Chipset Overview - Supermicro Supero X8DAH+-F User Manual

X8DAH+/X8DAH+-F/X8DAH+(-F)-LR User's Manual
1-2

Chipset Overview

Built upon the functionality and the capability of the 5500/5600 Series Proces-
sor platform, the X8DAH+/X8DAH+-F/X8DAH+(-F)-LR motherboard provides the
performance and feature set required for dual-processor/IOH-based high-end
systems optimized for High Performance Computing (HPC)/Cluster platforms. The
5520 chipset consists of the IOH 36D (I/O Hub), and the ICH10R (South Bridge).
With the Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) controller built in, the 5520 platform
offers the next generation point-to-point system interconnect interface that re-
places the current Front Side Bus Technology, substantially enhancing system
performance and scalability.
The IOH-36D connects to each processor through an independent QPI link. Each
link consists of 20 pairs of unidirectional differential lanes for transmission and
receiving in addition to a differential forwarded clock. A full-width QPI link pair
provides 84 signals.
The 5520 chipset supports up to 36 PCI Express Gen2 lanes, peer-to-peer read
and write transactions. The ICH10R provides up to seven PCI-Express ports, six
SATA ports and 10 USB connections.
In addition, the 5520 platform also offers a wide range of RAS (Reliability, Avail-
ability and Serviceability) features. These features include memory interface ECC,
x4/x8 Single Device Data Correction (SDDC), Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC),
parity protection, out-of-band register access via SMBus, memory mirroring, and
memory sparing.
Features of the 5500/5600 Processor and the 5520 Chipset
•
Four processor cores in each processor with 8MB shared cache among cores
•
Two full-width Intel QPI links, up to 6.4 GT/s of data transfer rate in each direc-
tion
•
Virtualization Technology, Integrated Management Engine supported
•
Point-to-point cache coherent interconnect, Fast/narrow unidirectional links, and
Concurrent bi-directional traffic
•
Error detection via CRC and Error correction via Link level retry
1-12