"Processor storage ... is four-way interleaved" resulting in "a significantly faster data rate than... non-interleaved".

One of the service processors is the master, and the other is a backup; they can automatically switch roles when needed.

For the 3031 this is provided by a motor generator 3017, which is part of the processor complex; for the 3032 and 3033 an external 400 Hz power source is needed.

[5] By the late 1970s and early 1980s, patented technology allowed Amdahl IBM-compatible mainframes of this era to be completely air-cooled, unlike IBM systems that required chilled water and its supporting infrastructure[6]— the 8 largest of the 18 models of the ES/9000 systems introduced in 1990 were water-cooled; the other ten were air-cooled.

IBM inadvertently gave Amdahl a huge boost when the results of its "delivery lottery" pushed some customer shipments all the way into 1980".

It has a cache (called "high speed buffer storage" in IBM terminology) size of 32 KB.

At announcement the monthly lease price for a minimally configured 3031 processor (2 MB, without peripherals) was $27,497.

Later on, the optional feature Data Streaming was added; it allowed the first block multiplexer channel in each Director to operate at 3 MB per second.

At announcement the monthly lease price for a minimally configured 3032 processor (without peripherals) was $43,740.

Later on, the optional feature Data Streaming was added; it allowed the first block multiplexer channel in each Director to operate at 3 MB per second.

At announcement the monthly lease price for a minimally configured 3033 processor (without peripherals) was $70,400.

The 3033-S was only equipped with one Channel Director, and the main storage was simplified and did not run in 4-way interleave mode.

Similar to the later 3033 AP, they could be partitioned into two parts, in example for running maintenance on one processor at a time.