IBM is launching its flagship Power7 processor series today and the new chips are expected to give Intel's Xeon a run for its money.

The Power7 packs eight cores, but each core features four threads, for a total of 32 virtual processing cores. The chip also borrows some design features from the Cell processor, used in Big Blue's supercomputers.

The new CPUs will be available in three IBM systems, the modular, high end IBM Power 780 with up to 64 Power7 cores, IBM Power 770, a midrange system with up to 64 cores and the IBM Power 755, a high performance cluster node with 32 cores.

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