Chipset Overview - Supermicro X6DA8-G User Manual

Chapter 1: Introduction
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Chipset Overview

Built upon the functionality and the capability of the E7525 Tumwater
chipset, the X6DA8-G/X6DAE-G/X6DA8-G2/X6DAE-G2 motherboard pro-
vides the performance and feature set required for dual processor-based
computer systems, with configuration options optimized for communications,
presentation, storage, computation or database applications. The Intel E7525
Tumwater chipset consists of the following components: the E7525
Tumwater Memory Controller Hub (MCH), the I/O Controller Hub ( ICH5R),
and the PCI-X Hub (PXH).
The E7525 Tumwater MCH supports single or dual Nocona processors with
Front Side Bus speeds of up to 800 MHz(*Note). Its memory controller pro-
vides direct connection to two channels of registered DDR333 or DDR2 400
with a marched system bus address and data bandwidths of up to 2.67 GB/
s (DDR 333) or 3.2 GB/s (DDR2-400) per channel. The E7525 Tumwater
also supports the new PCI Express high speed serial I/O interface for supe-
rior I/O bandwidth. The MCH provides configurable x16 PCI Express inter-
faces which may alternatively be configured as two independent x8 PCI
Express interfaces. These interfaces support connection of the MCH to a
variety of other bridges that are compliant with the PCI Express Interface
Specification, Rev. 1.0a, such as 82546GB GLAN Adaptor, the Dobson I/O
processor, H/W RAID controllers and TCP/IP Off-load engines. The MCH
interfaces with the ICH5R ICH I/O Controller Hub via HI 1.5 Hub Interface.
The PXH can be configured to support for 32- or 64-bit PCI devices running
at 33 MHz, 66 MHz, 100 MHz, and 133 MHz.
ICH5R System Features
In addition to providing the I/O subsystem with access to the rest of the
system, the ICH5R I/O Controller Hub integrates many I/O functions.
The ICH5 I/O Controller Hub integrates: 2-channel Ultra ATA/100 Bus Mas-
ter IDE Controller, two Serial ATA (SATA) Host w/RAID0, RAID1 support,
SMBus 2.0 Controller, LPC/Flash BIOS Interface, PCI 2.2 Interface and Sys-
tem Management Controller.
(*Notes: The CPU FSB speed is set at 800 MHz by the Manufacturer.)
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