BladeCenter H offering, with a high-end blade product based on a chip previously used in gaming systems, its nine-core Cell processor.

The Cell-based system, developed in collaboration with Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp., is aimed at high-performance computing customers who use visualization in areas such as medical imaging, design, and oil and gas exploration. Indeed, at a demonstration in New York Wednesday, visitors used a joystick to navigate terrain renderings -- an experience not unlike that of using a gaming system. But IBM also sees users who process large amounts of data for business intelligence or financial calculations turning to the Cell-based hardware.

IBM isn't announcing pricing for the Cell-based blades, which have two processors, because they will be targeted at vertical markets and likely sold as part of a system that includes software. Doug Balog, the IBM vice president in charge of overall BladeCenter business and strategy, would only say that "given it's the same processor available and used in game counsels, the prices scale fairly well."

The HS20 -- IBM's Xeon-based, dual-core blade offering -- starts at US$1,749. IBM also plans to release a new dual-core Power chip blade, the JS21, which starts at $2,499 and is due out next month. IBM said the new Power blade offers up to three times the performance of its predecessor, the JS20, and has twice the memory capacity. IBM blade servers, whether they are x86- or Power-based, ship with two processors.

From IBM's perspective, virtualization capabilities are as important as performance. IBM has added, for instance, micropartitioning technology to its JS21 blade. This technology, now in use on its Power-based servers, allows users to subdivide each processor core into as many 10 virtual servers.