Chipset Overview - Supermicro X7DWE User Manual

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Chipset Overview

Built upon the functionality and the capability of the 5400 chipset, the X7DWE
motherboard provides the performance and feature set required for quad-proces-
sor or dual-processor-based high-end systems with confi guration options opti-
mized for complex storage platforms. The 5400 chipset supports single or dual
Intel Quad-Core/Dual-Core Xeon 5400/5300/5200/5100 Series processor with
front side bus speeds of up to 1.6 GHz. The chipset consists of the 5400 Memory
Controller Hub (MCH) for the host bridge and the 631xESB/632xESB I/O Controller
Hub (Enterprise South Bridge 2-ESB2) for the I/O subsystem.
The Intel 5400 MCH (North Bridge)
The 5400 MCH (North Bridge) provides two FSB processing interfaces, four fully
buffered (FBD) DIMM memory channels, PCI-Express bus interfaces confi gurable
to form x8 or x16 ports, an ESB2 South Bridge Interface (ESI) and SMBus Inter-
faces for system management, and DIMM Serial Presence Detect (SPD). The peak
bandwidth for each FBD channel is 8 GB/s for DDR2 800/667/533 FBD memory,
giving a total memory size of 32 GB.
The Intel 631xESB/632x ESB I/O Controller Hub-ESB2
(South Bridge)
The 631xESB/632xESB I/O Controller Hub (Enterprise South Bridge 2) integrates
an Ultra ATA 100 Controller, six Serial ATA host controller ports, one EHCI host
controller, seven external USB 2.0 ports, an LPC interface controller, and a fl ash
BIOS interface controller. Additionally, the ESB 2 chip also contains a PCI inter-
face controller, integrated LAN controller, and an ESI for communication with the
MCH. The Intel ESB2 offers the data buffering and interface arbitration capabili-
ties required for a high-end system to constantly operate effi ciently and maintain
peak performance.
Compliant with the ACPI platform, the ESB2 supports the Full-On, Stop-Grant,
Suspend-to-RAM, Suspend-to-Disk, and Soft-Off power management states.
Combined with the functionality offered by the onboard LAN controller, the ESB2
also supports alert systems for remote management.
With the 5400 chipset built in, the X7DWE offers a superb solution for intense com-
puting and complex I/O environments, and is ideal for high-end server systems.
Chapter 1: Introduction
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